by Norm Strauss

One of the things that I am happy to be involved with at TribeHouse is our efforts in developing house concert networks. Eventually we want to build something that we can use to help other singer/songwriters. Over the last 6 years or so, I have performed hundreds of house concerts. The simplicity of that kind of setting often helps me get back in touch with the reason I wanted to write songs in the first place and why I spent hours trying to learn how to play like James Taylor (never quite made it there).

Back then, in the early 80’s, all my friends wanted to be big hair rock stars and I just wanted to write a song like Paul Simon. It was because I wanted to be able to tell a story. I wanted to connect. I wanted to see where that would take me when I did.
Then came all that other stuff; trying to get record deals, publishing, the exhausting and constant self promotion not to mention the absurd measuring stick of how big a room I can fill.

A house concert feels like none of that. It’s way natural, way simple. I like it when it’s simpler, when the costs are less, when the rooms are smaller, when the communication is clear and the joy is obvious.

I love what Corin Raymond, Toronto singer/songwriter says in his liner notes of his second album, ‘There Will Always Be a Small Time’:

“The walls of the music industry as we’ve known it are coming down, the old fortresses are crumbling, and as they do, the Small Time, like a garden growing wild and green, is taking over. Songs are finding their own way to travel, to find their listeners.They do it online. They move by campfire, by kitchen, by guitar pull. They travel from artist to artist and from audience to audience. They take to the air like dandelion seeds. Nowadays some of the best songs being written, anywhere, by anyone, are being sold out of the trunks of cars. ….”

– Corin Raymond  |  www.corinraymond.com

So true.

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Check out Home Routes to more about home concerts, what they entail and how to host one in your home.