Playing Otherside Live - Serhat

Community Recordings Playing Live
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Hi, my gig finally happened on Wednesday and here is a video of me playing Otherside live:

Sorry for the quality, it is two videos from different parts of the song I put together.

I might be able to post a video of the full gig later. I think it was recorded but not sure.

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Well done Serhat and kudos for getting out there! what a shame the sound quality isnā€™t better. Looks like youā€™ve got a good audience watching anyway and handy to have the backing singers. They know the song singing along all good.

Did you enjoy it? what did you learn from doing it?

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Hi Serhat

well done for getting out there and doing it for real, it takes some guts to get on stage,
best of luck with it

Ruaridh

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Thanks, @Rossco01! I enjoyed it a lot indeed. Indeed, I was very lucky to have amazing backing singers, I hope I can sing like them in 15 years :slight_smile:

What did I learn? Really good question. I briefly mentioned some of these in another thread but:

  • ā€œYou may not be the best musician in the room but you can be the best preparedā€ - Iā€™d heard this but I did not really live by it. I went to rehearsals under-prepared and had a bit of difficulty coping. Looking back, I wouldā€™ve tried to make more practice time and learning songs better, earlier. I did catch up later on, but wouldā€™ve been better if I spent enough practice time at home from the very first rehearsal. For this particular gigā€™s rehearsals, the best musicians were also the best prepared, I guess they became good for a reason.

  • Not new learning but I keep painfully discovering this over and over again: Timing + Clarity > Complexity. The one thing that makes the most difference in terms of sounding good is your timing. It is much more important than your guitar tone, the complexity of the thing you are playing, or even playing the correct note. Play one A note in perfect time and itā€™ll sound great. Play a well-placed Amin7b13 arpeggio with sloppy timing and itā€™ll sound bad. Good timing is very hard to practice and improve but it makes the most difference.

  • Be humble. Be polite. Be disciplined. Be on time. Be open. Be responsive. Be reliable.

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Well done Serhat, a big step and I really hope you enjoyed it.
Super question from Jason and really interesting to read your responses.
Congratulations to you!!

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Congratulations, Serhat - thatā€™s fantastic :star_struck:!
I feel so happy for you, that you got and actually took the chance to perform live.
Must have been a great experience. And as the audience was singing along, Iā€™m certain, they enjoyed your performance :+1::clap::smiley:.
Keep on rockinā€™ :metal::guitar::smiley:!

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Wow, well done, Serhat! :clap:

Stepping up that stage and perform takes some guts! You can be proud of yourself and Iā€™m also happy for you to enjoy this playing-live situation. It must have been an amazing feeling. :smiley:

I hope, you may find a recording of the whole performance, else Iā€™m looking forward to your next gig already! You did great and it seemed like a perfect setting to making some live music with other musicians around. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the kind words, Ruaridh!

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Thank you @Notter!

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Awww, thanks @NicoleKKB, your comments are always encouraging. Much appreciated!

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Thank you @Lisa_S! I was super lucky to be in this group with some musicians far ahead in their journey than me. Playing with musicians much better than me is always a humbling experience and I love to be in that situation.

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Great job Serhat and hats off for going out and showing off your musical skills! I think it sounded great, bit shy on a vocal side but overall really good, loved the solo and backing singers! Out of curiosity what kind of event was it? Just a regular open mic or was it something more like a music club?

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Thanks @adi_mrok! You put a smile on my face.

Iā€™m attending various music classes at a local music college. The drum class instructor wanted his students to play a gig at the end of the term and recruited students (including me) from other classes and organised the gig. We chose songs, rehearsed a few times and played on the night.

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Congratulations on your first live outing Serhat - what a thrill, Iā€™m delighted for you. :slight_smile:

Those are some mighty fine learning points.
You should make a poster or T-shirt with that written on.

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Well done, Serhat! I am very impressed by your bravery for getting out there and doing these live gigs! Also the learnings you posted above form some really great advice! Thanks for sharing :sunglasses: :+1:

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Thanks Richard!

In another life in which I do not have a full-time job, a kid and trying to become a musician at the same time, sure :smiley:

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Thanks, Jeff! Should be written somewhere in my bio, my main goal is to be playing gigs and I started practising the guitar after playing live (I was 5 weeks into it). I do not think Iā€™m good enough to be playing gigs yet but from many things Iā€™ve been learning recently, I figured the way to get good at playing live would be playing live so here I am :slight_smile:

Glad you found my ā€˜learningsā€™ useful. Here are a couple more that are not as important as the ones above:

  • For a beginner like me, a medium-quality multi-FX pedal works better than high-quality individual pedals. I obtained some really good pedals and built a pedalboard but I always had problems with having my guitar heard because I did not know how to efficiently use them. I recently got a multi-fx (Line 6 Pod Go) and spent a small time (~2 hrs) at home to figure out a passable tone. The advantage this gives me is I get the exact same tone I have at home when I go to the studio. No need to try and adapt different studio amps that I do not really know how. Iā€™d never got a compliment on my guitar tone with those good pedals but I started getting them with this multi-fx pedal so Iā€™d recommend it to beginners.
  • It is very, very tempting to play non-stop and show your talent, especially when doing your first few gigs. But if you want to get yourself noticed, and create a more enjoyable experience for the audience, thatā€™s not the best way. A good band would have figured out some dynamics in advance to grab the listenerā€™s ear but as a beginner, you will be in situations where you do not have control over what others do, and no one will bother discussing band dynamics or wonā€™t be experienced enough to do that (this includes me), or there will simply be too many musicians around to get aligned on a slightly more advanced concept. Therefore, you can only do something about your role in terms of band dynamics. And the easiest way to do that is to simply not play sometimes. For e.g. on a typical verse1-verse2-chorus-verse3-verse4-chorus song, try not playing at all during verse 1 and verse 3 and see if the bass player and the other guitar player (if there is one) hold on their own. If so, do that and when you start playing in verses 2 and 4, everyone will know you are on now and you will have created a nice dynamic structure to an otherwise amateur performance.
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Once again, Serhat, excellent insights! :smiley: :+1:

Thatā€™s a super interesting point, hadnā€™t considered that aspect before, but makes perfect sense, I will definitely keep that in mind if/when I get out in the ā€œreal worldā€ :grimacing: :sweat_smile:

Sometimes less is more, right (despite what Yngwie says)?! :thinking: :joy: Again, a great tip to share! Thanks for bringing this to the forum, greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

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Thanks for sharing Serhat, what an interesting read.

And weā€™ll done you :smiley:

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Big up to you Serhat for getting out there and doing it. How were the nerves? You sounded great and the crowd were sure joining in.

Not sure why youā€™re not out there already Jeff, your sure at a level where you should be.

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