Playing Restaurants:

Dealing with Talking Audiences

©2000 By Mike Barris

AS NICE AS IT IS to get gigs where you are the star attraction, new performers usually start out playing coffeehouses, restaurants and bars - venues where your role is to furnish an appealing background for eating, drinking and chatting.

If your ego is tied into receiving applause from an audience, doing restaurants can be dismaying. Customers will appear as if they are ignoring you, talking and laughing through your show. Be mindful of one thing, though: Just because they're not applauding, it doesn't mean they dislike what you're doing.

Instead of seeking out the most obvious signs of audience contentment, such as applause, look for the more subtle signals: a foot patting in time here, a head bobbing in rhythm there. Maybe a quick look up from a plate of pasta. The thing to keep in mind is that you're there to enhance their pleasure. Any reinforcement you get beyond that (beyond your fee) should be regarded as gravy, so to speak.

Here are a few other points to consider when you’re doing restaurant gigs:

• The most important aspect of a restaurant performance is volume. No one likes to shout over a band while he orders dinner (this goes for waiters as well as patrons; the wait staff don't particularly enjoy having to scream at customers while they're describing the daily specials, either).

• Concentrate on your overall tone, rather than technique. The folks scarfing down those sushi-quality tuna entrees don't care about your fingerstyle fireworks as much as the overall ambience you're creating.

• Although your main job is to furnish background music, be open to possible changes in dynamics. You can go from being wallpaper to center stage if enough diners put out the vibe that they'd like to be entertained, which can happen once they've finished their meals. Some may even want to get up and join you. However, don't let a stranger into your act unless you're sure it will score points for you with management. The restaurant owner may be very picky about who he puts on his stage. If letting Joe Schmoe come up and sing a song, no matter how bad he is, will be appreciated by the boss, do it. If there's a chance such an invitation could backfire, don't.

• Finally, remember to treat customers with courtesy. Even if they're acting like jerks. What goes around comes around. If you give them a flawless, enjoyable evening, they will tell the manager. And that can only mean you'll receive the sweetest tip of all - a callback.

Well, there are a lot of reasons why people lose sight of dreams. The explanation could range from a lack of passion to bad timing; from money hassles to difficulty adapting to a particular lifestyle; from family issues to health problems. But the thing that usually separates a successful dreamer from a frustrated one is devotion. Life can toss a maelstrom of setbacks at us. But the successful person finds a way to stick to his goals, NO MATTER WHAT - even if the stock market crashes, California disappears into the Pacific and Britney Spears becomes president.

Anthony Robbins, the self-help author and motivational speaker, talks about the importance of taking action. "The difference in the results that people produce comes down to what they’ve done differently than others in the same situations," he writes in Awaken the Giant Within. "Different actions produce different results."

What determines what actions we take? Robbins asks. Decisions. "Everything that happens in your life – both what you’re thrilled with and what you’re challenged by - began with a decision." Robbins says he believes that "it’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. The decisions that you’re making right now, every day, will shape how you feel today as well as who you’re going to become" in the future.

A true decision means committing yourself to achieving a result, and then cutting yourself off from any other possibility, Robbins writes. (The word "decision," he points out, comes from the Latin roots de, which means from, and cadere, which means to cut.) Thus, when you truly decide to stop smoking, it’s final. You no longer even consider the possibility of smoking.

It’s the same thing with a musical goal. When you’ve taken stock of your skills and inclinations and determine how you want to be involved in music, there’s only one thing to do: get off the fence, and do it! After making a true decision, you’ll experience a tremendous sense of relief. "We all know how great it feels to have a clear, unquestioned objective," notes Robbins.

But how high should you aim? As high as you want. Remember, Robbins says, there are three decisions that control your destiny: 1. Your decisions about what to focus on. 2. Your decisions about what things mean to you. 3. Your decisions about what to do to create the results you desire. "If anyone is enjoying greater success than you in any area," he says, "they’re making these three decisions differently from you in some context or situation."

•Buy an instrument so irrestible that you will want to play it.

How well you, as a performer, handle paying customers will affect whether management asks you back.

Generally, if trouble breaks, take a deep breath and go with the flow.

If a three-year-old kid wanders onto the stage and starts dancing, play off his dance steps. Ask the audience to give it up for your "special guest." They’ll eat it up.

(Expect his people eventually to show up to take him off your hands.)

If some clown starts blowing harp from his seat three feet from you, burst his bubble.

Say, nicely, "I don’t remember giving you a part in my show. You must really be desperate."

If some wise guy starts calling out tunes you obviously don’t play, say, "Whoops, you must have come to the wrong show tonight. How unfortunate."

If a regular customer asks you to play a Beatles song but you don’t do Beatles music, tell him or her you’ll learn it and do it the next time you’re at the club. Then do just that.

If a goofy drunk comes up to the stage while you’re on break and starts fooling with your microphone to address his pals, either tell him to buzz off or call the bartender or manager to remove him.