One thing that astounds me about being a musician is performing solo. Why does this seem baffling, you may ask? After all, musicians practice their instruments alone or solo. I guess this comes from the perfectionism associated with being a musician. Playing solo reveals the human aspect of us that hates to be vulnerable. No one wants to be a laughing stock and the shame associated with it.
Performing solo almost feels like navigating a thin line between failure and success. You are naked on stage when playing solo. Yet, it is not why I have not performed solo in a while. I guess what keeps me from doing that is that in the last two years, I have been trying to book gigs for my trio and forgot about playing solo. Who knows, I may return to playing solo gigs and large ensembles.
This solo idea resurfaced because I have been practising and will soon record a solo album of me and my kalimbas. Maybe even add some vocals, who knows? I like the idea of leaving a lot of space to allow the music to breathe. While this is effortlessly achieved on the kalimba, it is quite difficult with the saxophone, except one uses a judicious amount of reverbs and delay to drown the sound.
Playing in a large acoustic space like a church or auditorium allows one to engage with the natural reverb. Such a large hall becomes a second musician, like playing a duet performance. By the way, my latest offering is a duet album to be released on the 24th of April. This album beautifully combines kora, voice, kalimba and saxophone. You can listen/buy the album on Bandcamp: Living | Iye Echa