When they tell you you're good, when you're really bad!

now i have been working as the sound guy in 2 clubs for the past what 6 years and i have seen tons of bands play live

ive also been playing the guitar for an eternity, and know what yall been talking about regarding the "craftsmanship" side...

but being the sound guy, where you can always see the audience, and hear what they say about the bands in between songs or after a show is sometimes really weird.

its 100% true that musicians listen to music differently...i have mixed bands that i totally loved because they were really great musicians, had great arrangements and so on...but the audience thought they were pretty boring ...

on the other hand i have seen bands up on stage that i thought should be locked into their rehearsal room for at least another ten years...and the audience loved them ...
i'm guessing that there are a lot of people that appreciate the "emotion" or "energy" or even simply "innovation" a lot more than the musicianship, which almost all musicians tend to pay very close attention to

you prolly also know those types ... the band just played an awesome show, everybody was stagediving and crow surfing ... gettin naked ... ehm yeah...
but theres this grumpy guitar player in the audience wholl tell everybody that the guitar player in the band played the wrong chord in bar 17 of song no 9 ... :)

i beg you : dont be that guy ! try to distance yourself as much as you can from the mere observing of technical issues... it will not only get on everybody's nerves, you'll simply enjoy the music less and less !

this also is true when listening to music at home...dont turn off the cd right away because the guitar player wasnt doing anything you can't do in the first 20 seconds...if you absolutely have to analyze everything, see what's good or different about the music or try to look for other interesting elements, maybe the drummer will play the wickedest hihat figures ever ! even if you totally detest the music ... try to find out why you hate it, and avoid that in your own playing

by the way ... i'm not saying, if youre performing yourself that you should by all means play sloppy or not give a damn about technical issues ... but even if you think you played a real crappy gig...learn from your mistakes, dont dwell on them, look what was good about your or your bands performance and just be better next time...i dont think there is one serious musician on this planet that is as good as they want to be...its a given ... you can / should / will always improve !

but dont let that perfectionist thinking get in your way ! i know a couple of guys who never play live because theyre always saying "we're not quite ready yet" and they never will be ...

thats enough for right now i think :)

ike

[Edited by supercoolslides on 01-28-2004 at 05:10 AM]

If i ever get a band going i will never think i'm ready to play live unill i can play every song we have done 50 times without getting a note wrong.

50 times, yeah well thats cool...

those guys have been playing every song like 200 times...

what im saying is...even if you played the entire set 50 times perfectly...if you listen to recordings of the first times, they will prolly sound weaker...and if you keep practicing them another 50 times, they will get better...so if you listen to recording 51 it will again sound weaker than recording 102 :)

but ... some people tend to write 20 songs, practice them forever...then they get bored by their own songs, write new ones, practice them until they get again bored, write new songs again...so they get stuck in this eternal "we can do better " loop

im thinking...playing a song live will help you discover what needs work a 100 times quicker than playing it over and over again in the rehearsal room...

especially considering what has been said earlier about the audience (which are no musicians) ...

sometimes you practice a song for years until you can play it perfectly, finally presenting it to the audience to blow them away...only to find out that this particular song is the most boring number they ever heard and a good excuse to get a beer :)

i'm not saying write music to please others...this approach prolly wont work...if you really feel you must play a certain piece live, go ahead. but if its just a song thats technically challenging...prolly no one will care you play the most sophisticated ish if the song doesnt kick some serious butt...so sometimes its best to just throw out a song that no one wants to hear...use it to practice...but dont wait to go on stage until you can play everything you ever wanted to play...that will be never !

just my opinion :)

First time I ever played in front of anyone (and last time) was for my school's talent show. Me and a few friends of mine started putting things together and we kept re-writing the song we were gonna play. The night before the show we completely re-wrote the whole song from scratch (in less than 2 hours) and ended up from an acoustic song to a dual bassist song. Come time to play the song in front of the people, the first time around was good, second show I completely missed the strings in my slap solo. Did anyone notice? Hell no. They were too busy cheering and trying to catch the shirts we were throwing out in the audience. I might've cared more so about the missing of the strings had nothing happened afterwards, but girls began actually talking to me (that's good for my reputation) so I figured we must've done something right. That was awesome. Can't wait until I actually get a band started and start doing that stuff again.

Everytime we play something goes wrong especially with my amps. I mean just friday my 3 month old amp cut out mid set but the thing is we're always told that we were the best band on because things screw up but it's almost part of the charm of the performance. I guess people can relate to you more if you do screw up because they do it too so you kinda become the people's band or something

Originally posted by SuperCoolSlides

sometimes you practice a song for years until you can play it perfectly, finally presenting it to the audience to blow them away...only to find out that this particular song is the most boring number they ever heard and a good excuse to get a beer :)

You occasionally see a band so practiced up that it's pretty much the radio but it's so boring. I mean, they've got to be boring people to practice a song up that much. Being tight is not being perfect to the point of tears.

I think the way you present yourself makes the main impression on the audeince. I mean you can have Vai on stage, but if he looks like he's having a crap time so will the audience. Then again you can have some 12 year old on stage attempting smells like teen spirit and having a great time and it'll kick ass.

If I have a bad gig I just keep smiling and don't concentrate on the bad note I just hit, just concentrate on the good one I hit afterwards.

- J

Yeah, and even if you dooooo hit that occasional bad note, unless you make a big deal about it (make a face, or look terrified at what you've done) 99 times out of 100 the audience will never know.

So just ignore it if you mess up and I guarantee that hardly anyone will notice....unless your playing a song EVERYONE is familiar with note for note. Example: Intro to Sweet Home Alabama, if you mess up there, you're probably going to get called on it, but if it's a song you wrote, just ignore it!!! :D

Considering that I'm a newbie to guitar playing it's no surprise that this happenes to me all the time. Most of the stuff I have been playing is classical music so of course it sounds great but I probably screw up 1 out of every 30 notes. My wife and friends all say wow that sounds great, meanwhile I'm cringing in my head every 20 seconds.
I know most people are being nice and saying that it sounds great but I hate it when it happens when I know I am playing like **** at the time.

Even if people know that you've done some bad notes, or if you've hit a bad note on the beginning to sweet home alabama (although I hope not) then they'll still think it was great and give you respect for being on stage or playing in front of so many people.

It's ok for people who are naturally meant to be on stage I guess, but I get damn nervous. Even more so if im playing something easy, because then it's even worse if you screw up. At least if your doing fast sweeping or legato or something it's not as bad if you screw up a few notes.

- J

When a musician can admit that they stunk but still got acclaimed. Then they are to be admired. The reason is if you think you stink, you will do anything to fix it. And if the audience think that you were good, with all you corections, you will make them skeptical.

Also, if the audience has not really been in a band themselfves, then they will respect you. <<<
Though I bet now you are some great guitar player now. :)

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I'll share a little trick I use if and when I'm playing for someone. If you screw something up, and feel you must make a pissed off/upset face about it, just close your eyes and everyone will just think you're really getting into the song.....and then after you think about how you just made this real serious "getting into it" face through part of a song that is everything but serious/emotional, you'll probably laugh at how silly you must have looked and forget about the screw up.

That's a good one :D

I just did a gig last wednesday and my other guitarists damn guitar broke and we had to wait 10 minutes between a song for it to get fixed. I did a tapping lick to keep everyone interested, and it kicked ass, but then the last note I landed on was 1 fret too high and it sounded awful! But I had to let it ring so people thought I meant to do it, it was in front of about 500 people too, im sure my face was amusing to look at when I did it :p

- J

Well if you landed 1 fret to high, you can easely slide back to the fret you ment to land on. They will find it's a slide, no-one will notice ;) But that only works if you react very quikely ofcourse, otherwise it would sound weird.

The whole point is (if somebody else hasn't mentioned it):

If you seem to have fun on the stage and if you really shows how glad you are and if you have a good contact to the audiance, they will like it although you play wrong as hell.

If you goes up to the stage, bored and doesn't look happy or excited but play better than you have ever done before, the audience won't come up to you and say how good you played.

Performing music isn't ONLY technique, it's feelings, emotions and much deeper body languages. If you aren't motivated, which you may feel although you're a pro, the Whole (which I mean the ensemble of feelings, emotions, charisma AND technique) won't work.