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| Hey guys. Just looking to get a consensus here from the players here. After solely playing original music for the last 18 years, I'm now involved in an acoustic duo playing cover tunes.
I'm curious as to how you go about picking your song choices? Do you tend to stick mostly to what is widely known and less of what you really would like to play? Do you tend to stick to the original arrangement, meter, key, etc to make it more familiar?
I'm encountering this issue where I am wanting to do more obscure tunes (for the masses anyway... any fan of old blues tunes would call my setlist a blues top 40), but I want the crowd to be engaged and interested in the music.
How do you find the right balance between songs people want to hear (so you get paid!) and material you find stimulating and interesting as a player? |
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| If anyone is interested and has the time, I'd love a more seasoned bar/coffeehouse musician to take a look at my setlist and make an honest critique. |
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Location: Flahdaw | My opinion is that nothing loses a crowd quicker than songs they've never heard of. Then again, it depends where you are at and how great the song is. A coffeehouse, where they expect original music is one thing, A blues oriented club is fine for obscure blues tunes. For the most part tho, at most bars people want to hear songs they know and can hum along with. |
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| Well, I'm open to playing what people want to hear. There is only one exception for me. I will not under any circumstances play "Margaritaville". Anyone who grew up in South Florida should understand why. |
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Location: SE Michigan | Probably the first filter that I apply to a potential song is; do I like it? Next filter is; do I play it and sing it well? Then comes; is it recognizable and likely to be enjoyed by the audience? Other factors may be; has it been covered to death, is it worn out and overplayed? Is it overly sappy? Is it too racey for the audience? Is it too long and/or boring? I think the most important factor is how well you play the song. I cover a bunch of songs that I am kind of nuetral on but I do them because they fit my abilities well and sound decent. Conversly there are many many songs that I love but I have no business playing them in public because i just don't have the skill to pull them off in a polished manner. I save those songs for practice and noodling. |
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Location: SE Michigan | Post your set list. |
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Location: Denver, CO | 1. Did I write it? 2. Did someone I idolize write it? 3. Is it gleefully free of B chords?  Since most of the music I play is original, unless it's worship music, I generally choose only songs that have a great message, or tell a great story. The most common exception is if it's a song about Texas. The big consideration for me is if a song has chords I can't play. If I really, really want to do the song, I'll try to transpose or figure a workaround (such as substituting Bm7 for Bm...) |
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| In accordance with Brian's request, here is my set list. These are in no particular order. We usually just take the pulse of the crowd and choose the next tune accordingly. I'd welcome any critiques. Keep in mind, this is mostly bar/restaurant type settings we're playing in. These are songs we have rehearsed and can play well. My partner is more of a folk/singer songwriter type with a killer strum and I'm more of a blues/rock lead player. We both sing and can harmonize pretty well.
Aint No Sunshine - Bill Withers
Bad Bad Leroy Brown - Jim Croce
Ball and Chain - Social Distortion
Between Heaven and Hell - Zakk Wylde
Can't You See - Marshall Tucker Band
Cinnamon Girl - Neil Young
Day Tripper - Beatles
Deel Elem Blues - Grateful Dead
Down in a Hole - Alice in Chains
Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
Good Riddance - Green Day
Have You Ever Seen the Rain - CCR
Heart of Gold - Neil Young
House of the Rising Sun - Animals
I Heard it through the Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
If You Could Only See - Tonic
Jane Says - Jane's Addiction
The Joker - Steve Miller Band
Jumper - Third Eye Blind
Knocking on Heavens Door - Bob Dylan
Leader of Men - Nickelback
Let it Be - Beatles
Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Losing My Religion - REM
Lovesong - The Cure
Mad World - Tears for Fears
Messin With the Kid - Junior Wells
Only God Knows Why - Kid Rock
All Summer Long - Kid Rock
Patience - Guns and Roses
Put Your Lights On - Everlast/Santana
Santeria - Sublime
Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Stand By Me - Ben E King
Still Haven't Found - U2
Stir it Up - Bob Marley
Three LIttle Birds - Bob Marley
The Harder They Come - Jimmy Cliff
Turn the Page - Bob Seger
Venus - Shocking Blue
What I Got - Sublime
Who'll Stop the Rain - CCR
Bad Moon Rising - CCR
Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Lead Belly
Won't Find it Here - Zakk Wylde/Black Label Society
Bad Blood - Neil Sedaka/Elton John
The Blessed Hellride - Zakk Wylde/Black Label Society
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Ghost Riders in the Sky - Blues Brothers arrangement
Give Me One Reason - Tracy Chapman
King Bee - Slim Harpo
Jump in De Line - Harry Belafonte
Mama Im Coming Home - Ozzy
Man on the Moon - REM
Maybe I'm Amazed - Wings
Nights in White Satin - Moody Blues
Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry
Sea of Love - Phil Philips
Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
Sweet Home Chicago - Robert Johnsn
Sugar Mountain - Neil Young
The Boxer - Paul Simon
Take it Easy - Eagles
Easy - Commodores (Faith no More arrangement)
Every Rose Has its Thorn - Poison
Rose Marie - Slim Whitman
Summer Breeze - Seals and Croft (Type O Negative arrangement)
Big Bottom - Spinal Tap
Burden - Opeth
Harvest - Opeth
Rooster - Alice in Chains
Cumbersome - Seven Mary Three
Show Me The Way - Peter Frampton
Summertime - Jazz standard (Metheny/Hall arrangement)
Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Boom Boom - John Lee Hooker
Eric Clapton - Cocaine
BB King - How Blue Can You Get
Buddy Guy - Snatch it Back and Hold It
Floyd Dixon - Hey Bartender
I Got Everything I need Almost - Downchild Blues Band
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Location: Flahdaw | Good songlist for the most part. A few odd ones that I would probably tune out, unless you performed them in such a way that really grabbed my attention. |
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| Are there too many oddball tunes for a typical bar audience? |
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Location: SE Michigan | Wow Nick, quite the song list. You don't need any more songs, you've used your allotted share. Save some for the rest of us. 
I also play in a duo, with Brad (Slipkid). We have a set list of about 40 songs and always a dozen or so more in the pipeline, and that's plenty to fill an evening. We do our best to fill out the vocals with harmonies and add the interesting guitar parts. We tend to focus more on 1960's and 70's classic rock stuff that we grew up with.
I have to say that I worry that two acoustic guitars with no other instruments gets a little monotonous for the audience after awhile. I would really like to find a suitable drummer, but they all seem to want full blown electric bands. I also would like to get more creative and artistic. We are not afraid to "turn a song on it's head" and arrange it in a very different way, we have done this to a few with success.
Great to hear from you, I'll be exploring your set list for ideas. |
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| Brian, thanks for checking out the list. We've really tried hard to come up with tunes that we enjoy playing but can earn us some good money and repeat gigs. Luckily, both my partner and I are multi-instrumentalists. My partner is a fantastic drummer and hand percussionist so whenever there is a lull in the crowd, we will do the song with myself playing acoustic (and sometimes harmonica) while my partner plays djembe and congas. It really helps to add some intensity to the set and create a danceable rhtyhm. We also both attach shakers to our left legs (for the hi-hat parts) and sometimes even go as far as to play the kick drum parts on our guitar cases with our right feet miked into the P.A.
Edited by sonicpictures 2013-03-21 6:26 PM
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Location: Flahdaw | sonicpictures - 2013-03-21 7:17 PM
Are there too many oddball tunes for a typical bar audience?
Where are you playing? What metro area? |
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| Hey Bob, we're based out of Naples. We play throughout SWFL but mostly Naples, Ft Myers, Marco Island, and sometimes Cape Coral. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I'll respond from the audience standpoint, since I"ve never had one. You've got a diverse list, which should pick up several generations of drinkers, which is good. Younger people will still know the oldies, but old people may not know a lot of the newer stuff. I don't know if you can switch the set lists around fast enough to match the age of your audience.
I've got a friend that does "non stop pop". Literally, he must know 1000 songs and doesn't stop between songs. Mostly it's stuff from the 60s and 70s. People my age, around 60, love him because they know every song he plays. I'm not sure if younger people appreciate that, but there always seem to be some in the audience that are enjoying it. |
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| Thanks for chiming in, Mark. I think our general idea in picking these songs was to have a big enough well to choose from depending on the makeup of the crowd on that particular night. If it were an older crowd, I doubt we'd play many of the post 1980s tunes. |
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| What is everyone's thoughts on playing with a music stand and chord charts? I can memorize all of the chords and leads no problem, but I can't remember lyrics to save my life. |
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Location: Flahdaw | Ipad with a mic stand attachment. Nix the stand with sheet music.
Naples is like here in Sarasota/Bradenton. I think the bars that pay well want either beach music (Buffett) or older stuff. The people with money are an older average age. The bars that attract young people don't pay, or want you to work for tips, or do open mics. I used to hang at some of the Naples Bars when I was a sales rep and traveled that territory. Lots of millionaires in their late 50's and 60's...... |
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| That's pretty accurate, Bob. Gotta give the people what they want, as long as what they want isn't "Margaritaville". Gotta draw the line somewhere. That's why we chose quite a few of those tunes, like Bad Moon Rising, Simple Man, etc. They've been done to death but it's what people want. Thankfully my partner is ok with me doing extended lead parts so at least I can have a little bit of fun playing some of the more tired tunes. |
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Location: SE Michigan | I've always been against having a music stand and song books at a gig, but alas I have relented. It helps to refresh your memory at least at the beginning of a song, or to remember lyrics. Ideally I like to have everything playable and committed to memory but we are growing older and soft in the head so I caved and we now usually use a music stand. We do keep it low, usually right above the monitor so that it's not too intrusive. Brad tapes little notes inside the bout of his guitar. |
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Location: Orlando, FL | Nice setlist! Lots of recognizable songs. People may not be familiar with some of the blues stuff, but tunes like Messin with the Kid, I Got Everything I Need Almost, and Boom Boom have great hooks that pull and audience in. And they're fun to play, I think people will respond.
Edited by Designzilla 2013-03-21 8:10 PM
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| I'm with you on that Brian. I don't see why it's such a big deal. Orchestra players do it, some jazz guys do it, hell I've even seen blues guys do it. I would never use a "cheat sheet" if I were playing originals (if you don't have the competency to memorize your own music, you probably shouldn't be playing originals), but doing 4 sets a night of covers... that's a lot of lyrics. As long as it's off to the side, you're not glued to your notes, and you can still effectively connect with the audience, why not? |
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| Designzilla, that was indeed my thought with the blues tunes. Even if you don't know them, everyone knows a 12 bar blues feel, so it still sounds really familiar to them. The music itself is so catchy and moving you get hooked pretty quick as a listener. My take on it anyway. |
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| As a side note, Designzilla, I see you are in O-town. I went to college there and still have some friends in the Winter Park area. Fun town when you can get out of the shadow of the almighty mouse overlord! |
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Location: Sunshine State, Australia | If you've got an ipad, download OnSong, or SongBook. The lyrics scroll down the ipad in time with the music.
Then get a K&M micstand iPad holder.
Having an iPad on stage opens up a whole raft of options to make your solo or duo act more engaging. |
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Location: Jet City | With an 80+ songlist, I imagine you'd need a music stand/ipad, but I still think it's lame.
I perform solo, in a duet (2 guitars), with a cover band, and in an original band.
I can't believe how many blues/classic rock cover bands there are here and most are playing the same **** with a slightly different smell.
While you want the songs to be familiar, there are just SO MANY over-played tunes. Mustang Sally is a song I could never hear again and be completely happy. I'd probably put House Of The Rising Sun high up on that list too... over-played AND boring. That said, you'll always get that one drunk yellin' "Hell yeah! PLay some more Animals!"
I think your songlist is pretty damned awesome. You have lots of variety to tailor your setlists to various crowds. A few are blatantly self-indulgent, I mean yeah... I'm a HUGE Zakk fan, but 99.5% of the people I typically play in front of wouldn't know him from Jake E Lee (I'd love to play some of his stuff from Badlands!). It's also pretty apparent you're a Not Ready For Prime Time musician fan. Again, I get it. I'm also a big fan of Joliet jake and Elwood, not to mention Nigel Tufnel, all well represented on your list. If I added Nickleback to the set, I think I'd have to turn in my man card though.
My duet and coverband have similar setlists and are also similar in content to yours. For the most part, we bill ourselves out as a 90's coverband, but we have some older classic stuff as well as some R&B/Funk. Being in Seattle, AIC, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, STP, Foo Fighters, RHCP, Dave Matthews, Collective Soul, etc. are heavy crowd favorites (and band favs too). There aren't a lot of coverbands willing to taking on tunes like Alive, Fell On Black Days, Interstate Love Song, Crush, #41, and being here in this area we can always pull out some more obscure locals like Mother Love Bone, Screaming Trees, or non-locals even like Big Head Todd, Seven Mary Three, and Vertical Horizon.
I think the Seattle crowd is a bit different than the Florida crowd. My sets probably would go over like a... well... Led Zeppelin there. You need to play to your audience when you're doing covers, so we have been trying to diversify the songlist a bit more with older classic stuff. For the classic rock and R&B stuff, we try to keep a fine-line between overplayed, and well loved songs. On the classic rock side theres some Neil Young for sure (who mixes in real well with the other stuff), Zeppelin, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Bill Withers (Use Me as well as Ain't No Sunshine), Paul Simon, etc.
Lately, we've been focusing on some more of the older stuff, but again trying to do stuff people know that others don't overplay. Song's we're currently working on include, So Into You - Atlantic Rhythm Section, Will It Go Round... - Billy Preston, Couldn't Get It Right - Climax Blues Band, and one of my personal favorites, Little Red Corvette - Prince
Your list looks good. I'd listen to you do 'em all.... until you got to House of the Rising Sun. I might politely smile and wave as I was walking out the door on that one.
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Location: Michigan | sonicpictures , the last three years that i have been to cape coral florida ft. meyers beach the bars that i have been in in have a one man band with a looper back up and they just do a bit of singing and get by with that and they are pretty damn good sounding.
i do not go to any club bars down there so i might be speaking out of turn but the bars i do go to are mostly one man bands. GWB |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I play what I like... If I don't like it I won't learn it nor play it.
(although somehow I do know some Bon Jovi and Green Day  )
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Damon's post made me smile when he said he played some old stuff like Pearl Jam. I was thinking last night about some of the new stuff I liked, like Pearl Jam. I shows our age difference. There are actually a lot of new songs and artists I like, but they remind me of the singer-songwriters of my era. Brandi Carlile is one. A couple of her songs, down an octave unless you have a really good falsetto, would be a good addition to a set list. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Brian.. at tonight's practice you're gonna have to fill me in on all these songs you're "neutral" on. |
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Location: Jet City | Mark in Boise - 2013-03-22 8:37 AM ...old stuff like Pearl Jam.... "Ten" was released 22 years ago. Not really new anymore. I do my best at butchering 2 Brandi songs, but not with the band. What Can I Say, and Sixty Years On (actually written by Bernie for Elton) |
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| This is exactly what I wanted out of this thread. You guys are the best. To paraphrase something some drunk guy said on TV once, "I don't always use forums, but when I do i make it Ovation."
Damon... you are absolutely right. The original Saturday Night band (which later became the SNL band) was a who's who of amazing talent. The songs that they chose were what got me into the blues as a kid, so I tend to gravitate to those tunes, for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that I have heard them so much I've memorized them backwards and forward which gives me more room to improvise. Also a huge Zakk fan, though we do the arrangements a bit differently. Often times I'll let my partner go wild on the djembe while I just noodle around the chord progression for those tunes. So even if you aren't familiar with the tunes, it's impressive to watch him go wild on the hand percussion (my partner is a world class percussionist, he used to be in Chuck Rainey's band). I don't do the Layne Staley/Ozzy style drawl that Zakk uses on his vocal, more of a soulful, bluesy timbre and cadence to fit with my range and what we are trying to exude. Doubtful we will ever play all of the Zakk tunes in one show. I just like having them in the arsenal, because the chord progressions are usually extremely simple and even though I'm not near the player that Zakk is, I can pull off some good leads in the pentatonic and blues scales within those progressions.
House of the Rising Sun... I didn't know that was overplayed. This is my first cover group so I'm somewhat ignorant on that point. My partner suggested the tune. He plays it with more of an Animals feel to it, but I was more accustomed to the delta blues style of that standard, so I tend to stick to a more Lead Belly version (with a bit of slide and harp).
By the way... love Seattle. Cool town. Got to play the Knitting Factory when I was on a west coast tour back in 2008. Great venue and great people. The monitor engineer over there is a bad MF'er.
Thanks again, everyone. I'll say it again... you guys are the absolute best.
Nick |
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| On a side note, as far as forum etiquette goes, is it ok to post links to one's own original music? I really could use a vacation, but not from this forum. |
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Location: Jet City | sonicpictures - 2013-03-22 12:15 PM On a side note, as far as forum etiquette goes, is it ok to post links to one's own original music? I really could use a vacation, but not from this forum. Post away, here's some of mine... http://www.damon67.com/music/chasen-chantz-2/ |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | sonicpictures - 2013-03-22 12:15 PM
On a side note, as far as forum etiquette goes, is it ok to post links to one's own original music?
I would think it would depend on how frequently you do it...
On your "User Profile" page you can have a link to a website.
(mine goes to my evilBay "ME" page)
So, if you have a Soundclick or a YouTube page... You could link there.
That way anybody who wanted to find it could.
You could also add a link to your sig line. Many member have such links.
Should you use the OFC to promote your music?
Uh... Probably not.
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| Well, I'll post it one time and then add to my sig. Here's my latest release: http://www.reverbnation.com/sonicpictures
It's just me and my live partner, with him showing off his amazing percussion skills, while I handled the keys, guitars, bass, and the engineering/mixing/mastering. All instrumental, but I think folks here will dig it.
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| Damon.. i really like your tunes. The songs themselves.. the playing, chord structure, vocals... but those ultra dry drum samples make it really hard to listen to for me. Maybe I'm coming from too much of an engineer standpoint, but I'd rather hear that same song with no samples until midway through and then bring in a strong hi-hat, snare, kick pattern with fills on toms at the end of the 4th measure, heavily processed and in the BG. The samples are too hot in the mix and they totally remove me from how cool the vocal is and how much better it could be. |
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| If you want to get a little jazzy with it, do you the whole tune in 4, but do the drum part in 3/4, give it a loose triplet feel in the BG. Great song anyway, brother. |
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| Sounds like you need to sing closer to the mic for more proximity effect as well as heavier compression on the lead vocal. |
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| I will say that I LOVE the mouth percussion. Wish more folks would do it right instead of trying to "beat box" |
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Location: Flahdaw | Cool stuff on your site, Sonic.
I always thought this forum needed a section for posting our stuff, instead of using the "General Posting", but higher powers disagreed. Regardless, post your stuff without going overboard, or as senor' OMA said, add your site to your signature line.
I'm also a member of Songstuff forum, which is for songwriters to post and share ideas and get critique on original stuff. Pretty cool forum. |
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Location: Jet City | Sonic, I'm just playing the electric guitars, and doing some backup vocals in the Chasen Chantz stuff.
Hand Shaved Noodles is the cover band and I do most the singing there.
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| In that case, Damon... everything you did was the highlight of the tunes. |
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Location: sitting at my computer | darkbarguitar - ... For the most part tho, at most bars people want to hear songs they know and can hum along with. and depending upon the bar, the songs they want to hear can vary greatly. Remember that scene from The Blues Brothers?! sonicpictures - ... I will not under any circumstances play "Margaritaville".. LOL - that's OK Sonic, I'll play it enough for both of us. Yeah it's overplayed, but vacationing family & friends love singing along to it and I enjoy seeing them enjoying ANYTHING I'm playing! 'tho my version is kinda thin without a calypso backup band. 
Sonic, give a shout out if you're ever playing 'round Sarasota way... or if ya breakdown in B'town. |
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How do you pick your song choices?