In my first column I introduced you to my practical use of midi files. Changing times and changing situations make midi files the perfect solution to help you change with the flow and continue to perform.
It's a simple matter of economics. If your five-piece band was getting five hundred dollars a night, theoretically you'd each take home a C-note for your night's work. Now deduct the cost of the vehicle to transport the two tons of equipment your band carts around from job to job. Deduct the cost of those two useless roadies you just had to have to help with all that stuff. Deduct the cost of a decent sound man to run the board. Maybe even a light man to help you display your best profile. NOW how much are you taking home for that four-hour gig? Peanuts, when you consider drive time, setup time, actual playing time, tear down time and the drive home. You may have seven or eight hours invested before you can finally crawl into bed with the large amps and drum set still ringing in your head. After all is said and done you may have done all that work for less than you get at your nine-to-five job. There has to be a better way.
There is. Like the rest of corporate America, it's called downsizing. It's nothing personal towards your fellow band members. It's simply economics. Take that same watering hole where your band just played. Leave off the bakery truck that hauls your equipment. Leave off the roadies, sound man, light man and four other members. What have you got left? PROFIT.
Sequence the drum part and the bass part. Program in some oohs and aahs. Add a keyboard part and maybe a horn section. What's left? You and your guitar, singing along to the midi files. Throw in a vocalizer and you've covered the harmony parts.
What's that? You say the club owner doesn't want a single act? You say his clientele prefers a whole band? Now what? Three things - first you show him how he can also save money by not having to dish out five bills for a whole band. Tell him you can make the same noise, er, I mean, music with just one guy and charge only two hundred bucks. Immediately he'll see the financial advantage for him and his club. Second you tell him how you can be set up in twenty minutes and torn down and out the door in ten. He won't have to stick around until the sun comes up waiting for the band to finish packing up.
Third, you can explain that a one-man setup such as you have only takes up thirty square feet of dance floor space as opposed to the band's three hundred square feet. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out that this means more room for PAYING customers. Bingo, you've made your point. Now, instead of going home with seventy or eighty bucks for eight hours of your time, you're driving home with two hundred dollars for five hours-maybe five and a half hours tops.
Another interesting point in favor of a one-man midi band is this fact. Your rock band had a choice of four places in town where they could do their thing. Sure there are other clubs in town, but two of them are strictly Country Music bars. One is an easy listening piano bar. One is a hotel that insists the volume stay low enough so that the customers can converse. Two are dance halls that usually have wedding bands with lots of polkas and waltzes. And one is an Irish pub that insists on Irish tunes only. OK, which club do you play at?
All of them, of course. Disk one contains your favorite rock songs. Disk two is filled with cheatin' songs for the Country bars. Disk three has all your Engelbert Humperdinck easy listening songs on it. On disk four you have your mood music (Yanni, John Tesh, etc.) That's for the hotel scene. Disk five has just two files on it-one polka and one waltz. After all, don't all polkas sound alike? Throw in one or two Irish folk songs and you're there. They all sound alike, too.
There is one more disk full of midi files you may want to keep in your collection. It's what I've come to label as P.F.B. which stands for "Popcorn For Brains." These are the inane, senseless, annoying, overly simple songs that most serious musicians cringe at when mentioned, but the public loves 'em. And they'll ask for 'em every time. You guys know which ones these are. (Proud Mary, Old Time Rock n' Roll, Pretty Woman, Hanky Panky, Gloria-do I have to go on?)
>p>Now you've got all the bases covered. Instead of playing twice a month at only the rock bars, now you're out there full time playing ALL the clubs. You can tell your nine-to-five boss to take this job and shove it (which by the way, can probably be found on some midi site.) You're making a ton of money and sleeping your days away. Sounds like the idea for a song. Never mind, it's been done. Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business" describes the lifestyle I've just showed you how to live. Go for it.
©2002 Bill Bernico for CYBERMIDI.com Downwind Publications
