Notes_Norton

I like your post, it made me chuckle. But I don't name my guitars or saxophones. They are a part of me, an extension of my hands (I know, I'm weird). But I do name my cars, all but one have been female (the male was a little 140mph sports car), and the current one is Doreen. Is that OK? Notes

Originally Posted by wkendhacker Glad to hear you do that as well. I never have a setlist, and sort of go from the gut as well. I rarely see other guys do that, so I assumed it was dangerous and reckless. But then, so are my gigs. Actually, I think it serves the audience much better to call the tunes on the fly - as long as you are paying attention to the audience and can read the cues that will tell you what is best to play next. IMHO to create a set list and predict what the audience will want to hear three or more songs from now is reckless - unless you are clairvoyant. What if you have three fast songs in a row in your set list, and tonight the moon or whatever is in the wrong phase and they are tired after the first one? Playing fast songs while they are on the dance floor is a lot of fun, but if they are tired and drag themselves back to their seats, it takes a lot of the performer's energy out of the song and it doesn't serve the audience well. I can think of a number of different examples where set lists don't work. Not that calling them on the fly is perfect. It takes experience to read the crowd, but if you don't start you won't get the experience. We play regularly in a yacht club, and we often get the comment "You really know how to pace this crowd." Perhaps that is why we keep getting re-booked. It isn't the same every time, but as long as we read the crowd and give them what they want when they want it, we should be in good shape for a return booking. Originally Posted by SusieP Originally Posted by daddymack Good. I LOVE that song!!! I do too! But it's a very difficult one to sing (we must be talking about "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim)

Originally Posted by Potts I would imagine we're all that way...I dont think I've ever seen a solo performer use a setlist. Don't in our duo, never did in bigger bands either with 2 exceptions:When I was in a "show band" we had memorized shows with the same order of tunes When we were the warm up bands for major headliners in concert we went on stage with a set list - but we sometimes changed it if we felt the need to A few months ago, we did a volunteer concert at the VA hospital for wheelchair bound veterans living at the nursing home. Leilani and I put together a set list that featured songs that we thought would be the favorites of the ages of the vets we saw wheeling around there. Setting up equipment we got a few requests. So when I started the show, the first thing I did was introduce ourselves, then told the audience that we had this list of songs all prepared, but we got a few requests while we were setting up so we are going to throw the set list away, play the requests, and wing it for the rest of the show. We got immediate applause for that and we played for our hour, threw in a few extra tunes, and felt good about bringing some diversion to the people who gave so much for our country. I also have a page on my web site, optimized for smart phones, where people can request songs that we know. I omitted a lot of the information to make it easier and quicker to download, and I didn't include songs that are part of medleys. Not many people use it though. But the few that do seem to enjoy it. I see a lot of great songs on other people's song lists. Many of them are already on our long list of songs to learn, and others have just been added. Notes ?

I don't do set lists, but prefer to call songs as my instincts and experience tells me what I hope the audience wants next. I watch the crowd, the dancers and the listeners, see what they are reacting to. Do they need another fast one? Or are they tired? Do they want a ballroom dance? Listening song? Comedy? Whatever? The way I run my backing tracks, I can make my decision during the last 10 seconds of the song I am playing and still get to the next song immediately if I need to (this is especially important when the dance floor is full). But I do have an entire song list here http://www.s-cats.com And if you are interested on how I run the backing tracks on stage http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html - also how I make them and more thoughts about set lists can be read or ignored on that page. Insights and incites by Notes ?