The day after the night before

The dust settled overnight from my gig yesterday. I like the fact that the feedback has been so positive. With that said, I was not as "pleased" about the show as many attendees were. On a scale of 1-10, I would give myself a 4. However, if I remove the "opening night jitters" as well as my still familiarizing myself with singing with a mic (again ... it's been 30 years), I would raise that to a 7.

The audience was 100% gringo, so I will take that as marching orders for next week. The only two songs I would consider doing for that mix are Bambaleo and Livin' la Vida Loca. I have done some experiments this morning and come to the following conclusions:

1. I was hesitant about sitting rather than standing as I did last night. There were two reasons for that ...
• The unit that plugs into my guitar (sending the signal to a partner plugged into the amp) is positioned on the guitar bottom, thereby making it prone to contacting my right leg. Not a problem in itself, but could be a nuisance during play.
• The practicing I had done since acquiring the equipment was all done standing, making a change to sitting at the last minute could have been a disaster
  
  
2. Having found the vocals too low, with both Bernie and my noticing, means I need to sing closer to the mic BUT even more so, belt out the vocals as if the mic were not there. If they become too loud/boomy, I would have to move away a bit from the mic. My theory on using a mic is it should receive normal voice tones/volumn and project. One should not sing into the mic, its playing the role of a projection mechanism.
   
   
3. The songbook must be in my line of sight or, at least, viewable while I play and sing by lowering my eyesight (rather than y head) no more than 5° from where it is naturally positioned. I found last night there were two things with my songbook that lowered my ability to be me (i.e., embellish, accent, and colour my vocals as per my style)
   
   
• I would lose concentration by looking up then back to the songbook ... I was easily losing track of where I was in the document
• I was struggling as a result. I am usually good at looking ahead,  being prepared by knowing what's coming next. In order to look ahead, I need to know where I am ad last night, sometimes I lost that marker when I looked away from the lyrics. A few times it was so bad that, let's say I was ⅓ of the way through a song. When I looked away then back, I lost my pivot point and found myself at the ½ way point thereby missing some part of the lyrics. It would be like saying to someone ...  We hope to arrive by 5:30 but if not, please start without us ... and they heard ... We hope to, but if not ... us

I have reorganized my first two sets already. I still have some hyperlinks to put in place as navigation around the document is crucial when used during a gig. I have my work cut out for me moving forward. All in all it was a good experience, the feedback has been positive, and live and learn.

Playing bridge online with a player supposedly much more experienced than I. Her profile says be polite and she has been just that. What a concept ... an advanced player who offers no unwanted advice. Rare ...