This guide is aimed at giving you a platform to move into wedding entertainment. This can be for either a beginner looking to move into the performing industry or someone who has paid their dues in the pub and club circuit for years and would like to move up into more consistent work.
The initial benefits of working as a professional wedding singer over singing in local bars is that an arrangement or a gig in a pub is a verbal agreement which can easily be cancelled by the landlord at the last minute, whereas wedding work is normally via an agency which will arrange a solid contract with steps in place to avoid cancellations. This security means you can use this form of employment as a steady ground to build your life on such as rent and bills etc.
In terms of the music you perform you may need to revise your set list a little from the songs about heartbreak and misery that would go down a storm with the drinkers in the pubs. A wedding day is a happy occasion so songs focusing on the positive in life will be in order here. Not necessarily cheesy numbers although you’ll need some of those towards the end when the dance floor is full.
You may have also been used to standing in the corner of the bar area with your microphone stand, speakers and mixing desk. For weddings you need a flashier look here, so try a portable lighting rig with a few traditional disco lights, look online for this. Also to disguise the lengths of cables and cords from speakers try some black canvas that covers it up. A nice touch with this is to buy white fairy lights and cut tiny holes in the canvas and pop them through to create a stars at night effect covering the unsightly stage cables.
When you dress for a wedding show, the ladies can experiment a little here but I find a traditional, classy dress in a striking colour looks fine. For a male, a suit jacket, trousers, white shirt and shoes. No need for ties as by the time you perform most of the male guests will take off the tie for comfort. Same goes for a waist jacket, you can leave that at home.
An excellent tip which will convert to more gigs for you is to learn how to be a disco DJ yourself. Most clients end up paying for a singer and a DJ separately at a great cost, if you learn how to do it yourself via a laptop with a mixing program and your entire music collection you could add it on for a nominal fee and make your act a lot more desirable to potential customers.
These little tweaks to your set up could be the ones which promote you from pubs and clubs to professional entertainer for hire. If you’re a beginner and are starting right from scratch, I have made some more tutorials online which will help you take the first step and learn how to be a pub entertainer. Take a look around for them and enjoy. When you accomplish those first steps, re-read this article and you’ll be working as a singer in no time.
Finally, when your act is up and running you’ll need professional representation. Search for entertainment agencies or find Best One Entertainment and submit your application to join their books. Good luck.
Showing posts with label become a professional singer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label become a professional singer. Show all posts
Monday, 14 April 2014
Thursday, 27 February 2014
How To Become A Professional Singer and Perform At Weddings, Birthday, Corporates, Pubs and Clubs
If you are a capable singer and fancy moving into the profession of live entertainer for your full time job there is a list of things you should do first. This is a complete guide to becoming a paid singer for hire. The purpose of this discussion is to inform solo singers who intend to sing live vocals over a pre-recorded backing track. A performer of this style would tend to be suited to wedding receptions, pubs and working men clubs, birthday celebrations, christenings to name a few.
To go back to the beginning you need to have established you can actually sing and people tend be entertained by you when you do so. The reason for this is at a performance you will be the focal point of the room and for many of the audience your smiling face is a welcome break from the ups and downs of a working week and they are there to enjoy a drink or two whilst you entertain them. Evidence of this may come from when you get up do a number at the karaoke at your local pub and the crowd erupt like you’ve just won the X-Factor.
The first thing you need to do is work out a repertoire of around 25 songs which suit your voice and are popular enough to please a crowd. You should then buy the backing tracks. There are many established retailers online which specialise in professional backing music. Now you have the songs and the confidence in yourself, you now to rehearse. Now I mean weeks of practice, even months. You could stay in your old job whilst you get ready as this is not an overnight thing. You music master the songs but also work out your talking between the songs as it is the personal touches between the songs that will really connect you to the crowd and turn you into an entertainer. So you now have a show that would make Simon himself proud, you now need to make a little financial investment in yourself.
This will eventually pay for itself through gigs but in order to be taken seriously you must obtain a- PA System and Speakers, A good wireless microphone, a minidisc player or MP3 player, a decent lighting rig, an outfit worthy of an on stage performance. This will be full set up for live shows and when you have along with your own transport you are a one person show ready to perform anytime, anywhere. You can now use this for practice unpaid gigs such as a birthday party for a friend where you set up at their house and perform for experience. Sooner or later you’ll want to perform for money at professional gigs. You’ll need to join a music agency who will add you to their books and match you with clients looking for an act.
To join an agency you need a promotional pack. Again this may involve a little investment financially in yourself but it is well worth it. You need a recording of yourself singing to the backing track. Please don’t use a home computer with the built in microphone, if you’ve come this far, hire a day in a recording studio in order to capture the best sound possible. This will set you apart from the competition as there are more people out there searching for the same gigs as you want. So with your great song made now you need a photograph of you. If you hire a photographer for this also they may be able to offer advice on the right outfit to wear and certain pose to do etc.
Next you must sit down yourself and write a biography for yourself. This should be written in the third person. That means you write as if you’re writing about someone else so you could put something like, Elvis Smith is the leading entertainer in his field today. This is your moment to capture the imagination of the reader so make it catchy and use correct spelling and grammar.
Attached to the bottom of this should be a set list of your repertoire so the agency can match you up to the correct clients so everyone has a great time. See here (Artist Registration page) for a working registration page and apply via this and other agency sites in order to grow your list of contacts. It takes a while to gain full momentum in the music business so I would recommend keeping your day job but providing you have the right stuff you can certainly forge a career in live entertainment with work and persistence.
To go back to the beginning you need to have established you can actually sing and people tend be entertained by you when you do so. The reason for this is at a performance you will be the focal point of the room and for many of the audience your smiling face is a welcome break from the ups and downs of a working week and they are there to enjoy a drink or two whilst you entertain them. Evidence of this may come from when you get up do a number at the karaoke at your local pub and the crowd erupt like you’ve just won the X-Factor.
The first thing you need to do is work out a repertoire of around 25 songs which suit your voice and are popular enough to please a crowd. You should then buy the backing tracks. There are many established retailers online which specialise in professional backing music. Now you have the songs and the confidence in yourself, you now to rehearse. Now I mean weeks of practice, even months. You could stay in your old job whilst you get ready as this is not an overnight thing. You music master the songs but also work out your talking between the songs as it is the personal touches between the songs that will really connect you to the crowd and turn you into an entertainer. So you now have a show that would make Simon himself proud, you now need to make a little financial investment in yourself.
This will eventually pay for itself through gigs but in order to be taken seriously you must obtain a- PA System and Speakers, A good wireless microphone, a minidisc player or MP3 player, a decent lighting rig, an outfit worthy of an on stage performance. This will be full set up for live shows and when you have along with your own transport you are a one person show ready to perform anytime, anywhere. You can now use this for practice unpaid gigs such as a birthday party for a friend where you set up at their house and perform for experience. Sooner or later you’ll want to perform for money at professional gigs. You’ll need to join a music agency who will add you to their books and match you with clients looking for an act.
To join an agency you need a promotional pack. Again this may involve a little investment financially in yourself but it is well worth it. You need a recording of yourself singing to the backing track. Please don’t use a home computer with the built in microphone, if you’ve come this far, hire a day in a recording studio in order to capture the best sound possible. This will set you apart from the competition as there are more people out there searching for the same gigs as you want. So with your great song made now you need a photograph of you. If you hire a photographer for this also they may be able to offer advice on the right outfit to wear and certain pose to do etc.
Next you must sit down yourself and write a biography for yourself. This should be written in the third person. That means you write as if you’re writing about someone else so you could put something like, Elvis Smith is the leading entertainer in his field today. This is your moment to capture the imagination of the reader so make it catchy and use correct spelling and grammar.
Attached to the bottom of this should be a set list of your repertoire so the agency can match you up to the correct clients so everyone has a great time. See here (Artist Registration page) for a working registration page and apply via this and other agency sites in order to grow your list of contacts. It takes a while to gain full momentum in the music business so I would recommend keeping your day job but providing you have the right stuff you can certainly forge a career in live entertainment with work and persistence.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)