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About how many songs do you sing per hour?  Say, for an three gig or a four hour gig.

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Are you talking about the KJ personally or how many songs CAN be sung in a three or four hour show.
From the KJ spectrum, it would depend on the amount of singers I had.  If I had 8-10 singers, I wouldn't have sung.  If I had 8 to 10 singers and using two machines, keeping music back to back and no pause in between music - (which gives your crowd more chances to sing), then approxmately 15 songs per hour.  A few more or less, if the next up doesn't lygag around and starts when song starts.   AND someone didn't put the dreaded "Paradise By The Dashboard Lights"  in.  Using two to three mics helps keep the night flowing rapidly.
However there have been nights when the crowd didn't start coming in until 9:30 or 10:00.  Those nights, myself, or who ever happened to be working would start singing and maybe do 5 songs or so until they (singers) got their liquid courage up to put their songs in.  Maybe a few more from the KJ until there were a rotation to be had.  Once the singers started, we usually quit.  But there were also nights when we strictly did Karaoke where we would of sang for two hours if need be.  I learned from someone real fast that you better know a lot of songs, and have a good variety to sing.  I know of someone that can sing for four hours straight if they had to.   It was strictly Karaoke back then.   But if it keeps that crowd coming back and is more Karaoke than not, I will do what it takes and play music.  As I said before though, I'll use a multiplex disc for the music sometimes.  Let them see the words on the screen.  They initially all want to sing that song.   More and more KJ's are DJing too now.  Not sure I like it.  But we do what we have to do.

Depends on the nights.  Our Friday/Saturday nights, your considered lucky to sing 2 songs - 4 1/2 hours.

Other nights you can get as many as 5 songs on avg.

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Well since I do the dinner thing at the Marina, I tend to do the first set pretty much solo, about 30 mins or so. Since it's an older crowd, I'll do the soft rock/standards/lounge  stuff, keeping it lowkey, more of a background kinda thing. It actually helps me to warm up the voice and a good non-intrusive way of letting the audience get to know me. I get a lot of compliments for doing this from both management and guest.

After dinner, the younger crowd starts to come in and I pick up the tempo a bit.
I'll do a couple of tunes, just to re-introduce myself to the newer audience making sure that the books and signup slips are getting passed around. After that, I just go with the flow of the audience and the show usually takes care of itself.
The only time I'll ever sing after that is if someone ask me to back them up, or I get a request or things start to bog down and I need to pick up the tempo/mood of the show a bit.
My situation is a bit different from what most of you folks are doing since the place is viewed more as a restuarant than being a bar, you would just kinda have to be there to know what I'm talking about. For me it's less stress, less drunks, great tips.  But please don't think that I'm being negative in any fashion towards the bar only shows, after all I'm just starting out and this has turned out to be a great way to learn the trade and polish up my skills as a KJ and Singer. I'm sure after time, when I've become more confident in what I'm doing, I'll want to branch out. But like the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

James
Maninblack

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I serve no man and am loyal to only one God.

Being critical of a person's success in any respect speaks volumes about the lack of your own.

Love as though you've never been hurt, Dance as though no one's watching, Sing as though God Himself were listening.

14-15 years ago most of the songs were 3 minutes or under.   The rotation went faster.    20-24 singers per hour.    Now I count each song at 4- 4 1/2 minutes.    Rotation is now down to 14- 18 singers.   Mostly the lower number.   Now most country songs are 4-5 minutes long.    Not counting American Pie at 8 minutes 36 seconds.    Someone always wants to turn that one in at 30 minutes to go til quitting time.    Screws up everything.

No matter how fast the kj is with the rotation, here you will be lucky to have 10 singers up in an hour. Local songs here are mostly more than 5min, usualy 6+min

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

I've only done a few shows as a KJ but my experience thus far has been that it takes awhile for people to start putting their slips in.   So we sing until that begins to happen.  

We start having people up to sing as soon as we get the first slip.  If there aren't any more after that for awhile then we start singing again.  We generally take a short break about halfway through the show.  To this point, at least, we've each done a song after the break as a lead-in to more songs by the singers who are there.

Each show we have done so far has been at a different venue so it's been a different crowd and things have gone differently.  At this point we're really learning how to manage the rotation and keep things moving.  I imagine once we get a little more "maturity" to our show it will be a bit less harrowing and a bit more fun.

!!!!!PLEASE KEEP THE REMARKS ABOUT MATURITY TO A MINIMUM!!!!!  It's been a tough morning so far and I'm not prepared to make any kind of witty retort other than the hackneyed old one about, "there may be snow on the roof but there's still fire in the furnace."  :D

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

Boy I'm guessing here, but I would say I sing 1 or 2 in the beginning of the night (once a rotation). After that I don't sing at all if it is busy or unless someone hands me money to sing. I really want to get as many singers in as possible. But if someone hands me a twenty, you don't have to twist my arm, I will sing.  LMAO
It really depends on the night. If I can't get the mood back up with the singers I have, I will sing something to bring it back up to where it needs to be. I'm not bragging here. It mainly is song choice not the singer.

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I am going to go out on a limb here. I may be reading the question wrong but to me I am reading it that you're a singer or someone you know is a singer and you want to know how many songs most solo singers sing each hour if they have a three to four hour gig?

If that is your question, I will tell you how it was years ago when I lived in Miami and I'd do private parties or go out and watch my friends perform. We always figured roughly 12 songs per set (set lasting roughly an hour), three sets per night, but we also did what felt right for each gig. You'll learn to know what is and isn;t right.

Twelve songs doesn't seem like much but when you add in talking and joking between songs, you pretty much have just enough time for 12 songs. The problem with doing only 12 songs per hour is that your talking and joking between songs better be entertaining, if not then you lose people. If you look out and see boredom running through the crowd you better get on with the next song. Back when I performed I figured 12 songs per hour but was always prepared to do more if I had to. I was lucky in that I thought I was quite the wannabe comedian back then and could entertain people trying to be funny but not really being funny.

Thanks Country,

That's exactly what I needed to know.  I have a gig in an hour so I can't go into details but I'd like to finish this post later - I've found that being a singer is the easy part - being an entertainer, well that's another matter.  I sing from 6 to 10pm friday and saturday nights.  I was singing on sunday but it was just too much for me.  
Thanks.

                                   Jackson

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Singing just for you

When GiGI and I had a show we used to be able to get about 80 singers into 6 hours. That included playing dance tunes two or three times a night to help get the energy up. That works out to about 53 singers in 4 of those hours. The rotation was long so the singers wanted us to get through to them asap.

Chuck

i think i maxed out at 17 singers one hour. most i ever heard of is 21.

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[glow=darkorchid]Musica delenit bestiam feram[/glow]

It looks like I misinterpreted your question.

When my duo performs we do a four hour show that includes 3 one hour sets with 2 half hour breaks.

Our set list has 20 songs per set.  If we have a good crowd we may do 16 or 17 songs per set because we do a lot of silly stuff between songs-joking with the crowd, prepared bits, etc.  On a slow night we sometimes do go through all 20 songs in a set.

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

Presently, I'm singing about sixty different songs a night.  My only salvation is that the crowd completely changes every forty-five minutes or so.  Even then I hate singing the same song more than once a night.  So I'm trying to put more songs in as fast as possible.  I usually sing for forty-five minutes and then take a break for fifteen minutes.  If there's a large crowd I'll just keep singing until the crowd thins out.  I'm not sure how everybody else handles their breaks.  The owner doesn't seem to have a problem with whatever I decide.  Fantastic Owner.

If anyone has any pointes feel free to offer them.  I need all the help I can get.

                                                Jackson

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Singing just for you