Get a Gig
Want to play some jazz? Want to get a gig? Here are my thoughts ranked in order. Start with number 1. Want a few gigs? Do the first couple of things. Want even more gigs? Keep working your way toward the bottom.
Gigs come from two places.
People who reach out to me.
People I reach out to.
The majority of items on this list speak to the “people I reach out to” — that’s the area where you have the most control to make something happen.
This list tries to give the shortest possible answer to the question: If I had no gigs right now, and wanted to be busy, what would I do? What would I do first, second, third…?
Be a good player.
Start an Instagram. Post regularly including videos. (Especially videos.)
What kind of gigs do you want? Everything you post & every contact you make is focused toward a goal.
Make a spreadsheet to keep track of your jazz contacts.
Put a reminder in your calendar to make one jazz contact per Monday — 52 contacts per year. (Weekly contacts are a good pace for “upkeep” whenever you feel like you don’t have enough gigs, or want to make sure you always have plenty of things in the pipeline. When you’re fist starting out, maybe you want to make several contacts per day for awhile.)
Send an email to your first potential venue. Save your first email in a file to streamline your process. When you tweak that email for a different category of venue, save it in your file of boilerplate emails. You’ll end up with different emails for restaurants, retirement homes, concert venues, booking agents. Here’s a sample email I might send, “I'd be grateful if this email could be forwarded to the banquet manager or person who books live music. I'm a pianist currently playing regularly in the DC metro area. I'm available to play for cocktail hours, and background music for events. I specialize in jazz standards and tuneful melodies. Find out more at calebneijazz.com. Thanks, Caleb” If you only have Instagram, include that instead of the URL.
Be easy to get along with.
Get business cards and have them at your gigs. Getting started is the hard part. Once you’re out playing, gigs lead to gigs so be prepared. Put the link to your Instagram or website on you card.
Answer gig inquiries promptly. Basically, if you have a gig inquiry in your email or text inbox, you shouldn’t do anything else until you respond to it.
Make an account on GigSalad.
Be consistent in your contacts. The spreadsheet is important because you can circle back to people you’ve contacted last year. Getting booked is completely a matter of being in the right place at the right moment. The same person who didn’t need music last year, might need it now.
Find places that book jazz and add them to your spreadsheet. Google is your friend. See what other musicians are doing who are playing the kind of music/gigs you want to play.
Show up at a jam session.
Make a website on Squarespace.
There’s more…so much more…so I’ll add to these points upon request.