Market Season Again!!!!

Live performance Nyack Farmer’s Market 

May 11, 2023

Post Mortem

Yesterday I did a “ambush performance”, which is to say, I showed up and got the market manager to let me play.  They schedule performers for each market, I’ve been on that schedule before, but I began playing there years ago, by playing before the scheduled act, early in the morning when most musicians are still in bed, or even just getting to their beds. ;)😴   In this way I don’t take anybody’s spot, and I also add some live music to the market when it doesn’t have any.  I think that some vendors play music over their smart phone or radios during this time to give the market some kind of energy.

It was looking to be the first real pleasant weather day of the season, the first warm Spring day.  It just seemed like a good idea to try and go out and play.  The market manager gave me the OK, I had til 11am to use how I wanted.  The market opens at 8am, I got there at half past so 2 hours plus to set up play, then get out of the way of the main act.  Pretty generous really.

Having played with the rig (guitar amp and mic) a couple of times in the last week or so, I think I was in a better informed place for playing out.  Playing with the rig is a very different thing than playing without it, completely acoustic.  It’s another thing altogether to do this in a performance situation.

So, on hind site, am I glad that I did it?  Was there a net gain?  Spoiler alert!!  Ya, I think it was worth it.  My metrics have to be understood to see how I get this sum out of the equation.

Finances, are not a part of my metrics.  I didn’t get paid for this performance, wasn’t looking for money from the market.  In fact, my intent was to give something to the market.  Hopefully I was adding some energy, a smile or two, and an interesting complexity to the event.  Even so, I did get a few people dropping money in my guitar case, and more importantly, more valuable to me, was that each of those people made smiling eye contact with me as they offered up their greenbacks.  Two of the vendors expressed their gratitude, one with money, and the other with delicious knish.  This expression from the vendors means quite a bit to me.  They have heard me before and they are still appreciative of my being there.  I know for a fact that some vendors don’t feel this way about all the people who play the market.

Being that I am playing only my original music, I am impressed when a vendor, or market patron, has some kind of reactive relationship with my music.  If a cover of a popular song is being played then at least some of the reaction from the audience was “paid for” by the original artist and the success of that song historically, in recordings or on the radio…. As an original artist, I don’t get that “perk”.  Playing in a Farmer’s market where there is no pressure on, or expectation of, any patron or vendor to react, or even listen to the music.  They don’t go to the market to hear music, generally.  I have noticed that there have been times when the music at the markets almost gets to the station of being, at least part of the reason people show up.  In the end, I would be happy to be a positive part of why people go to the market, along with the out of doors, the sunshine, the breeze, the community.  I want my music to be a sort of added value to shopping the market.

My performance yesterday was not great.  There were good moments, but over all my voice felt combative, my fingers felt a little clumsy, and the guitar foreign.  Thanks to the haunting lines of Bob Dylan, “I’m gonna know my songs well before I play them”, I have gotten more ownership of my songs, and my identity as a performer, so that got me thru the morning inspite of many missteps.

It was not a performance I wish I had recorded, except maybe for analysis, but for being the first time out in a very long time, and a spur of the moment kind of decision, it was not my worst showing.  I mean how bad could it have been if children and grown ups were actually dancing to the music?!  Really, grown women dancing, like they were at a festival.  I am not sure I remember that happening before.  I can’t feel bad about if I made people dance.

So the technical things to take away from yesterday are important and I think that they could have gone a long way to making the whole performance much better.  

First off is the way I set up the amp.  I couldn’t really hear myself.  I had practiced with it set up kind of like that but the market offers 0,zero, no reflection to work with, so I couldn’t hear myself.  On the good side the music travelled the length of the market and was intelligible, sounded good, according the a slightly biased opinion (my wife).  It’s not easy to get that coverage and not be to loud or to soft somewhere in the market.  The bad side of that was that I couldn’t hear what was coming out of the amp as it was in front of me pointing away.  Moving it back so that it is just even with me “upstage/downstage” might go a long way to allowing me to hear.  Because I couldn’t hear I was more effortful singing and I was spent pretty early on, so the rest of the time I had to rework melody lines in real time.  That just made me mentally exhausted.  It’s a cascade of affects.

I think it would also help to have the option to sit down to play some songs, of only for a break.  I was trying to stand for the entire time, but it’s a lot for me, at least right now.

I think I should really make an effort to talk to the market before and between playing.  I need to find a way to do that and not feel like a fool talking to imaginary listeners.  Maybe it’s one of those instances of “build it and they will come” only it’s “speak and they will listen”.

A set list is helpful and I didn’t use one yesterday and even so it felt good not to feel hemmed into a list.  I need to figure out a way to see all of my song options easily.  “To many choices”  is kind of a first world problem to have so many original songs to choose from.

I missed an opportunity to relate to a group of little kids that were there in a story time reading.  At the end of their story time I should have played “Moonflower Waltz” and directed it right to them.  I know in the past kids have reacted well to that song.  I was thrown off by the adults around me.  Never put adults before children, or dogs.

    I played "The Ultimate" for the first time in public and got positive feedback on it.  Ya!

So I may wait til June 1st to go back and try again.  Give the vendors ears a rest and give me a moment to get myself together.  My goal is to play sets there that, if I didn’t record them, I wish I had, or that somebody had.  That seems an achievable goal, but still high enough to require some real effort on my part.