i kind of took the weekend off

[solarbird]

So, yeah! I kinda took the weekend off. It was nice! I played Skyrim, organised old fanac artefacts, and made many horrible noises on the viLOLin, the violin I mentioned in Friday’s post about how to build your kit for cheap. That was fun. ^_^

But me being lazy? Not what this blog is about! So: right now, I need people who will host house concerts. I know, I know, scary, too hard, frightening, run away! But I swear to you, they’re really not difficult to host! It’s like a friends party at your house, but with live entertainment. The host provides a space and their friends as an audience, and I show up and set up the PA and do my thing.

This video is from a house concert. It has a lot more talk with it than other videos, so you have context, and can get an idea of the atmosphere. People are relaxed and having a good time:

Heather Dale has a big writeup about house concerts on her website. It’s kind of a how-to guide. If you have any willingness to consider this at all, I hope you’ll read that and talk to me. I also hope people who have hosted house shows (me or other people) will vouch for it not actually being scary.

I’m finding I get a lot better as I get more opportunities to play out. House concerts definitely count. And it’s also something different, which is important.

See, I’m kind of a neophile, for better and worse. Coming out of software development, that sounds like one of those bullshit self-aggrandising lines, where it’s all “OMG AWESOME TECHLUST LOLOLOL,” but there’s a real “for worse” part, and the “for worse” part is kicking my ass. I used to play five or six hours a day. I don’t, now; it’s a couple of hours most days, and five-six hour days are very rare. That’s part of what has me poking around at the viLOLin: it’s something different. No matter how much I like something – and I really do still love this – the repetition starts to get to me.

Live shows help a lot. It’s just easier for me to put in repetitive work if I know I have a deadline, a show, a goal, a thing, whatever it might be. It feels so much less masturbatory. Not to mention the good parts about meeting people and performing and going places and doing things; all of that is awesome! But the big help is just having this work be for a reason.

I mean, if I’m trying to make up for all my lost time, I’d think I need to be at that five to six hours a day level, at a minimum. I’ve read about musicians who just go all day, particularly classical artists, and that’s the kind of quality goal I tend to have for myself. But for me, that much repetition – particularly without a specific goal – is a one-way ticket to burnout city. I’ve been there. I had a house there. It sucked.

So, please. Consider it, and talk to me. Heather’s page on house concerts is under “how to help” on her website, and that’s what I’m asking for here.

Which all turned out to be a pretty damned long blog post given that I didn’t have anything to write about an hour ago.

And how was your weekend?

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Comments

[attie]

I'm afraid I live on the wrong continent (not to mention my apartment is sorely lacking in seating - I have one chair...) but as always, the Japanese have a technological solution for that! I think I may have blathered at you before about those Japanese people singing in their bedrooms that I follow for lack of being able so see anything at all on youtube? They have this thing on Nico Nico Douga called namahousou where you basically livestream whatever you want from your PC, and everyone who watches can type comments that show up for everyone else. One of the singers there, Wotamin, shows up almost every evening, chats a little, congratulates whatever fan has their birthday that day, and then sings for about two hours - her voice is so perfect it's scary, and I'm guessing all that practice has something to do with it! You might try out something like that, it's a pretty fun way to spend an hour in the evening, keeps you connected to your fans, and gives you a reason to pick up your instruments. (Lots of stumbling and cursing while trying out something new is also expected in nama, so it's low-pressure too!)

[solarbird]

Interesting! I googled but found a zillion links, can you throw me one that points to the right place?

[attie]

Official FAQ entry from the English site. (First step: give them money.)

ofurotaimu has a guide that's geared towards viewers but should give you a basic idea of what it's like. You need an account to see almost anything on NND, and it's all Japanese (the English site is basically unknown, it's rare to catch a live there) - this is the namahousou main page, and in the sidebar on the right there is a box with a blue and a pink tab. The blue tab lists ongoing namas, you can just click on any of them and look in to get an idea of what's happening. (Unless they're restricted to a community, cf. the guide.)

The platform is a bit restrictive in that you have to be a paid user to hold lives, and you can't watch anything without an account... (in Japan this site is way more popular than Youtube, so it's not so much of a restriction there, but for us here it's a bit many hoops to jump.)

[solarbird]

That's all very helpful - thanks! I am poking at it now, I need something to expand my options!