Right place, wrong time

Yesterday I was having a dinner in a restaurant I the Ischia Porto. We went to a restaurant recommended to us by the staff in our B&B we are staying in. It was a lovely seafood restaurant, right next to many beautiful boats. We had dug into our food, when a man appeared kind of out of no where, and started to play guitar and sing some Italian songs.

I was thrown off-balance. I am a musician, and I should always do my best to support other musicians. But even before I managed to put it in to words in my head, two women sitting in the table just beside us started to complain about the music to one another. Obviously I couldn’t help my self to hear their views.

To them the music was too loud. It was just one man on an acoustic guitar… But I had to agree with them. He was standing, and the guitar was at the level of our ears. Don’t get me wrong, he was quite good. But even he was playing totally acoustic, as soon as he started, he killed all the conversation in the restaurant.

He performed three songs, went around the restaurant with a hat, collecting tips, and then moves on to the next restaurant. Even though on paper it all sounded like it should work, it really was a case of right place, wrong tine,

So here’s the thing. When you start planning your next show, ask your self, is your music the right fit for the venue? If it is not, you set your self to fail. The musician in question? I believe he could make it work much better if he would have kept the volume just a tad lower. He could have been a moody addition to the evening eating experience for the customers, rather than over powering everything.

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE