The Jury Is Out...

[figmo]

...and I appear to have bombed.

I tried something different at ConChord for my concert. Instead of futzing with my guitar, I tried using the synth for all my numbers and using props and dancing around.

I thought it worked.

If the con reports of ConChord are any indication, it didn't.

In Debbie Ridpath Ohi's Blatherings I'm only mentioned by name (you know the bit: "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything") and in David Okamura's ConChord report on rec.music.filk I'm notably not mentioned at all (same thing).

Okay folks -- from those of you who saw it or heard about it, what am I doing that sucks so bad? Please! I can't improve my act if I don't get feedback!

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I could soooo tell I was out of my range. The hardest part was not letting on that I knew it.

If you knew it was out of range, then don't force it like that! That's a recipe for disaster; it will sound horrible and you can't hide it (as almeda pointed out). Yes, it was a last-minute thing, but if your voice is seriously that far off, then the intelligent thing to do is swallow your pride and NOT perform. Yes, we all have a bit of ego or we wouldn't be up there in the first place, but going up there and sounding horrible is worse.

And bardling is quite correct; you can damage your voice. Better to miss one set than to miss out on a lifetime of music.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I've been working at KLIV for too many years and have developed a "the show must go on no matter what" mentality that I perhaps need to unlearn for filk.

At KLIV (the radio station where I anchor the news), the rule has been to put us on no matter what. I've been put on the air to anchor with full-bore laryngitis even though I was barely audible on the microphone. I've come to expect this of myself because it has been expected of me for so long.

When talking, even if I can only squeak out a teensy bit of voice, I know lots of tricks from my voice and broadcasting teachers to make myself sound credible on the air. The only time someone complained was when I anchored with the flu and I "didn't show enough enthusiasm" when the audible part of my voice had been reduced to about a three-note range. I had to explain that my voice would CRACK! and become inaudible if I were to go out of that range by doing so.

Unfortunately, these tricks don't work for singing because I can't alter my range when organic factors get in the way. I perhaps should've bowed out. I partly didn't because I was just afraid of appearing "unreliable" and "flaky" and figured, "Well, it's just comedy, and it's physical at that; I'll vamp around the parts where my voice won't work."

What made me think I sucked was I put a lot into that half hour. I brought props. I had started memorizing my material. When I had no voice I still practiced the choreography.

Yes, choreography. After practicing with the country line dance tapes from the library I went out and bought two instructional tapes to keep up my practice. I worked out the details of putting on and taking off stuff so I'd hide things. Every single motion in that set was pre-planned. I've watched Heather Alexander do that kind of thing with her concerts, and after a while she got to where it looked natural, so I figured I'd try it.

About the only things I didn't do involved a saw, tap shoes, and a blow torch (I'm saving the "tap shoes and blow torch" number for another ConChord).

I thought what I was doing was pretty outrageous even by filk standards. Oh well. I'm blathering too much. Perhaps it's time for me to look forward and think of ways to make the next gig better (almeda, please keep the feedback coming; I've got two weeks to tweak and edit those MIDI files).

One other thing I've learned: Have a fallback strategy. I didn't have one. Had I planned for it, I could have easily done half an hour of almost pure shtick with almost no vocal range and had the audience in stitches. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned for it.