Room 01 · The set
The set: how a small-room show is built
How a short acoustic set is built: the time budget of a twenty minute slot, the order of the songs, and what the first number is really for.
A short set is a container with a fixed size. Twenty minutes is twenty minutes whether the songs are three or five, and every decision inside that container is a trade: one more song against one less thing said, one more tuning pause against one more verse. This room treats the set as arithmetic first and taste second, because the arithmetic is the part that can be checked before the night.
The two notes here take the two halves of the problem. The first counts what a twenty minute slot actually holds once tuning, talk and the walk to the stool are subtracted, and gives the table to redo the count with your own song lengths. The second looks at order, and at the one decision that shapes the rest of the set: how loud the show starts.
What this room assumes
One performer or two, no monitor, an audience close enough to hear a chair move, and a slot fixed by somebody else. The advice changes completely when a crew, a stage and a support act appear, and the notes say so where it matters.
Room 01
In this room
The notes of this room, most recent first.
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· The set
Why the first song is never the loudest
Three numbers are unknown at the first note and known by the third song: absorption, noise floor, carry to the back row. This note works all three, and places the loudest song where the room can carry it.
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· The set
What a twenty minute set actually holds
A twenty minute slot is 1200 seconds, and what fits inside it can be counted before the night. The desk works the walk, the songs and the gaps, and prices every minute of talking.
Two neighbouring rooms carry the same question further: The writing and The instrument. How the desk works is written in the editorial policy.