... it's very hard to make something profound that literally everyone will like.
Thanks for the honest criticism Pinky.
The youtube video has english subtitles.
I don't care much about the film, it hardly relates to the music, so I agree with you, it just makes the performance odd.
On the other hand, it's the film that allows me to book performances because it's part of film festivals selections. It's a "seal of quality". People see the laurels on the poster and they think that it must be worth something.
But I love the music.
Sometimes you create something and you love it immediately. This was not the case. These 6 songs grew on me like nothing else I have ever done.
I am arriving to the conclusion that unfortunatly, they are not good for a live performance, because if it took time for me to get into them, how can I expect anyone else to get them with one audition (the live performance)?
I think I should have notes distributed at the entrance to help the audience understand what is going on. I think that if you take the time to hear the songs a few times, you can understand what's going on without the notes, but you do need them if you're going to hear them only once.
1 - "a key" is an antidote for suicide, memories of things and actions of a good and beautiful world.
2 - "do it" dives straight into the subject of suicide, bordering schizophrenia.
3 - "passing trees" is the result of reading about a man who set himself on fire on a high speed train in japan.
4 - "you're a friend" is the vision of a man watching his own funeral, looking at the people he chose to have around while he was alive.
5 - "leather and cork": someone is planting a spruce of cork oak on top of his younger brother's ashes, as he requested.
6 - "was that a smile?": someone finds a person who is about to jump off a bridge and tries to persuade him/her not to do it. by chance, they both discover that they know the poem "not waving but drowning", by stevie smith.
If you had read this before, would it have changed your opinion significantly?
...but you do need them if you're going to hear them only once.
Yeah. Market it to the avant garde/art crowd. I might also recommend trimming it down a bit. In my experience audiences have the patience for 20-30 minutes by a conventional band they've never seen before but only 10-15 minutes of something really weird or abrasive they've never seen before.
Why assume that anyone is going to listen to anything multiple times? We're all lucky if someone takes the time to listen ONCE! Requiring them to listen multiple times, over and over, until they understand what's going on is a wasted opportunity, in my mind. Hit them from the start and give it your best shot...it will likely be your only one. Usually, people come back because they like something, not because they didn't understand it the first time. Just my thoughts
I sent the video of the whole performace to a few places to try to book more gigs. I see now that I should have made a trailer instead, with the more interesting parts.
This was the first time I performed live and I'm sure that the next time I will be more convincing and be more at ease to try different ways of presenting myself.
I thought about wearing black make up around my eyes, creepy clothes, but I decided to present myself closer to what I am normally. Probably not a good decision.
Maybe I should try to present myself in more dramatic way, like the photos I used for the advertisement of the show.
I think your audience would be pretentious or depressed people who like sad songs and movies. That's not an insult, but that's just who your audience would be. So probably hipsters. I think you should try to team up with some local hipsters and film places and see if they'll let you play it. You're never going to have a large audience with that, but you might have a cult following depending how much attitude (think Warhol) you can emote.
I don't think this is entirely true. There's musicians surviving on their music alone that write profound lyrics and don't try to be/sound like everyone else. They are the minority of what's commercially available, but they do exist. I would go further to say that this statement is a fallacy because you're suggesting that ALL popular music appeals to "literally everyone", which is entirely untrue (hyperbole). I don't know of a single musician, movie, painter, architect, etc that have 100% universal appeal.
Well, back again to audience. It doesn't appeal to you, but you might not be the right audience for it.As far as this... style... it's definitely performance art, not sure if it would be further classified beyond that. I found it difficult to enjoy because it wasn't particularly interesting musically, performance wasn't exceptional vocally, and lyrically I had a hard time not just making everything out but connecting the dots to bring meaning to the presentation [this likely could be solved with a better recording or amplification of the performance?]. The projections were okay I suppose, but struck me as something I'd enjoy tripping and not taken seriously as part of a larger exhibit. [though the youtube video had the top half of the screen cut off, not sure if I was able to fully appreciate it based on only 50% showing]
All that said, that one's a pretty good critique.Putting everything together just felt forced, like it was trying to be gimmicky stuffing all these elements together. Does that make sense?