90% of people who play in bands have no business playing for an audience.
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Basic Rant re: keeping it simple.
- Thread starter Rayjay
- Start date
That's what I did with my last band. I've joined a new group where everyone acts professionally and are prepared for rehearsals - we actually sit down at the end of every rehearsal and make objectives for the next one. What a great feeling!
Exactly. Lazy so called "musicians" who usually make stuff up because they don't know how to listen and make the transfer from ear to brain to fingers. These are sometimes the same people who won't/can't play covers close to the recording or who just only play "originals" because of course there's no legitimacy in just copying someone else.
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I wish...
I think it just creates a race to the bottom as mediocre bands get gigs booked for beer money.
They may not get invited back (or they may...) but there is a never-ending supply.
Once a bar gets used to paying $100 a night for bands, Bonamassa himself couldn't create enough perceived value to command $500...
Lest you think I'm kidding, go check out his DVD playing at Radio City Music Hall - it begins with a segment of him busking anonymously in a subway station and getting paid not a nickel.
I guess that's why they stopped playing completely during live shows. Just check out the guy on the Stingray 5 in this clip.
If this is going on with your Church praise and worship band, I would recommend only using people that come prepared. Recordings are a great way to make a point.
If it’s going on in a secular entity, I would move on. Life is to short to waste it on the unprepared.
I wanna be in your band...do you need a tambourine player? Nah, the travel would be a bit tricky.
Honestly, I'm pretty spoiled right now. For the point I am at in my life this band is perfection.
OP here, I'm having this happen with some of the gigging-est people in my area, ironically. I'm not the bandleader so I'm dealing with it, and its a pretty good paying gig. The playing is not up to my standards though.
Now our church band, they are great and show up prepared. (Usually) Honestly I wish I could find secular musicians that could hold a candle to the professional attitude I experience with my church team. Still not up to my standards exactly, but miles above these guys with the unpreparation.
And yes, in this case and many others I've experienced , "let's just keep it simple" = I'm not planning on changing what I'm playing, because I either was too lazy, too busy, didn't care enough, or the worst one I suck too much to realize how bad I actually sound!
I saw Buddy live in New Orleans many moons ago. He gave his bass player a hard time on stage in between songs. He called him “stupid” in front of an audience! I’m surprised he kept his expensive dental work intact.
I don’t get why some people think being good at something gives you permission be an ****ole.
So many times I’ve been approached by someone who thinks they or their offspring wants to learn to play bass or guitar and would I consider teaching them. It doesn’t take much delving to find out if they are driven or not and right there, is the crux of the issue. You don’t get to a high standard of anything without being driven.
Dalliance is fine if you want to sit at home and noodle but to reach a place where people will pay to see you takes an exceptional amount of commitment and drive. Those who don’t have it will never understand that. I realised at a very young age that this was not a choice for me. There was simply nothing else that I would do in life and so it has been my entire life. There is no other pursuit that will match my commitment to making high quality music. Not everyone has that realisation.
Any time I hear “we do our own version”, the red flag jumps way high. Because “our own version” usually sucks. If I’m used to a particular version of a song, that’s what I want to play. That’s what I’ve practiced, and that’s what I know. I agree with you in that “our own version” usually is a euphemism for “I can’t/don’t want to learn the song.”
I had a BL who did “her own version” of “Because The Night” where she ALWAYS would come out of the bridge a measure ahead of the rest of the band, then get angry at us because we were “playing it wrong”. No, according to the versions by Patti Smith and 10,000 Maniacs, SHE was playing it wrong. It was my insistence on crossing it off a set list minutes before we were to go onstage - and then saying I would leave the stage if she insisted on playing it - that got me fired from the band. I checked their social media page a while back - they still play it, and still train-wreck on it in exactly the same spot.
In the same band, we also did “her own version” of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, with the vocal harmonies and bridge removed, thus completely ruining the dynamics of the song. She thought it was great; my own description of it, much to her consternation, was “sludgy”.
The only time I really mess with a song is the Band’s “The Weight.” The arrangement I like to use is similar to what the 90’s version of the Band did - a keyboard solo after the 2nd verse, a guitar solo after the 4th. Why? Otherwise I, as the singer/bass player, am the sole focus of the song. If I have good instrumentalists playing with me, I want to feature them as well. Just my own mishegas at work here.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
First, learn the song correctly. THEN change it if there is something that works better for you. You have to learn the rules before you can break them.
My $.02- I feel like once folks are in their 30s-40s,they're about as good as they are gonna get in most cases. If they wanted to be in a cover band and learn parts note-for-note, they would have done it by then. If they want to just jam with friends every few weeks for the enjoyment of playing music, then their skill level will likely match their ambition. Very rarely does someone in the "family, career, house" phase have the time to devote to improving, versus just doing the best with what they already know how to do. I Put myself in this category, FWIW. I WANT to get better, but between work, spouse, kids, house, etc, music outside of my regular band gets pretty low priority. I am mostly coasting on prior decades of experience in cover and original band experiences.
So ya get what ya get, and ya don't complain, or you swap out folks until you get to the level you want to be at. If the hang outweighs the music or the money in the great triumvirate of "stay or go" decision making, just accept it.
So ya get what ya get, and ya don't complain, or you swap out folks until you get to the level you want to be at. If the hang outweighs the music or the money in the great triumvirate of "stay or go" decision making, just accept it.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
I play in a band that does you Ought to Know. We learned the arrangement on the record, THEN decided we wanted to put something in the slow part in the middle, so we added a guitar solo over aslightly funky groove.
I've grown to loathe rehearsals with just about every band I've ever been in. The vast majority of them are what you described, People showing up unprepared thinking that is the place to go over and learn a song.
The one band Im in has rehearsals that are just simply awful and while they are probably once a month I dread them because they are so inefficient. Too much downtime, partying, unpreparedness etc...
