David's Tip of the Day: I'm lost... what do I do now? Part 2 (Choosing a Song: New Player)

If this is your first performance, I recommend that you choose a song that's not difficult for you to play. This way your mind is not focused on "can I play this difficult passage," but on the performance itself and all the x-factors involved. X-factors are the elements you cannot control... your environment, the musicians, how well you can hear yourself, how the amp sounds and all the other stimulus that's involved in performance.

Here are some more elements to consider in selecting a song. It's good if you choose a song with...

1) A Common Groove: Shuffle, swing, slow blues, Mojo beat, rhumba, Tramp groove, etc. The shuffle is usually the wisest choice, since the majority of songs you'll study are shuffles (this will help down the road when we speak of how to deal with getting lost in the middle of a song).

2) A Medium Tempo: Slow blues are difficult to play in time and faster grooves may run away from you quickly (most students tend to count faster grooves too fast and bands have a tendency to speed up over the duration of a song in faster grooves).

3) Space: The use of space in a song gives you an opportunity to stay in time better (each space helps you to recalibrate your rhythm), keep your lips moist and swallow built up spit in the mouth (which is a problem when no rest is present).

4) Standard Opening & Ending: This makes it easy to explain, count in and signal at the end.

Take a look at "Temperature" in the Tongue Block Study 2 lesson. This is the most common song I have students choose for their first performance... it has all of these elements.