A Review of AGT and Other Stories

Yes, I know this is a day late (only one day late because of the bank holiday!). But, it will be extra long and have shedloads of content. So there!

I had an exciting start to my Bank Holiday. I played a set at Ainsty’s Got Talent – a local talent competition being run at York pub The Ainsty. I’m friends with the organiser and I must confess, she had to work to get me to agree to do it, since I usually find the adrenaline rush of competitions a tad uncomfortable, but I ended up having a great night – it was a fantastic experience having such a big (and slightly scary, though not in a bad way!) crowd to play to, and with only three songs with which to make my mark, it was a challenge to narrow down the set to something that would best match the mood.

I’m sad that I missed some of the acts. Friday night meant a dash back from work, and by the time we’d eaten, gathered gear, and made our way to the pub, some of the acts had already been up. Fortunately, the lovely organiser had the fortitude to film everything, so let me just say now that all videos were filmed by Caroline Grant of Le Grande Management. She did a cracking job, and a more welcoming host and organiser could not be wished for.

Without further ado, let me introduce the acts of Ainsty’s Got Talent, heat 5, in order of appearance:

Chrissy and Kirsty (Pole Dancing)

I tried pole dancing once. Dear god it’s hard. These girls have some awesome upper body strength, and the teamwork required for some of the moves is very evident in the video. A great, and unusual, opening act, beautifully choreographed and athletic to watch.

 

Meg Fowler (Singer-Songwriter)

This fourteen year old singer-songwriter had the audience singing along for much of her set, which included Jolene, featured below. Great vocals, instrumental competence, and a self assured performance for one so young.

 

Toni Feetenby (Vocalist) WINNER

This lady had the crowd in the palm of her hand from the start, with ambitious renditions of Let It Go, What’s Goin’ On and My Heart Will Go On. With bags of stage presence and confidence, she’ll go far, I’ve no doubt.

 

Melody Simpson (Vocalist)

Another young contestant, at just 12 years old, Melody took the stage and owned it, showing no signs of nerves in front of a massive crowd. Attitude and presence characterized her cracking and energy-filled performance.

 

Just Alam (Singer-Songwriter)

Alam performed a mixture of covers and originals in his strong vocal and acoustic guitar set. With his expressive voice and experienced presence, he brought the mellow to the Ainsty, and it was well done indeed. My favourite was actually his original, but the video wasn’t made available, so I’ve gone for my second favourite of his, a cover of Take It Easy.

 

Erm. Me. 

Can’t really review my set. No-one threw rotten veg, yadda yadda. I did Dark Side of Me (from Riptides), an a capella version of Perfect (originally by Fairground Attraction) and finished with a track off the new EP, Rota Fortunae. I’ll leave you with the latter:

 

James Witchwood (Fiddler) RUNNER-UP

One of my personal favourites of the night, this lad plays a mean, mean fiddle. And he sings. He blew us all away with his rendition of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. Here it is:

 

And that was Ainsty’s Got Talent. Heat 5 at any rate. There are another couple of heats to go, including the wildcard heat in which James will be competing for a place in the final, so if you’re free, I highly recommend going down and cheering the acts on!

The rest of the weekend passed in a haze of recovering from the adrenaline rush of Friday night, reading, watching silly movies (9 and The Hunger Games) and continuing to mix the EP. It’s going well I think, with four out of six tracks basically done, and the other two nearly there. I’m still trying to finalise a solution to selling digitally online, since I’ve had some issues with Selz (file names and metadata being lost on test downloads) and as yet no-one has come back to me about a resolution. Aside from that, and their pesky policy of not allowing sellers to set a price below £1 (no use at all if you are selling singles) they’re very good, and I’d really like to use them properly but at the moment the functionality and options just aren’t there. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

And that’s me signing off for this installment. Have a great week!

All media in this post recorded by Caroline Grant/Le-Grande Event Management. For more videos of the night, please visit (and subscribe!) to Le-Grande Event Management’s YouTube Channel 🙂

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6 Tips for Managing Stage Fright

It’s Monday which means it’s blog day. Before I carry on, I thought I’d host a quick poll for what to write about next. There seem to be a few of you reading this (thank you!) and perhaps what I think is fun for you to read about is not what you think is fun to read about, so here’s your chance! The existing options are all suggestions I have received in the last 24 hours, and there’s also an “other” option 🙂

So, without further ado:

Ok. Business concluded, now for some content!

About 4 years ago, I got invited to play at a festival at one of Yorks larger venues, the Duchess. I was absolutely thrilled to get the opportunity, but on the day, I completely flubbed. I’d had a bad chest infection in the run-up, and I’d been so nervous about whether my voice would hold out, I didn’t stop to think about my piano-playing. Ironically, the vocals were fine, but it was as though I had never played keys in my life. This was in front of a large crowd of friends, and I was absolutely mortified. Needless to say, I have not been invited back to the Duchess since (although I would like to add that if anyone from the Duchess is reading this, I have massively improved now, so… 😉 )

It took me a long time to get back on stage. A combination of terror, and lack of opportunity. The whole “DuchessGate” affair was a massive shock to my system, because all of my other performances had been to backing tracks, the only thing I’d had to worry about was singing, and since I’d been doing that since I was 15, I’m afraid I’d become rather blase about the whole thing. Here’s how I learned to tackle my newly discovered stage terror.

1) Get back on the horse (or find a proxy).

Firstly, and most importantly, I needed to gig again. However, my confidence had taken a huge knock and I was struggling to get gigs, so what I did in the interim was I started filming myself playing (or better, getting my more awesome half to do it for me). My first sofagigs aren’t on youtube any more, but when I look at those and compare them to how I play now, the difference is astounding. It wasn’t quite the same as playing in front of an audience, but it allowed me to tackle the first major problem I had, which was to maintain the performance in the face of distraction. I still film myself and in fact my next challenge in this scary world of music is to make more professional videos for my songs, but that’s now more about the music than as a tool for me to help overcome nerves.

2) Practice. And if you aren’t practicing, go practice.

Why is this so important? Muscle memory. Muscle memory will save you when everything else goes wrong. Last year, I was playing a set at the Apollo Festival in York, and somehow, in setting up, my sustain pedal had become depolarised. This meant that instead of sustaining when I pressed it, it did the opposite, and damped the notes. For the entire first song of my set, I had to reverse pedal to achieve the correct sound. If I had also had to focus on which notes to play, I would have been absolutely sunk, but as it happened, I could focus on pedalling and let my hands do what they always do, and not a soul noticed.

Play everything again and again and again, until you can think about what you are having for dinner, or perhaps do some minor tax calculations in your head while still playing. Don’t do this in a gig, obviously, but if you can let your muscle memory take over, it frees you to perform, to engage, and to cope in the event of a hitch.

3) Preparation

For me, about 40-50% of stage fright consists of what-ifs. Now, I can’t control everything at a gig. Certain things have to be trusted to the sound engineer, and other things are just out of my control. But it helps if I have prepared myself as far as possible. I make sure I have a coherent set list, complete with a couple of extra songs in case my set is extended (this has happened before when another act on the bill hasn’t turned up), and that I have rehearsed the set list thoroughly. I pack spare cables, a microphone, a music stand, a small torch for the music stand (trying to read lyrics for an unexpected set addition in a darkened venue can be very difficult), throat sweets (I favour fruit pastilles – no drying menthol 🙂 ) and I triple check my equipment list. If I have covered as many eventualities as I can, this leaves me free to focus on the performance and helps reduce my anxiety.

4) Exercise

The physical effects of stage fright manifest because of adrenaline – the fight or flight response. On one hand, this can be very positive – aiding focus, speeding up reaction time and generally preparing you to cope. But it can also cause churning stomach, dry mouth, sweating, shaking… this can be distinctly unhelpful when you need to play something precisely. I combat this by going for a walk or run before a gig. This helps to dissipate some of that tension and adrenaline and allows it to actually do what it’s there to do, rather than just being wasted nervous energy. I do the same thing before major exams, aikido gradings, anything that I feel nervous about and it helps a great deal.

5) Breathe

Never underestimate the power of controlled, deep breathing. I breath in and out to a slow count (usually of four) – this slows my heart rate and lowers my blood pressure, making me feel much more controlled.

6) Look after yourself before and after performing

I have a terrible sugar habit, but in the run up to a gig I try to reduce sugar intake, eat more healthily, decrease caffeine and try to make sure I’m caught up on sleep. I know that going into a stressful situation already stressed will make my own stage fright much harder to manage and is not likely to end well!

Some people swear by alcohol before going on stage, to help with the nerves. This is very much a personal thing, but I don’t do it. Alcohol disrupts muscle control around the vocal chords, which is not great for any singer, and also has a drying effect on the voice.

So there you have it. What do you do to combat nerves?

 

 

 

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