Mistakes heard

[Cz93]

How many of you hear mistake in profesional recording with huge bands and either just didnt catch it at the time or didnt care to fix it? Im just wondering because i hear a few very faint ones at time to time and i was wondering some examples.. thank you

[Lazylion]

Well, live recordings are often full of mistakes, so would you care to limit this to studio albums?

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Two examples come to my mind:

- The final A chord of "Rock And Roll All Nite", as recorded on Kiss' "Alive!", features Gene Simmons playing a D instead of an A. I'm pretty sure that he picked the wrong string.

- On Rush's debut album, the main theme of "Here Again" has some eighth notes that are played by Alex Lifeson as "straight 8ths" while Geddy plays them as "swing 8ths". The drums also have a swing feel. I don't know if that incongruence was intentional or not, but anyway it has always sounded definitely wrong to me.

[gjbassist]

A song that immediately comes to mind is "Everybody Wants Some" by Van Halen. Dave starts singing and the guitar comes in over him, then he starts the same verse again. If it is intentional it sounds like a screw up to me!

[K'Ching]

I remember hearing Flea make a mistake on the studio version of "give it away".

[JimmyM]

Listen to almost any album and you'll hear a handful of mistakes at least. I've heard everything from slightly sloppy playing to full-blown clams. Some of those mistakes have turned songs into magic.

[So Low Bass]

Mistakes are part of being human, part of what really happens when we do ANYTHING, including playing.

One of My favorite "mistakes" is a recording of Beethoven's 8th Symphony with Solti and Chicago. In the first movement, measures 380-385 if I remember, a ringing telephone can clearly be heard.

Today's productions can give us UNreal productions.

[nysbob]

Some things sound like mistakes, but then you wonder....

Paul plays a very bizarre piano chord in the last verse of Let It Be - it can go right past you if you aren't listening for it - and I've always wondered if it was intentional or a flub.

[Matt R.]

Allman Bros live version of One Way Out. Berry train wrecks when coming back into the verse after the drum solo/break.

[Unrepresented]

What defines a "mistake?"

You can find a "mistake" in anything depending on how broad you make your definition. Is it a deviation in pitch? In rhythm? In enunciation?

A lot of the stuff I listen to has issues with vocal pitch, syncopation of the rhythm, stray notes here and there, but it adds character. Autotuning Lemmy wouldn't improve Motorhead. Citing Jimi (or Jimmy for that matter) for bending a semitone out of key misses the point.

Some stuff makes me wince, some stuff makes me appreciate the "rawness" it's all in the presentation.

[funkybass4ever]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Listen to almost any album and you'll hear a handful of mistakes at least. I've heard everything from slightly sloppy playing to full-blown clams. Some of those mistakes have turned songs into magic.

+1 great point and some perfectly contucted and played music can be very forgettable as well

[fokof]

On older recordings , you very often hear the spliced tape.
One very noticable is Weather report's Night passage.

[fokof]

At the very end of Genesis's Suppers ready , there are loads of em in the last two minutes or so , but the one on the fade out , I never understood why they left it there..... (on the Taurus)

[Craig_S]

Listen to the bass line to Maggie May. It sounds like a first take improv that was left in. It's still absolutely wonderful.

[groooooove]

Originally Posted by nysbob

Some things sound like mistakes, but then you wonder....

Paul plays a very bizarre piano chord in the last verse of Let It Be - it can go right past you if you aren't listening for it - and I've always wondered if it was intentional or a flub.

i usually would think its intentional to hear a dissonant chord from a piano player, but thats because i really only listen to jazz, where thats key.. since paul was not much of a virtuoso on the piano, i'm inclined to believe it may be a mistake.

[jmattbassplaya]

It`s only a mistake if the artist says it is...

... otherwise it`s just jazz

[p0werslav3]

Don't know if this is classified as a "mistake" but listen to the beginning of Black Country Woman off Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti.

You can hear a plane flying overhead. I think I read somewhere that they decided to leave it on the recording instead of doing it over.

[WJGreer]

There's a tune on the Mike Stern "Upside Downside" CD with Jaco on bass. It's called "Mood Swings" and it's awesome. But, it starts with a vamp, and Jaco definitely tries to move to the head before everyone else does. I love it!

He switches early from the double stop feel he plays in the vamp to the 2 beat form he uses behind the head, but only for about three beats until he hears it and goes back to the vamp. They all go to the head 8 bars later.

[WJGreer]

Originally Posted by Unrepresented

What defines a "mistake?"

In this context - when someone plays something other than what they meant to.

Note - after making that mistake, they may decide to play it that way forever thereafter, at which point it would no longer be a mistake.

[WJGreer]

Originally Posted by Alvaro Martín Gómez A.

- On Rush's debut album, the main theme of "Here Again" has some eighth notes that are played by Alex Lifeson as "straight 8ths" while Geddy plays them as "swing 8ths". The drums also have a swing feel. I don't know if that incongruence was intentional or not, but anyway it has always sounded definitely wrong to me.

My bet is that, at that point in his career, Lerxst did not understand what swung 8ths were. He just played what he thought was right.