As a freshman, Maia M. ’27 went into Cafe Zoe in Menlo Park, guitar in hand, for Open Mic night. After performing a small set of songs, she approached the restaurant manager to ask about performing there regularly—and thus began Maia’s gigging career.
“I have loved performing ever since I was little,” said Maia, now a junior. “Finding opportunities for people to perform casually really opened my eyes to the fact that it was possible for me to book myself places and become my own manager.”
Maia is just one of Nueva’s student musicians who perform gigs across Bay Area venues. You can find Julian D. ’28 on occasion at Yoshi’s, a renowned jazz venue in Oakland. Lauren J. ’28, Finn R. ’27, and Walter A. ’28 are a regular jazz trio at San Mateo’s Cuban Kitchen—just around the corner from campus—and San Francisco’s Old Skool Cafe. The sophomore rock band Revolve are making their mark on local fairs in Hillsborough and Burlingame. While these students play across a wide range of instruments and genres, they share the common experiences that gigging provides: a mic on a stage, an audience of strangers, and a lot of dead air to fill.
The process of booking a gig is often the first challenge. While Maia usually cold emails venues she’s interested in performing at, other musicians develop relationships through former bandmates and mentors.
“Musicians who have already been getting gigs then pass [them] down, and once I start getting older, [I’ll] pass it down to the next group of Bay Area musicians,” Julian said.
Performing live also gives them an invaluable lesson in developing their stage presence and the ability to move on and keep the show going, even when mistakes happen.
“I’ve learned that nothing will ever go my way,” Walter said. “Once [I] get up on stage, everything is diminished. [I’ve] got to deal with the nerves.”
On Jan. 23, Walter, Lauren, and Finn played together at Old Skool Cafe. With nobody on drums, it was left to Walter’s bass guitar to keep up the trio’s rhythm section and tempo. Ultimately, the performance was a success.
“I was nervous, and I just had to hope for the best,” Walter reflected. “We were pretty underprepared, but I think that might’ve been my favorite [gig], just because of how in tune all the members of the band were with each other.”
Later on in the hour-and-a-half-long set, Lauren’s voice briefly choked as she started coughing.
“Two years ago that would have torn me up. I would not have been able to focus,” Lauren said. “But instead, Walter started laughing at me, I started laughing with him, and then I just came back in on the next one and it was totally fine.”
Gigs can range from 30 minute sets to as long as three hours, creating a challenging test of musical endurance.
“I’ve learned how to build a set of songs that make it feel like a marathon and not a sprint,” Maia said. “I try to distribute the high-intensity, high-effort songs sparsely throughout my set instead of putting them all together.”
For Lauren, the nature of jazz allows for a similar strategy, since songs can be stretched out through additional solos, riffs, or improvisation in order to fill time. However, on occasion, the setting can limit a musician’s control over pacing.
“It depends on the vibes of the place,” Lauren said. “At Cuban Kitchen, we’d do something that’s like swing or bossa nova, because that’s more upbeat. There’s more feel to it, there’s more vibrancy in it.”
The audience also plays a key role in deciding the set for a gig. Often, musicians have to consider the balance between their own musicianship and the kinds of songs that please a crowd.
“We try to pick diverse songs,” said Ayda D. ’28, who plays drums for Revolve. “For the Guild [Theatre], we want to do one song that’s relatively complex that we’re really proud of the musicality of, and [another] that’s fun and engaging.”
Maia, who began promoting her music on Instagram this year, now has to adapt to the constant feedback of social media algorithms.
“On the stage, there’s an implication that you already have people’s attention. On social media, the need to immediately grab and earn their attention was a mindset shift for me,” she said.
Maia found that iterative testing using social media helped her in revising and completing her latest single, “Signal,” released on Spotify on Feb. 7.
Many of these student musicians are unsure what role music will play in their long-term future. For Julian, it’s the joy of playing at this moment in his life that matters most.
“I’m not sure if I will fully pursue music, but right now it’s really nice to be able to get paid for something that’s actually really fun to do,” he said.
