If you work as a musician, sooner or later you might have to do something kind of humiliating in order to be able to pay the bills. Many musicians play for weddings, Bar, graduation and birthday parties and what not. Others write songs for advertising and soundtracks. In my situation, I am able to pay the bills working in a cover group.
It is a harder gig than you would think of. You have to stay on top of the tastes of the bar crowd, and this alone can be a challenge in itself and be quite difficult. At first, I really ignored how to stay up to date. I looked at the top 40 music charts, figuring that that may be the best way to know what was in and what was not.
As the group leader, I was the one to decide the songs we played. The Billboard top music songs seemed to work pretty well for a while, but the crowd was not quite with us. They would nod along to the music, and we would make decent money on most weekends, but for the the majority no one really concentrated on what we were playing. The top40 music songs simply were not working at all. No matter what reason, we didn't play what these people wanted to hear. What was the problem?
After a while, we switched it up. We ignored the top 40 music entirely, and focused on classic rock and oldies, incorporating it up with some blues and R&B. It seemed to work pretty well for a while. We would have more fans actively listening and dancing to us, and we seemed to receive more tips also. The weird thing was that folks were not staying around as long. Mostly, the younger ones would leave. It is possible to live off of the tips of the 35 plus crowd, but you really don't want to alienate younger listeners.
We only hit on the right formula when we decided to mix things up. We would play top 40 music, oldies, and a few more obscure numbers for the music snobs in the crowd. Somehow, that was the best way to win. Normally, you can not keep all the folks happy, but at this bar we could.
People who liked top 40 music got enough to keep them around, but we also kept the classics there for people who favored older songs. It was a good bar, so it wasn't that difficult to get the folks to stick around once we figured out the right mix. As a musician you have your own musical favorites of course but you have to be aware of the musical tastes of the people you are playing for.
Paul Zirka is an avid internet surfer and reader. He likes to share good information about interesting subjects. To read more about music and top 40 music just follow this link now http://www.musicsongslyricsonline.com
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