Why You Should Be Playing Shows Even if You Don’t Have a Band Yet

Just go out and play acoustically. If your songs are strong, they will still work.

There are 3 benefits to doing this

1) It's an amazing practice. You need to be more comfortable on stage doing your music than in your own home. Even if you feel like your stage presence and comfort level is *decent* – I guarantee you still need more reps (10,000 hours or whatever you wanna call it) to get to a level of effortlessness you need for lasting success.

2) You'll meet real people – possibly future bandmates. Nothing beats meeting people in your town/scene than in person. You can't build the same level of connection personally or professionally just by following and liking someone else's stuff on Instagram.

3) You'll find out REALLY quickly which songs are strong and which need work. If the song sucks on just an acoustic – it's time to fix it! A good song is a good song regardless of how you dress it up.

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An addendum to why you shouldn't rest on arrangement for songs to work – it reminds me of something Jerry Seinfeld said about writing jokes. He talks about how your on-stage-persona/energy/etc is just icing on the cake to the core of the joke “You can put all kind of furniture [in a house], but you still have to have steel in the walls.”