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10-20-2008, 09:47 AM
| | Reserved for future witty use... | | | | | Cramming songs to not play them
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Thursday we met up with a four piece harmony group. They wanted to scout us to back them for a handful of tunes at a private party in some club around town. They dug us, we knew 2 of the songs they wanted, so they booked us to play and gave us a list of 6-9 songs to learn including the 2 we knew. (I forget the exact count.)
I was excited because they were all Motown tunes, with the exception of one, and they were all Jamerson lines. Not to mention they were songs I dug. So I spent hours on Friday, and all day Saturday learning the lines, licks, getting the feels right and memorizing the forms before the gig.
Gig comes, we play by ourselves for an hour or so. Break, play another 3 songs, then up comes the harmony guys. We get going, open with a tune we knew (Get Ready), move on to another tune we knew (My Girl), play one of the new tunes (Tracks of my Tears), then they're done.
***? I just spent pretty much all of my free time cramming on these songs to make sure I nailed them, and we play ONE of 'em. 
Meh, at least I have some more songs in my arsenal. 
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The bassist formally known as Just J. My site. |
10-20-2008, 11:58 AM
|  | Registered User | | Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: West Covina (LA), SoCal | | | Were you paid?
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Sat June 9th @ Shamrocks in Chino Hills - 10pm
Bassist - Veg#33, Buddhist#11, LGBT#5
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10-20-2008, 12:17 PM
| | Reserved for future witty use... | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by MatticusMania  Were you paid? | oh yea, of course. No worries on that front...
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The bassist formally known as Just J. My site. |
10-20-2008, 12:21 PM
|  | Regal User | | Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Orange County, CA | | | better to learn songs and not play them than to not learn songs and play them
plus you got paid, so it could have been a lot worse |
10-20-2008, 12:24 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2006 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland | | | It happens man. I know its frustrating but that kinda thing happens alot. Brush it off, its a gig, you learnt some new songs and got the chance to play.
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Black Musicman Stingray 4H > Mesa/Boogie Big Block 750 > Aguilar GS212
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10-20-2008, 12:56 PM
|  | Evil Alien | | Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Sacramento, CA | | | That kind of thing happens in many/most lines of work, not just for musicians. It can be infuriating when your efforts (and somebody's budget) are wasted; but if what you get paid in the end is worth it, then it's just part of the game that you have to try and get used to.
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Hollowbody Bass Club #121, Hondo Club #002, Official Short Scale Bass Club #018, Short-Scale Six-String Bass Club #001, Epiphone Club #010, can't recall what other clubs I'm a member of here...
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10-20-2008, 01:02 PM
| | Reserved for future witty use... | | | | Quote:
Originally Posted by lunarpollen That kind of thing happens in many/most lines of work, not just for musicians. It can be infuriating when your efforts (and somebody's budget) are wasted; but if what you get paid in the end is worth it, then it's just part of the game that you have to try and get used to. | Indeed, it isn't the first time this has happened. I think I was more pissed on this occasion because I spent so much time over the course of 2 days working on them, and because I was REALLY looking forward to playing them. They're all tunes I grew up listening to and had fun playing when I was working on them.
I found the list, for the record, they were:
My Girl
Get Ready
Ain't Too Proud to Beg
You're My Everything
The Way You Do the Things You Do
The Tracks of My Tears
Backstabbers
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The bassist formally known as Just J. My site. |
10-20-2008, 02:30 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: May 2006 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland | | Quote:
Originally Posted by Joel S. They're all tunes I grew up listening to and had fun playing when I was working on them. | Thats the most important thing though. You had fun learning and playing them !
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Black Musicman Stingray 4H > Mesa/Boogie Big Block 750 > Aguilar GS212
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10-20-2008, 08:46 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Winston Salem, NC | | | I had a band call me to learn their tunes (no practice) in two weeks. Three sets to cover a 4 hour gig. They gave me the set list and a CD of them playing- they had their own arrangements. They were supposed to give me charts, but gave me a series of letters on a page, instead. No repeat signs, no measures or bars, no indications of how the tune started, or ended. Whee!
So I sorted out the tunes, learned & charted them, and they did maybe 2/3 of them and didn't follow the set list. and played other tunes not on the CD. Oh yeah- the band used headphone monitors - no amps at all, except for mine, and they put a cheap 1-12" monitor at my feet to hear with _ God knows what mix they were feeding into it.. Then they got pissed at me for making mistakes.
Live & learn.
And I had this gig in OC with this piano player. Called me up cold to come play some cocktail jazz. I'm doing pretty good, sort of reading his left hand, when he starts playing these off the wall tunes- obscure Broadway show stuff from way back. By now he is plowed and on a roll. He looks up at me in between tunes and says "Do you know "Sunrise in Syracuse (or some tune I'd never heard before)" and I replied, "well, no". he says, "well, you'll love it! 1. 2. 1234". And so went the night. I barely hung on, but at the end, he hired me, I guess because I lived through it.
Look at it as a learning experience. You will run into these guys over and over again, so use this to learn how to deal with them.
Last edited by azureblue : 10-20-2008 at 08:49 PM.
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