I have just booked a studio to start recording some tracks for my solo acoustic album and the response I have seen via facebook has made me think. I am very flattered that so many people like my solo acoustic work and look forward to getting to hear some long overdue material. Yet, there is the other side of the coin that nobody really knows about that made me not record the album in the first place.
If one is not a classical musician, the odds of people a solo performer is very rare, and my solo performer I mean just one instrument, no vocals, and no backing tracks. (Bobby McFerrin, you are exempt.) If you have never done it, never gotten up there and performed by yourself without vocals, then you do not understand what it is like. And please stop saying that singing and playing is the same thing. It isn't and I know this because I do both.
For over a decade I played solo acoustic guitar in coffee shops, bars, nursing homes, colleges, more bars, more coffee shops, streets, schools, theaters, outdoor festivals, backyard parties, weddings, restaurants,and many other places that can be described as varying between proper and surreal. When possible, I followed the general floor plan of Michael Hedges, blending solo acoustic material and songs with vocals, mostly cover songs in the beginning.
I thought that, over time, I would get used to how naked it felt when doing solo guitar Music. I thought that maybe I would get used to the feeling of performing and it would not feel so weird. But that was not the case. Time after time, I would play a very quiet or intimate song like "Rachel the Innocent" or "Before You Leave" and, in the middle of it, espresso machines would howl or beer bottles/coffee cups would smash on the floor, or people, drunk and or sober, would be talking loudly during the whole thing, or the place would be empty. This was not the case every time, but it was the majority. And I realize that solo acoustic guitar cuts very close to the idea of a classical Music concert in context of the Music being the focal point of everything.
And perhaps that is the problem....
It is a horrible, really horrible feeling, to get up there and perform solo to noise and or apathy. I have spoken to other solo acoustic guitar players and they have said the same thing. Maybe, just maybe, it is easier to be ignored if you are getting paid, say like classical musicians do. All the while you are performing with noise and apathy all around you, you have the solace of going, "Well, at least I am getting paid." The corner is turned and you are now doing no more than a job. Artistic expression is out the window.
And I think all Musicians want to be heard. Keith Jarrett has been known to stop concerts if someone coughs. Charles Mingus, the jazz bassist, was known for getting violently angry when people would talk while he was playing.
But I did many years of solo acoustic work for little or no money and it became absolutely unbearable to play delicate songs for apathetic people. My more driving songs would work, but that was because I would play so hard and loud that I could not hear the world around me. And I know there are people who may say, "Who cares! Just play! Screw them!" Well, Captain Artistic Courage, I DID do that for many years and it wears you down. It is that simple.
When you play in a band, you are a team, a tribe, a gang, and you can just plow through your set and not give a damn. The songs just plow ahead. If you are in an acting company and the audience sucks, you just go though the play. If you are in an improve group, you just feel like hell and do the show.
But perhaps the closest thing to compare it to is stand-up comedy, which I did for a very short time. You need the people engaged. You need to connect and sometimes that is impossible. The late great Robin Williams said that there were some nights, even after he was famous, where he would just kick it on auto pilot and plow through the material because he could not connect with the crowd. But it is just about impossible to do stand up to an empty room.
But when you do stand up, you are using language. You start speaking and maybe someone will listen or connect with your stories. Music is not that simple because the universality of its language can make it harder to ignore.
And, when you are in a band, or even a duo, you have someone to turn to after the show and share the pain with, to get perspective on matters and laugh about it. When you do solo shows, it is just you, tearing down the PA, packing up the cables and guitars, putting it into your car and driving either home or to a really gross hotel. Trust me when I say, that emotional space is not the greatest place to be.
But maybe there are people out there who ARE perfectly fine with being ignored, laughed at, and/or think highly of playing to open rooms. Maybe there are people who are just giddy with excitement over simply being able to play ANYWHERE and ANY TIME for ANY REASON. Okay. Fine. But I am not one of them. When I do my solo acoustic work, I put myself out there, raw and open because that is the only way I know how. Once I stop doing it that way, I am stopping forever.
The years of solo acoustic guitar peaked in the late 80's/early 90's when the guitar itself was peaking. There were plenty of places that catered to such stuff and people had time and money to spend on it. It would seem that the arc of the new age label Windham Hill is a good gauge of the scene. At its peak, they had almost 5 dozen instrumental artists on their label that were not classical musicians. After being sold in 1992, the list dwindled to a handful. Wile one could say it was the "new age" tag that killed the label, I would ask that one look at how many non-classical instrumental albums are sold by any other style.
So why the hell am I doing the new album? Why am I going to spend hours and hours of my life and needed money that could be spent on many other things around the house? Do an album that I will most likely never recoup my money on at a craft I dedicated most of my life to? It is because I still love it and cannot abandon it to neglect and silence. But it is strange to do a project and know with almost absolute certainty that you would rather have someone hit you in the foot with a ball peen hammer than perform the Music live.
In the end, the Music is greater than me. I am just the delivery system. I am deeply grateful that people like what I do, the intimate solo guitar (and cello) pieces that I create. I really do love the Music, but as I step into these waters again, I must admit, I am feeling more than a little nauseous at the memory of the seas ahead.
