Add new material 5 hours before load-in?

[LBS-bass]

Question... If everyone said No cuzza notice? How would on call studio guys succeed?

Answer? Chart changes, and create lines in the style of. I can do any song, within reason, certainly any radio hit, whether I heard it or not, in ten minnits. I learn songs on stage. I am a metal head, at heart. I do all styles, tho, in my current acts. I got a call a few weeks ago. Hour anna half notice, 1.5 hours of new country. Some originals. I do not listen to New Country. Never heard the tunes, except two. I knew the band. I knew the guitarist. I can read chords watching the guitarist's left hand. I took the date. Made scads of cash. It was not perfect. It was enjoyed by the audience, however. Immensely. I learned to play bass guitar. So I do.

A bonus? No one else here would, or could, take that call. My calls, and minimum rate, increased.

My band takes requests, even. We listen to a tune on a break. Open the set widdit. It's only difficult if you decide it is. Trust yerself.

This is not studio work. It's presumptuous to assume everyone in the band will be ready and able to PERFORM a song that they have never performed or possibly even heard before.

Happy for you, but your bona fides as a session player aren't really relevant to this situation.

 

[Hurricane Jimmie]

So Anyway, play the song for me during break, give me some chords, make sure I can see the guitar player's hands, and I'll do my best. I've learned plenty of songs this way at bar gigs. And I'm sure it sounded like it!

After my 2 cents are given, it's still the BL's gig and I have to trust his decision. If he wants to play an untested song for a guest, I'm sure he knows the risk. But if the band falls apart on these efforts, I'd let him know I was no longer going to participate.

 

[ELG60]

Hey - I have to untangle my wig, get my guy-liner and rouge done, lip gloss to match my pink burst guitar, and arrange my trouser sock just so! It isn't just women. So sexist....LOL

I think that I saw yer band last weekend!

 

[ELG60]

My opinion: It's one thing at an open jam . . . There are lots of times when I've had to play songs I don't know, and sometimes, even some of which I've never heard, with the results being sometimes magic and sometimes tragic, but as a performing band, whom we assume is being paid, one hopes for a higher/tighter level of musicianship.

It seems to me to have been a bush-league move by your bandleader, and likely to do a disservice to your band's reputation. Risk/reward-Juice/Squeeze. A good and experienced bandleader should recognize that and take decisions accordingly.

 

[LBS-bass]

My opinion: It's one thing at an open jam . . . There are lots of times when I've had to play songs I don't know, and sometimes, even some of which I've never heard, with the results being sometimes magic and sometimes tragic, but as a performing band, whom we assume is being paid, one hopes for a higher/tighter level of musicianship.

It seems to me to have been a bush-league move by your bandleader, and likely to do a disservice to your band's reputation. Risk/reward-Juice/Squeeze. A good and experienced bandleader should recognize that and take decisions accordingly.

There seems to be a large gulf between those who take this seriously enough to care whether things sound good and those who believe that kinda sorta getting it done is fine. And maybe everyone is right, in a sense. So much of it depends on what your audience is willing to tolerate, and I've heard some stuff that I thought wasn't very good praised by audiences when I thought it was just awful.

I don't know who the OPs bandleader is; he said the singer made this suggestion but it's unclear as to whether the singer calls the shots. If he does, he should bear in mind that the instrumentalists need to know a lot more than singers do in order to make music work. Doing a patched-together job with two songs might work OK for the OPs band but it would put me in a position where I would be uncomfortable because I don't like getting on stages unless I know I am ready to do my absolute best, because I feel like that's what I owe to the audience. But audiences might not be that picky, and a lot of bands don't care.

 

[pglaser01]

Just did Life is A Highway last weekend on the fly too. Had to sing harmonies since they decided on the Rascal Flatts version and not the original.

If I can pull that off then I bet you can.

 

[TheReceder]

This happens to me frequently. Guys tend to forget that women's gig prep also includes hair and makeup, which can take a significant chunk out of your day, especially if you need to straighten curly hair like I do, which takes an hour by itself. There's a reason I had my hair pulled back in my avatar pic. Was too tired to do it that day.

My wife spends a lot of time straightening her hair... I have no idea why... I'll probably get in trouble with the mods for broaching this subject...... but women are beautiful with hair that's not straight too... my bet is that everyone that cares about you thinks the same as I do.

BTW... last gig we got a request for an elvis song... I didn't know what it was till I was 1/2 way through it... but... it was a simple 1/4/5 song. If you're going to do something on the fly or unprepared... K.I.S.S.

 

[ELG60]

All valid points, but I believe that it was P.T. Barnum who said: "Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public."

 

[Planespotter]

Part of the bandleaders responsibilities include having a clue on what the personnel in the band is capable of. Plowing ahead and forcing new songs on musicians who are uncomfortable playing them is a sure fire way to make everyone in the band look like fools.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

I love my band. Our singer is a very cool and talented guy. But sometimes I just gotta LOL.

He sends a text to us about 30 minutes ago that he has "2 or 3" country fans coming tonight so we should play 2 songs that I've honestly never heard before.

No!

Do this once, and you are only enabling him!

The odds are good that these are his friends. Friends who will likely have a poor opinion of him because of his decision to do this last minute.

If it can make the band look bad, it's not worth it.

Don't enable!

 

[frankie5string]

Maybe if you're a bit nicer to your singer, they will give you a heads-up a little earlier?

That seems to work for me. Even though I've had singers make last minute requests of the band, myself and most of the band members are already aware of the singers repertoire or even just songs they enjoy... So it's never totally a surprise. Being able to read lead-sheets and even notation helps, too.

That said, 5 hours in the grand scheme of things is a long time to prepare for something like that, even if it means learning through osmosis on the drive to the show.

 

[DanDBassist]

OK, there are many country songs that can easily be played "off the cuff", In my past experiences when we were requested to play a particular song we had no clue how to play, the problem was solved by suggesting to the requester another song that the artist did which we could pull off. It always worked!

Since these requests have been put forth by the singer, do the same thing, and all of you come up with country songs you can impress the audience with rather than having train wrecks.

Before cell phones we would look at the Juke Box in the bar and plan our set lists accordingly.

 

[logdrum]

At least it is not some obscure B side of Steely Dan. Even their popular and catchy tunes would scare me.

 

[frankie5string]

Part of the bandleaders responsibilities include having a clue on what the personnel in the band is capable of. Plowing ahead and forcing new songs on musicians who are uncomfortable playing them is a sure fire way to make everyone in the band look like fools.

This could also be written as "Part of the band's responsibilities include having a clue about what their lead singer likes to sing." Preparing material to suit the singer you have is part of the job. The idea that the band supersedes the desires of the individual up front is just ego.
Band members have to communicate so there's less chance of a total surprise.

 

[LBS-bass]

This could also be written as "Part of the band's responsibilities include having a clue about what their lead singer likes to sing." Preparing material to suit the singer you have is part of the job. The idea that the band supersedes the desires of the individual up front is just ego.
Band members have to communicate.

Yeah, but the singer only said it was a country crowd five hours in advance. It doesn't sound like this situation involves them being able to know somehow that he was going to want two country songs. If he was a country singer they probably would have some of that material in their setlist, no?

 

[LBS-bass]

My wife spends a lot of time straightening her hair... I have no idea why... I'll probably get in trouble with the mods for broaching this subject...... but women are beautiful with hair that's not straight too... my bet is that everyone that cares about you thinks the same as I do.

BTW... last gig we got a request for an elvis song... I didn't know what it was till I was 1/2 way through it... but... it was a simple 1/4/5 song. If you're going to do something on the fly or unprepared... K.I.S.S.

Thank you. But my hair looks like a Brillo pad if it isn't straightened. There's nothing attractive about that

 

[frankie5string]

Yeah, but the singer only said it was a country crowd five hours in advance. It doesn't sound like this situation involves them being able to know that he was going to want two country songs. If he was a country singer they probably would have some of that material in their setlist, no?

Is country music really that obtuse? It's basically a form of blues-pop.
Two songs to learn in 5 hours really isn't THAT bad for a group that plays together.

Also, band members should do a tiny little bit of extra due diligence to see if their set just might need a bit of adjustment to satisfy the audience.

 

[LBS-bass]

Is country music really that obtuse? It's basically a form of blues-pop.
Two songs to learn in 5 hours really isn't THAT bad for a group that plays together.

Also, band members should do a tiny little bit of extra due diligence to see if their set just might need a bit of adjustment to satisfy the audience.

If you have five hours. But, as was stated earlier, the OP had a soccer game to attend before the show. He didn't have five hours to just drop everything at someone's capricious whim and go over charts or whatever to make sure he understood how to play something that may or may not have actually mattered.

This is what I'm saying. A lack of planning on someone else's part is not my problem. Why do you want to let yourself be pushed around like that? Is your free time not valuable to you? I absolutely do not understand the lack of boundaries here.

 

[TemplesOfSyrinx]

I'm on a gig right now. So far tonight I've played 3 songs I've never played before and 1 I never heard. Happens all the time and yes, part of our job is to entertain the crowd.

 

[frankie5string]

This is what I'm saying. A lack of planning on someone else's part is not my problem. Why do you want to let yourself be pushed around like that? Is your free time not valuable to you?

Perhaps it's because I get paid pretty good money to be pushed around "like that." ;-)
My free time has a cost, that's all, and they respect that.
Our singers tend to know we can work like that. Again... if it's country music, a bit of time with your earbuds on listening to the tune should be enough to figure it out.
It's not a Wagner opera.

Lack of planning by others doesn't mean you shouldn't plan yourself. Someone else surely could have double-checked the demographic of the audience.