Last night our band had the BEST rehearsal yet. It came off two terrible sessions, and a week of people wondering who is to blame, how to resolve the issues, emails being belted out, fielding and making calls etc etc.

I admit I've been guilty of getting into that loop and not preparing as much as I maybe could have. I'm guessing everyone went home and cleaned their own parts up so as not to be to blame this rehearsal :D

Anyway, last night we played 3 songs we never had before and I admit I didn't have all my parts ready and was going off chord sheets for some, one was a key change from A to A# and I kept reverting to the old key, could hear it clear as dogs balls etc.

And yet as a group timing wise etc we nailed a lot of the songs. After one run of songs I wasn't 100% sure on, my face and demeanour pretty much said what I was feeling when the musical director guitarist asked how we were feeling about things this week.

He noticed my long face and reluctance to offer negatives (a usual trait for me) then turned and asked "Did you play them right?". I said "no" assuming thats why he asked.

"Well, you sounded great to me I thought you were nailing them. I can see from your face you don't.

So ****** stop it you're ****** nailing the **** out of the songs so stop looking down or frustrated, crowds will pick up on it quicker than anything else".

That weirded me out! I could hear my mistakes clear as a bell all night, yet even on Hot Stuff when I finally asked why my C to D is clashing on every rendition (they play Bb to C over my wrong notes) they didn't pick problems out, thought I sounded fine and that the song was gig ready!

So I'm wondering if this might have been a confidence boosting attitude to take, or if they genuinely thought the bass was getting nailed.

I know you can't tell me since you weren't there, I guess I'm just venting a little before hitting the bass to tighten my parts up for next week :)

practice makes perfect... ;)

...or maybe that's just for meeting girl scouts, I dunno.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Waste of energy. Exploration and making mistakes are OK in rehearsal.

But I know what you're saying....sometimes it can weird you out. Sometimes I'll be playing like crap and ppl will be very complimentary. Other times I'll think I'm just nailing stuff and get a less than enthusiastic response. go figger

Be hard on yourself when you practice ALONE.

Relax and concentrate on playing WITH the other people when you are at practice. It is more important that you play with the drummer than if you play the part exactly like some other bass player. And it is more important that you concentrate on playing, not on not messing up.

Smile and enjoy yourself when playing in front of people no matter what happens. They will never know you made a mistake if you don't broadcast it out.

Sometimes a song comes over much better than you expect when you play it. I've played entire songs a fourth lower than I originally intended to, and had trouble convincing the rest of the band I messed it up. :p