I ran into a situation at a jam recently. I just got a set of musicians earplugs (15db cut) and have used them at practice in small room and love it...
Fast forward to jam. Me on stage with 4 people I've *never* seen much less played with before (unusual here!). I warn guitar player someone is going to have to tell me the key because I can't pick it up by ear. Sooooo singer starts and has no clue what key she's singing in so she can't tell me
(not to mention she was trying but was not in tune....) Guitar player starts playing along but he's using barre chords and errrrr I don't know how to read those. I give guitar player *lost bass player* look
and try to pick out the chords by ear.
Problem was, with the earplugs in, I'll be darned if I could hear the chords! I mean, I could hear them, but I couldn't follow them-make sense? However, I'm not sure if it was the earplugs' fault. I looked behind me and there was someone on the vibraphone....which I was stuffed up against. I love to play vibes...I hate standing in front of them... I watch vibe player and he was hitting pretty much every note on that thing
... full vibrato.
Ok....long story...Two questions here: do the musicians earplugs distort sound enough to not be able to pick out notes when a vibe player is wailing? Or is that just not humanly possible?
And second question....what's the polite thing to do in this situation? I am *not* a seasoned pro, I haven't gotten to the level of playing by ear. I need a hint..... key, chord progression, numeric chord progression, guitar player playing standard chord fingerings, chord chart, .....something. And the people running the jam know this... after two songs of this (which was all the singer knew...she tried
) the main gtr came on stage and then starts playing.... keep in mind I have ear plugs in so when he calls the changes I can't hear him and his facing to where I can't see his guitar. So now I'm way frustrated.....and feeling stupid... finally the drummer was able to tell me the changes (sad I know) and on song 4 and 5 they give me a hint *before* starting the song and it's off to the races and I keep up. But.......is there a polite way to ask to not be put in that situation again? I.e. someone on stage please tell bass player the key before song starts? I know the jam leader and can talk to him next time...just wondering how to say it!
Yes I know it's good for me...but I go to have fun not to look like a complete flaming idiot
...I'd never put a youngish player in a situation like that if it were me. To be fair, no one had a clue what singer was like. And perhaps the earplugs were to blame. Or the overzealous vibe player. But........
believe it or not everyone kept telling me what a good player I was....
