Custom Search
|
|
How Do We Finish This Song?
* Practice Endings It might seem obvious but you must dedicate rehearsal time to play good endings. Practice just the end of songs, try out a few different ideas, settle on one and then make sure you can all play it to perfection. Good timing and synchronization is especially important. * Don't Finish Every Song The Same Way You already know that the endings of your songs will leave an important mark on your audience. But no matter how good an ending is, if you play the same one twenty times in an evening the audience will be bored of it. Surprise them with different endings on each song. If you play regularly to the same audience try to have more than one way of ending each song up your sleeves, too. * Finish With A Bang A classic ending that works well with up tempo songs. The whole band simply hammers away on the I chord at the end of a verse or chorus progression. Decide upon a leader and all stop abruptly upon his signal. Finish Quietly Here's a more subtle approach that works well if used in moderation. You can either gradually play softer and softer, or make a sudden change to a soft sound as you play through the last few bars of a verse, chorus or outro. The surprise created by this change of dynamics is very effective. Let One Player Finish Can't all stop at the same time? Then let just one player finish by himself. The rest of the band stops and one player finishes the song with a little riff or a couple of chords. This one is more forgiving if you are imprecise in stopping together. Leave One At A Time A variant on the previous ending, use this with a repetitive chord progression near the end. At the end of each progression one player stops. The final instrument ends the song. Go Straight Into The Next Song Why stop and lose the audience between each song? As one piece ends launch immediately into another on the very next beat. This works well with songs that contrast, e.g. fast to slow, or slow to fast, or with songs that have similar or identical rhythms or chords. Slow It Down As you near the end of the song gradually slow the tempo until the whole band grinds to a halt at the end of the song's progression. This one takes some practice so that everyone slows by the same amount. Speed It Up The reverse of slow it down, your band can accelerate through the chord progression to whip up a frenzy of excitement. Go as fast as you can, then finish with a bang. Finish Acapella Instead of leaving one player, leave the singer to end the song alone. Try to get the audience to join in, use an easy chorus or repeat a simple phrase. Liven up your band's performance with these song ending tips. Try to combine some of the techniques to create more ideas. Don't forget that the end of the song is the last thing you leave in your audience's mind. Give them variety and surprise and keep them wanting more. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com ----- |
|