Tuning and Explaining

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

The "charm" of chatter and tuning machine button twiddling is always lost on me. If you've gotta tell me what every song is about before you play it, you're not a very good songwriter.

Well, not a very confident songwriter anyway ... which is admittedly usually the same thing.

Saying what a song is "about" is OK provided it can be summed up in 2 or 3 words. Certainly any more than one sentence is overdoing it. Get on with the song already....

Originally Posted by Mandobart

And what's wrong with maybe bringing two guitars - one that stays in DADGAD or drop D?

Maybe you only have one guitar?
But in that case, of course, you have to get well practised at retuning, and/or group all your songs in one tuning together.
And have a fund of jokes to tell if tuning happens to take more than a few seconds. (The good players get the retuning done during the applause for the previous song. )

After all, you are an entertainer. If you are not entertaining people with your music - because of some inevitable stuff that needs to happen between songs - entertain them with banter of some kind.
The problem, of course, is that that is a whole other skill. Just being a good musician and/or songwriter doesn't mean you have good banter skills. But you are a creative person, so you should be able to apply that creativity between songs too, if you have to. Or you keep the gaps between songs as short as possible so you don't have to.
And if you like playing songs in at least two different tunings - and get embarrassed talking to audiences - then maybe it's worth saving up for a second guitar....

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I've been a volunteer in several acoustic music organizations for many years. The folkies are absolutely the worst in terms of being self-absorbed and oblivious to what makes for an enjoyable experience for the audience.

Right! And songwriters are often the worst of all, because they tend to be sensitive souls who not only invest much of their personality in their music, but are often shy too. They really want you to know what this song means to them, and will mutter interminably trying to explain it... . Shut up and play!

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by RodB

Did you not enjoy the Sound of Silence, Glenn?

I kept seeing writing on subway walls!

- Glenn

[rllink]

As many here have already said, the singer/songwriter telling everyone why they wrote a song gets to be too much sometimes. Especially when they spend more time talking about the song than singing it. The other thing is blues players wanting to educate the audience on the history of the blues. I don't go for a lecture on the blues, I go to listen to good blues. There is one blues duo that are really good, but give it a break, the one guy just can't stop lecturing. I think in real life he is a teacher and just can't leave his work there. But then there is the banter, that's another story. There are groups that I go see for the banter as much as for the music. They are like the old Smothers Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, they have a gift of entertainment. They are funny. They make me laugh between songs. I'll take that.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

I kept seeing writing on subway walls!

- Glenn

These days, it's the words of the non-profits.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

I kept seeing writing on subway walls!

- Glenn

[SongwriterFan]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Sometimes a little background on an original song can be helpful to the audience, otherwise they may not have any idea what the song is about and never connect with the song.

If you don't know anything about barrel racing, this song of mine won't make any sense to you. Live, I will do a (short) explanation that barrel racing is a timed event, but if you knock over a barrel, it's scored as a "no time". That's where the idea came from (a friend of mine heard the announcer at a rodeo say "no time for the cowgirl" . . . that's where she got the idea and gave it to me).

In the album version, I added a spoken intro to at least set the scene a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRPLpffobUE


Similarly, if you haven't seen the movie "Blues Brothers" (or have forgotten about the Bob's Country Bunker scene), you won't really "get" this song of mine.
And once again, the album version has stuff in it that I don't do live (the whip, the voice impersonations during the guitar solo).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k55JQbg66E


I do go by the old rule, though, that the story behind the song should be shorter than the song.

I actually try to have a short, medium, and long story for any given song. I'll choose which one to use depending on the situation.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Robin, Wales

Brent, you should find yourself a bluegrass band. The gap between songs at a gig is officially set as the time it takes to tell a joke about the banjo player. Then you are straight into the next song, no messing around.

Bluegrass bands follow the pirate code "Them that falls behind gets left behind!".

And no need to retune because everything is in G.

[Jeffreykip]

I use different tunings during a gig and arrange my set list accordingly so that I can then do any major retune, or switch guitars, during short pauses which also are a chance to take a breath and drink some water. It works, but then again I’m just one guy. I also capo a lot which means checking my tuning, and about the only thing my brain can do is stay quiet or happily narrate the experience, “ah yes, very close, there we are..” kind of thing, which makes it much quicker, whilst affirming what I’m doing to the audience instead of pretending I’m invisible. I’ve found if I try to be clever, the process takes three times as long.
I can imagine that for your band to stay silent while one retunes could be awkward but maybe you could have a policy that the, “thank you for being here” person is not the one retuning - might speed things up. Or maybe you already do this and it’s just a fact of life, which the audience knows, too. It’s still better than playing out of tune.
Regarding talk, I have a few I’ll say something about because I do think that for singer songwriter audiences it’s part of the experience, but I actually budget it out on my set list to avoid overdoing it (maybe once every 6-10 songs, usually during a transition) and for the rest of the time, I’m pretty snappy from one song to the next. One thing I have started doing on the fly is to dedicate one or two songs to people I see in the audience- usually friends who have come, or the organizers, or someone who requested a tune. It’s quick, and super gratifying to both myself and the person - and I end up truly thinking about them as I sing which is quite nice. I can’t recommend it enough. Really. Not ten times, but once or twice is fun and makes a connection.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

And no need to retune because everything is in G.

😉 Funny but actually there's a LOT of bluegrass in A and B. 5 sharps is so fun for the fiddle player!

But the guitar player never needs to stray from standard tuning - just slide the capo around. With the right capo (that doesn't pull you out of tune) you're set. Good bluegrass players can sing, pick and tune fast.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Jeffreykip

I use different tunings during a gig and arrange my set list accordingly so that I can then do any major retune, or switch guitars, during short pauses which also are a chance to take a breath and drink some water. It works, but then again I’m just one guy.

That matters. A lot of folks have this tuning MO where they get themselves in the ballpark using a tuner and then touch up by ear. With a 12-string, especially, the touching-up can go on for long enough that they wind up with an instrument that sounds marvelously in tune with itself but is nowhere near the rest of the band.

[Jeffreykip]

I'm sure- my first guitar was a 12 string, and it was a challenge. Still, I am surprised that God's gift to rehearsals - the headstock tuner - has not helped more.