Bizarre things people say during practices

[Stinsok]

In a 12 x 15ft. room, the guitarist is so loud the room is pressurized. He says to me, "Turn up, I can't hear you."

 

[madman4string]

In a 12 x 15ft. room, the guitarist is so loud the room is pressurized. He says to me, "Turn up, I can't hear you."

This, sooo many times...

 

[CherylTheSinger]

And that's why the thread is called, "Bizarre things people say during practices," not "rehearsals."

hehe, laughed my butt off for the whole thread.

 

[petrus61]

Singer: "Anyone know any Coldplay?"

I know, on it's face, there's nothing funny or strange about that question. But, it came at the lowest point of two really awful rehearsals, and to me, it just summed up the whole experience.

The story: I have a guitar player friend named Bill. We do a lot of dinner music and corporate party gigs, mostly playing soft jazz, and sometimes we back an R&B singer. He called me a couple of weeks ago and said he knows a woman singer/songwriter who has a lot of gigs at local beach bars. Imagine a female Jimmy Buffet. She usually performs solo, playing acoustic guitar and singing, but she'd like to have a band. OK, I say, let's try it.

The first gig is 10 days away, and we schedule two rehearsals. The first time we get together we try to go through her original tunes. Bill has some chord charts, well not charts really, just some chords scribbled on pices of paper with circles & arrows indicating verses and choruses. We'd play through a song, ask questions, fix the mistakes, play through the song again, and then she'd say "I don't really do that song any more". We did that for two hours. I left kind of scratching my head. What songs DOES she do? Can she send us a list for next time?

She sends an e-mail the next day saying,"You guys just play your best songs and I'll just fit in to that." Huh? How is that going to work? We get together for the second rehearsal, two days before the gig, and she asks what songs we know. Jazz standards - she doesn't like those. Bossas - she doesn't like those. Motown - ditto. Do we know any Joni Mitchell? Um, no. Cat Stevens? Crosby Stills and Nash? Jim Croce? No, sorry. If I'd had a list last week I could have learned some of those ...

We all throw out random songs for an hour and a half without agreeing on anything, finally stumble through "Heard it on the Grapevine", and then stare at each other in silence for about two minutes. The she perks up, gets this big smile on her face, and says "Anyone know any Coldplay?" I look at my watch. I gotta get going...

 

[Mykk]

My bands just use other words to describe what we're asking for.

"Can I get some more sauce on the vocals?"
"That guitar tone is dripping in gravy"
"This song needs more heroin in the drums"

 

[Desirsar]

In a 12 x 15ft. room, the guitarist is so loud the room is pressurized. He says to me, "Turn up, I can't hear you."

You should be happy you have a guitarist that wants to be able to hear you...

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

I had my first taste of drummer going: "This metronome keeps speeding up!" yesterday In his defense, at least he WANTS to work with a metronome.

 

[Richland123]

Drummer in my new band keeps telling the guitarist that he slows the songs down so much that he feels like somebody is shooting arrows into his back and slowly killing him.

 

[adi77]

the dreaded words "you wanna play a slap bass solo here?" usually said in really tiny jam rooms impossible to escape from.. this one singer insisted i play a slap bass solo in a song that totally doesn't require one. finally i talked him out of it.

the singer of our first band kept telling us that we should all die at 27. he's alive (40)

 

[chuckNC]

Church band I palyed in had a nice old fellow playing rythym guitar on his flattop. I knew he was kind of a bluegrass-only player. He played 3-chord songs in G. Slid a capo up the neck for all other keys. One song we did actually had a minor chord in it (horrors!). One night I asked him what he was playing during that bar. I give him credit for being honest. He told me he stopped playing till it passed.

 

[Capt.Obvious]

Playing in our local volunteer big band, we're talking about a tunes intro, when one of the saxes asks If we were to play the ritard as written. a bone chimes in, "yea there's a ritard." The band leader, who I had been teasing mercilessly all night, points at me and says "No, there is only one ritard in the room. 1-2-3-4." And we were off and running. Hahaha

Good thing we can still play while laughing our heads off. hahaa

 

[catcauphonic]

Our less guitarist is the only one who can read music really well. I'm a distant second, & the others none at all. Last practice we were arranging a new tune. When the song slowed down, our lead gut player referred to it as the turtle part. When the song hits the break part that's just whole notes for 8 measures, it is now & forever referred to as the super turtle. Talk about dumbing it down!

 

[skwee]

Ex. 1)
All the singers speed up during the a cappella/clap section on a particular song. Every time.
Drummer and I hop on the train at the new tempo, because we know they won't slow down.
Baritone says: "The bass just pushed us too fast".
Me: mouth drops open


Ex. 2)
First run of another song with the entire band, and it's going a little slow. I'm the arranger/leader on this one, so I'm trying to gradually nudge the band into the correct tempo without stopping the rehearsal.
Baritone again throws me under the bus as soon as we stop: "The bass is not playing in tempo with the rest of the band".

 

[Vanceman]

Last week our female keys and the BL were discussing the arrangement of a song. She said "It doesn't need to be any bigger". LMAO!

 

[Jamesray740]

every new song idea gets followed by, "(insert name here) called, they want their riff back" Or, could you play sorta that same thing again, except this time, make it not suck?

 

[Munjibunga]

"What's the chord progression in this song?"

I eventually quit that band because the keyboardist was taking up a half hour per song at rehearsal.

 

[RandomBox]

"Quit playing like a guitar player" -the singer claimed as she was listening to me playing high pitched notes.

 

[wraub]

Drummer to lead guitarist- "I loved that song when ______ did it."

Drummer to rhythm guitarist- " You have too many strings." when using 8 string guitar.

Drummer to band- "The whole song is too fast."

Drummer to band- "I need to take a break, I'm already beat."

All true...

 

[avillani89]

Guitarist: "I want it to sound like a unicorn getting raped by a troll while a dragon's devouring a small village....... Yeah..... (Plays sweet riff)... Or this this is good...."

 

[petrus61]

Guitarist with capo: "Its in D"

Me: "You mean B"
I play the note he's playing, which is a B.

Guitarist: "Yeah, but it's in D"
Guitarist walks over and puts his finger on the B. "Play that"

Me: "ok"