Arrange yourself! And your music!

Keeping an audience engaged for one or more 30 minute sets of live music is a much bigger challenge for a solo artist than it is for a band (unless, of course, said band has not worked on their arranging skills).

Having been part of a few bands over the decades, I always found it easier to blend my creativity with others to develop a rich sound. In a band, you have loads of potential with other instruments, players, vocalists - and ideas. (Though bands can get into predictable ruts, or overlook obvious arranging mistakes - but that's another post).

Unless you are a talented instrumentalist and vocalist adept at using loopers, your tools for keeping up audience interest are fewer as a solo performer. Here are some antidotes to common mistakes, some more obvious than others, that I've seen performers make (yours truly included). Follow these tips to help keep audience interest up over the long haul:

• Choose a song order that varies the time signature and speed. Intersperse slow songs with faster ones, louder tunes with softer ones, sad themes with uplifting themes. Making sure you have some contrast built into your sets will offer something for everyone.Tossing in an instrumental tune here and there can help vary a set, too.
• Make sure to build some contrast into your individual tunes, too. Even the most basic players can start a song simply and quietly and build it up from there. Consider opening with just a few notes from each chord, and then building into a full chord accompaniment, then bringing your audience down again toward the end of the tune. Whatever you do, avoid playing full out, all the time, at max volume. With all but the most gracious and attentive audiences, you'll soon find yourself in a shouting match with listeners who would rather visit than listen.
• Match your playing to the mood of the song, to the lifts and dips in the lyric. Allow your voice and instrument to bring real emotion to the lyrics. And offer more contrast than you think you need. In my experience, the contrast I hear from myself is several degrees greater than what the audience detects. Nuance can be used to great effect - but it can also be so subtle to the average listener that it goes undetected.
• An appropriately placed but unpredictable pause in a song can make a fidgety audience focus in a way that only silence can. It's a handy tool, but use it sparingly and well.
• More advanced performers can vary their playing style. As a guitarist, I like to switch between rhythm, finger-style, flat-picking, and different guitar tunings, choosing what fits the song best. Audiences really appreciate variety.
• If you can play more than one instrument competently, work a song or two into your set! You don't need top be a virtuoso on a second or third instrument to be appreciated by your audience.
• Enunciate!! Whether it's your lyrics or your between-song intros, enunciate your lyrics and speak clearly and slowly between songs.  Sound systems and room conditions can create echoes that can make you nearly impossible to understand. All the best performers I've seen are very intentional and deliberate about this. You've put a lot of effort into writing your lyrics, now make sure people can hear them.
• Balance. Keep a close ear on your instrument volume relative to your vocal volume. Sound system biases aside, some (even experienced) performers play their instrument so loudly all one can hear is a competition between lyrics and accompaniment.
• It's about more than just the music. Audiences like to get to you know you as a person. Share something of yourself with them, share the story that led to the song, engage them in any little interesting story about something unique that happened that day or week. But do keep it concise and brief. Unless you are very experienced, practice your mini-monologues ahead of time. Folks who consider themselves to be great ad-libbers can babble on at length and bore their audience to tears. Use your lyric writing skills to develop clever banter or inspirational insight between songs - but make sure you keep it shorter than the song itself. I've been to live concerts of big name artists who barely spoke a word between songs. They seem to forget that I can hear their music on a recording. I paid a decent ticket price and came to your live performance for more than that.
• Be careful with humour, whether it's in a lyric or your in-between song banter. Humour is a tricky device that requires a combination of skills best left to practiced artists. But that doesn't mean you can't be funny. Some of my favourite shows featured performers who, by simply, sincerely, and authentically being themselves, were spontaneously funny.
• Be yourself, but not the self you allow yourself to be among your closest family and friends. They know you in context, and will more easily overlook your quirks and jokes (nudge nudge, wink wink) than perfect strangers who may be meeting you for the first time.
• Finally, try as best you can to know your audience. Knowing your demographic will help you choose songs and interact with your audience in genuine ways.

There's a lot to concentrate on as a solo artist. In a band, you can hide behind other players and instruments; when you goof up, it's not always so noticeable. As a solo artist, you're fully exposed (no pun intended) and need to pay attention to a lot of detail. It's a challenge - but there are a good many who have perfected a style and presentation that can blow your socks off. And when you get it right, the satisfaction is extremely rewarding!