Valras Plage - When a show is cancelled

Hello to you!

Today I speak about little things that make each concert different.

Tuesday, June 24, we had a concert with "Ce soir j'attends Madeleine", a show in which I play since 2009. This concert was in Valras Plage, in the south of France, for a festival.

We took the road Tuesday morning at 9am, braved Parisian traffic, and we arrived in Valras at 6pm, a little tired, but ready to play.

There, while technicians were setting the lights up, we discovered the stage, just between the sea and the port. The situation was completely improbable, it was the first time we went to play outdoors on the seaside!

So we begin to unload our gear, and there comes our first bad surprise, I notice that the bench that I use with my keyboard is broken. This is the second time it happens, each bench lasts me about two years, and strangely, it always break during one of these concerts... obviously when we arrive at the venue.

Never mind, I'll play on a chair. When I'm playing, I usually have my keyboard high, so I never had a problem playing on a chair.

Second bad surprise: a strong wind prevents mats to fit on the tables. We have quickly overcome this problem with thumb tack.
That done, we begin our soundcheck. The same wind than previously was still with us, and it was very loud in the microphones of the singer and the accordion.

The sound engineer had some windscreens, so he put them on the accordion's microphones, and the problem was solved for the accordion.
For the singer's microphone, the sound engineer cut all the bass frequencies, which improved the sound a bit, but we could not do much else, we thought we were going to deal with it, and we hoped that the wind would disapear during the concert.

After these problems, we went, in good Parisians, closer to the sea, then we ate at a restaurant across the street.
We then went back to the stage and prepared to play.

And the biggest problem came in, just five minutes before the beginning...the rain teamed with the wind, and after a few minutes of uncertainty, we unplugged the gear, and the concert had to be canceled...

These are things that happen, but we were very frustrated by this. You  may know that the road back is always longer, because all the excitement of the show is past, this time, it was very very long...

June 21st, the world music day

Hi everyone!

Today's post could be an opportunity to chat !

Today, we're saturday, the day I update this blog, but it's also the first day of summer, the birthday of my brother in law, and it's also today that in France, we celebrate music.

I'm against that day for years. I only played a few times for that occasion, and never in Paris. This year I was contacted for two events.

Cabor asked me to play in front of a pub, in Châtelet (Paris). I remind you that I'm playing the keyboards, so I always have to take my car to go to gigs.
Saturday + Paris + music day = No way ! However, the concert was paid, a very rare thing on that day.

I was asked to play with Sandrine Gameiro in Reims, an paid show too, and I was ok, but the people who asked us finally prefered a cover band...

And here's why I don't like that day:

- First, this day has nothing to do with music, it's a really good day for bar tenders, venues, which earn a lot of money that day. The nicest of them pay the bands, others just offer them some electric plug so that the band can play in front of the bar.

- The playing conditions are often bad. There could be some stages, usually with bad gear, and bad sound engineer, but very often, the only gear available is the one the band brings with him. There is also a lot of noise, as the audience isn't really here to listen to the band which is playing in front of them.

- And here is what bothers me the most: the public. On that day, every band will play in front of a lot of people. That's nice, but people who are in front are here just because someone decided that today is the day to go an listen music. In al these people, how many are really interested about what they listen to ? How many of them will follow the band after that gig ? Probably none of them, because the other days are not the music day...

I played 4 times this month. There was a maximum of 30 people who came to hear us, either because they knew the band, either because they wanted to see a concert. These people decided to pay a ticket to hear music, not because someone told them to do it, but because these people really wanted to hear music !

However, I understand that this music day is a really good opportunity for small bands rehearsing the whole year in a garage, to find a gig. It's the best day to find a gig, because it's the best day to find a venue to play live. And it's surely the best day to play in front of a lot of people too.
Even if the reasons are bad, from my point of view, artists,as well as the people who will listen to them, have fun together.

So why are there so much concerts with so few people on the other days ??

Clara Neville - Keyboard programing in details

Hi !
Today, I'm going to show you all the sounds and I have for the songs of Clara Neville.
You'll have all my tips!

I split this into eight small videos. These videos are in french, I think you can understand it as it's really about sounds layering, but if you really need some subtitles, I will do some, just tell me.

The first one is about my gear: all I have on stage, and how it's plugged. It's technical, and there is no music in it, just description.

Here comes the second song, "A bout portant". I made some audio extracts in the article about keyboard programming, you can now see how I play it and how I'm using my delay pedal.

Next, a simple setup on another song, with just two sounds: piano and strings.

One other song in which I explain how to layer short sounds (rhodes piano) and long sounds (strings), and how to have a "full" harpsichord sound.

The next song, "Dans mes larmes" is about a lot of strings and pad layers, and a massive use of the delay pedal.

In the song called "Serre-moi", I speak about RIFF, one of the kurzweil PC3 functions which allows to play a full song or just an extract by simply playing one key ! Here, I use it to play a single chord.

Another example on another song, but this time, it's a 4 bars strings RIFF, and an other way to launch and stop it.

The use of a sampler, here an iphone with the impc app, to launch samples live.

I hope you liked it ! See you next week.

A making of a concert - Episode 5: The Day

Hi Everyone !

I had a problem with my phone, so I couldn't update this blog today. It's actually 2:30AM, and as this day is ending, let me tell you about the day of the concert.

A concert is the moment we all wait, it's the moment when we show everyone the work we have done during the past weeks (see the other posts about the making of a concert).
Tonight, no way to go wrong, everything is live, we can't make any mistakes !

Here's how I live a concert day:
First, I prepare all my gear for transport, making sure I don't forget anything. It's always embarrassing to miss something when in the venue.
Then...I load my car, that's not a very interesting work, and it could be very tiring depending of the gear I carry, but I don't have a choice.
I'm in the venue two to four hours before a show, and I always start...by unloading my gear into the venue.

Depending on how many bands play, the first to go on stage is the last to play. This way, the last band to do sound checks is ready to play when the doors open.
Today, two bands are playing, and we are the second one, so we start to install our gear.
Depending on the size of the stage, everyone has a place more or less imposed.

Once everyone found a place, we start to plug our gear, with the help of the sound engineer. There is patchbay on stage, it's a big box with inputs and outputs, directly plugged into the mixer, usually several meters away. This patchbay is important, because, as musicians, we only have to carry cables long enough to plug in this box. As the longer a cable is, the heavier it is, it's nice not to carry several 30 meters cables. Once everyone is plugged, we can start the soundcheck.

The sound engineer begins to set the level and the sound for each of the mixer's inputs. We usually start with the bass drum, but sometimes, we start by the first member ready...
Once the sound engineer found a sound which he finds correct, he switches to another input, and so on with every inputs, usually ending with vocals.

Once done, we start playing some pieces together, and ask the sound engineer to set our monitors. These monitors allow us to ear everyone correctly, and play well with the others. Depending on the venue, we could all share a few monitors, or we can have several monitors for each musician.
As a keyboard player, I always insist to have my own monitor, because unlike guitars, drums or bass, I don't have a sound without a monitor, so I really need one to ear myself (that's less important if I play an acoustic piano, of course).
While we play together, the sound engineer sets the audio levels of everyone in order for the audience to hear everything fine. It's almost never true, but it depends a lot of the venue, the placement of the audience, the acoustics of the room...

Once our soundcheck is done, it's the other band's turn. We leave the stage, trying to move the less gear as possible. The other band will then do the same thing as we just did, but it's usually faster, as everything has already been checked before, so the gain levels, inputs,...are basically the same.

You now know everything about the preparation for a concert. I will not post about the concert, because it's something to see, to hear, to live...so feel free to come and see us playing.
If you missed this one, you can also come next week, friday 13th, on another boat: La Dame de Canton.