Many musicians starting in their career will play a dive bar or two at some point. The experience is twofold – the musician gets used to playing with people right in front of them at eye level, and the audience gets a close, intimate look and feel of an up-and-coming player.
Lady Gaga, star of this past weekend’s Super Bowl halftime performance, started her career playing small dive bars in New York under her given name of as Stefani Germanotta. YouTube has several clips of her in NYC – watch a clip of her performing from a decade ago here.
Before the SuperBowl, Lady Gaga said her approach to playing the Super Bowl performance was to sing like “she was playing in a dive bar”. By this, she meant she was going to reach out and connect with as many people as she could, and show the intimate side of her, even though she knew she was playing for millions of viewers on TV and the Internet. She’s had this philosophy for a while, even naming her Fall 2016 tour “The Dive Bar Tour”.
Indeed, she performed in dive-bar fashion for the world in a fantastic production that saw her singing on a roof and amidst flames of fire. The lavish production had hundreds of choreographed dancers helping Gaga create an immense pop spectacle.
Gigging and practicing musicians today can learn a lesson or two from Lady Gaga’s show. She reminded viewers of the art of hard work in entertaining the crowd, and that with much rehearsal, a performance can go seamlessly. Clearly, she didn’t want to have any kind of Mariah Carey New Year’s Eve snafu. Gaga’s crew were rehearsed beyond belief to get it right.
Rehearsal, practice and sweat can make musicians go a long way. We help all musicians get better with their craft, from beginner students to more advanced players. Musicians can find the help they need at our studios, with our guitar lessons in Scottsdale.
If you’ve got the time and energy to work on lessons for piano, singing, performance, guitar or drums, then Scottsdale Music Academy is your place to be. Our instructors work in group or individual settings to hone your natural talents and bring out your undiscovered talents as well. And our instructors have all played in dive bars to larger venues as well, so you can get a good teaching experience.
We’re Scottsdale’s leading music instruction academy in Scottsdale, between Scottsdale Road and Hayden Road. Find out more at our website. Call Scottsdale Music Academy on 602-751-3527 for a free lesson and intro tour.