Juggling a Cover Song List = Plate Spinning
Lately, I have been ignoring a growing problem: The more cover gigs I book, the more cover songs I learn, the harder it gets to maintain my growing book of songs. In fact, it was starting to feel impossible.
I was forced to acknowledge this problem while playing at Stout in Brighton last weekend. Paul, a returning patron who drove all the way from Ypsilanti to catch my gig, struck-up a conversation with me during my break. “Mike, that’s quite a book of covers! How do you keep them all fresh in your head?” he asked.
This is what my brain is becoming!
“Well, honestly, I don’t!” I replied. “I trust quite a bit of muscle memory.” He laughed and said he had some homework to assign me, requesting I add some Life House tunes to my set.
This struck me. I used to know “Hanging by a Moment,” two summers ago, but had long forgotten it. In fact, most of my rehearsing for cover gigs had been so one-sided, only focused on only learning new songs, that I was making simple mistakes in songs I should know like the back-of-my-hand. “Drift Away,” “Ohio,” “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”–I was forgetting a lyric here and a chord there in tunes I rely on too much.
I needed to face it: I was having trouble keeping 200+ songs fresh while finding the time to learn new songs.
Last week, I decided to find an answer to a difficult question: How can I balance my rehearsal time between “old songs” (songs I already play) and “new songs” (songs I’ve just learned) and still put on an energetic performance? I needed to view my cover song list like a plate-spinning juggler does his plates. So I found my plates, by dividing my master cover list into four sections.
Picture doing this juggling act with songs!
This week I’ll be blogging about each section in more detail and how I’m targeting my juggling act to reach these goals:
1. Continuing to add new songs to my cover list
2. Fixing the problem of neglecting my regular cover songs
3. Feeling better prepared each week
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