This is the second part of an article about helping the bedroom musician to transfer his/her music into a live performance. Read the first part here

 Know your live tools.

Attempting to play an instrument you don’t really feel comfortable playing is a recipe for a live disaster. By instrument, i mean all kinds of items producing sounds, including effect pedals, samplers etc

However, learning how to play or use an instrument doesn’t mean you have to practice 2 hours a day for 10 years before you can get on stage. You might only need to read the users guide for your guitar effect pedal, or you might only need to simplify your keyboards arrangements.

Can you realistically deliver a performance that is focusing on delivering emotions without occupying your brain with mundane things such as which button to switch, or which string to pick? This is the key question. Until the answer is yes, you aren’t ready to play live (but don’t worry, it might take you less than a month to get there )

Performing isn’t about virtuosity, it is about feeling comfortable and in control of your instruments, so your brain is free of technical worries.

Now, i’ve mentionned that instruments can be of different types. However, certain types still have a bit of a taboo reputation among the performing musicians, especially in certain music scenes….

Nowadays, many artists incorporate music-delivering machines in their live performances, in the form of laptops, samplers and so forth. There is no right and wrong in this, but know your audience.

If you operate in the “rock” scene, you might want to record your loop live into the sampler, such as The Yeah Yeah Yeahs do, rather than coming up on stage with pre-recorded loops. However, you can get away with a certain amount of pre-recorded stuff - PJ Harvey recently did this at her solo gig in London, and i myself use pre-recorded drum loops. I’ve played with punk and indie pop bands - all of them with drummers - but no one ever criticised my use of drum loops per se, probably because my guitar playing was quite punk and brought a lot of energy.

Another rule of thumb with using machines to trigger music on stage is to acknowledge it. Just explain you are loading up the next song on your drum machine or whatever you are doing - people dislike “fake” performances but if you accept using a machine as part of your performance, they will quite likely accept it. Using backing drum loops is quite different from lip synching. One is a mix of a practical and artistic choice, one is a cop-out.

Once you’ve established which intrument(s) you might play on stage, think about how they work together. You only have 2 hands and 2 feet.

Essentially, the process to decide what to play on stage goes something like this:

- identify primary aspects of your songs you want reproduced on stage

- identify instruments that could reproduce these sounds. Use options, eg a latpop, a drum machine and sampler are all able to play backing drum tracks

- identify how the instruments would interact with each other, how you would interact with them and how robust they are for stage use (some studio boxes aren’t meant for live stage - especially light boxes like drum machine, which might stop or skip if you jump on the stage)

- pick the best combination

- consider trimming down this combination of instruments - do you really need to bring both a bass and a guitar for your performances? Maybe an octave pedal and your guitar would allow you to play your 2 songs you were planning on playing on bass

- think again about how you would interact with all your instruments, while also trying to interact with your audience. At this point, you can do a test on your family/friends/flatmates etc

- consider trimming down your setup. At this stage, look into instruments that could combine 2 instruments. Don’t forget to include all the stuff you need to run these instruments, such as cables, power etc Without advocating spending $1000 on stage gear, a small purchase might help you a lot

- how long does it take you to setup? If it takes you more than 15 minutes, you need to trim down your setup

- how likely could something go wrong, and how could you cope with it going wrong? If you would cope well, does it mean you don’t need it? Or does it mean you are a very seasoned performer?

- a tip for guitarists - make sure you build up your sound with your guitar and effects pedals so you can borrow another band’s amp when playing live

- a tip for keyboard players - look into small stage synths, such as Novation X25

I guess you got my point - when it comes to gear on stage, less is more ;) 

If you have yourself successfully transferred a solo recording to the stage, leave a comment on what setup you are using for your live performances, to encourage others hoping to do the same

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