You never know what's coming up

I recently played a funeral in which my clients had a guitarist sit in at one point. As at every funeral I do at this particular church, I had several logistical things I needed to take care of: I had run off programs to distribute to the celebrant and the choir members; I had to set up my microphone, which involved setting up my mike stand and running two types of cables together via adapters; I had to plug in the memory card containing my organ programming; I had to get my books out and opened to the right page.

Ideally, I would have preferred to have time enough to go over the program with the choir, as they are a "ragtag" assembly of parishioners who only get together when there’s a funeral to do, and thus don’t have any regular rehearsals. But I didn’t get the chance to do that on this particular occasion. The guitarist came in--with just his guitar. No amp, no small-scale PA, no music stand, no nothing. He was obviously going to be relying on the church PA and had no clue as to how he was going to set up. Oblivious to all the logistical things I just mentioned I had to do, he had me set up for him.

In a way, this bothers me professionally--and not just because of the impact it made on my prep time either. Churches have limited budgets to begin with, be it for PA infrastructure or otherwise. This guitarist was lucky the church had what he needed. But what if it hadn’t?

If you’re a church-goer or a Bible reader, you may have encountered the parable of the ten bridesmaids, where half of them were wise and the other half were foolish, and all ten were waiting for the groom to arrive. The foolish ones were running out of lamp oil and asked the wise ones for some, but the wise ones said, "We don’t have enough for all ten of us. You’ll need to go out and buy some." So the foolish ones did. While they were gone, the groom came, and when the foolish bridesmaids returned and begged the groom to let them in, he said, "I don't know you," and refused them entry. Simply put, "You snooze, you lose."

So what does this tell us? You can’t rely on every venue to have everything you need. I know this from experience. Before I bought my SM-58 I used to use a mike that required an external power source called "phantom power", and I kept having to borrow other mikes occasionally because not every venue had a PA setup that had phantom power built in.

Or take the drummer’s throne that you may have seen me use at some gigs. My buying it came about as the result of a one-nighter I did in Montreal a few years back, my first gig with Hot Ice. For all of my previous gigs with other bands I had always borrowed a chair owned by whatever venue we were playing at. All this Montreal bar had for chairs without armrests were tall bar stools--and since an integral part of my playing style is extensive use of the sustain pedal, I had a hard time reaching it. It was even more awkward playing when standing up, because I had to play with my hands held at an awkward and somewhat unnatural angle. Back home, I promptly bought the throne and have been using it whenever I needed it.

On another occasion, I did a house party, only to discover that the primitive amplification I’d brought for my vocals was inadequate. (I do have a 400-watt amp that would have done the job a lot better, but it’s a heavy monster to carry around.) So as soon as I could afford it, I went out and bought a 160-watt amp for small-room situations.

Even if you’re studying music for the fun of it, you should bear in mind that at some point you’re going to be called upon to play in a public setting, even if your gigs come only once in a blue moon. Whether you’re a hobbyist musician with aspirations to play only the occasional gig or you want to become a professional, your equipment acquisition shouldn’t stop with your instrument--you need to be prepared, even if only to the minimum extent necessary, to adapt to whatever PA needs are dictated by the acoustic environment you’ll be playing in. The guitarist in question could have used at least two mike stands, a two-channel 150-watt amp and a couple of SM-58s for a total purchase cost of about $600. This may seem like a big investment, but I’m sure his guitar was too. If you buy your own equipment, you will get to know it better than anyone else at that venue--and, because it’s yours, you’ll want to be the one to set it up.

If you’re only playing occasionally, you can get by with renting such equipment for maybe $30-50 a day depending on the sound quality you’re after, but if you’re going to go that route, I would highly recommend allotting yourself time enough to get to know that equipment. You don’t want to end up fiddling around with your settings in the middle of a gig.

What this all boils down to can be summed up in two words: Be prepared. If a venue has what you need, then so much the better, but it’s best to rely on that only as a backup, because unless you’ve played at a particular venue before, you never know what you’ll encounter vis-à-vis its acoustic environment. Use your own gear to present your sound the way you want it to be heard. You will know best how to set it up to get that sound, and other people, who have their own logistics to take care of, will thank you for it.