You need to be able to roll with stuff like that. The vast majority of our gigs are not under ideal conditions, and getting to play early is fine by me. What's worse is when they tell you they want you on early and put you on late.
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Dark stage and an unexperienced fretless player
- Thread starter dr_gonzo
- Start date
What you went through even happens to seasoned pros. Don't beat yourself over it. As for the promoter, I would be very hesitant to ever work with him again, unless there was money paid upfront. Change our placement, more money..paid upfront.
As for not seeing real well, there are phosphorescence dots you can by for your neck that might help. I'm not so sure I'd be able to play my fretted bass in the dark.... at least you could gracefully slide into it....
If you really really want to get the fretless stuff together, you need to get off the visual dependency. Everyone looks down sometimes, but it's your ears that need to guild you on an instrument you need to intonate. Practice ear training and playing to a drone!
That show sounds like a nightmare, but some gigs are. If you want to do the fretless thing, you need to have solid intonation regardless of what's going on around you. Other musicians will still expect it.
That show sounds like a nightmare, but some gigs are. If you want to do the fretless thing, you need to have solid intonation regardless of what's going on around you. Other musicians will still expect it.
Fretless is hard. Unlike the DB there are less visual cues. So use open strings if you can. Initially lower the action so you can pre-commit to the note. You will understand what I mean if you practice with no amp. You can finger first and then you can almost hear what the note is. Practice on a fretted but get on top of the fret and if tou get used to that your fretless intonation will greatly improve. Do not succumb to the flair of a wiggly wide vibrato. Only do that when you can play you scales with good intonation.
Let it go. The more you play the less it will effect you. I had one of the worse gigs in my life last weekend. The band played well but to nobody at a place we play quite allot. It suked but I put it behind me right away.
As far as your fretless issues I can't help you. I wouldn't touch one with a 10' pole.
As far as your fretless issues I can't help you. I wouldn't touch one with a 10' pole.
That makes sense, but how do you do that playing live? Everyone says "use your ears", but does that entail you plucking around to get the right note...with the audience hearing you looking for that note?
So does the audience hear the open A string, then as that's ringing out, the second note on E string looking for the A...that you "may" hit an Ab instead. Just fake it and slide up to pitch to get in position, or what? Again, knowing the audience is hearing all this and the song is suppose to be playing at the time.
I mean, it has to come down to practice practice practice I'm sure. Prepare for disasters?
Thanks.
I would imagine that playing by ear is not always the 100% answer. For every gig you can't see your bass well, you will probably play 2 where you can't hear yourself very well.
Like a Pro Golfer, you need to get a short memory and stop dewling on the past. Get your mind right and get back to work.
Practice in the dark means nothing if you do not have goals, might as well practice in a brightly lit room
Do the spider exercise but make sure you are intonating properly. This will teach you fingers to open up and stretch. After you intonate well go for well rounded notes
Then do scales up and down. across strings and possibly on just one string
There are many more but when you can sing your basslines and you can play with it in unison or even better harmonized, you are getting somewhere.
Having said that if there is a gig this Saturday and you have a few fretless songs, there is time to get it all done for that dark gig
Do the spider exercise but make sure you are intonating properly. This will teach you fingers to open up and stretch. After you intonate well go for well rounded notes
Then do scales up and down. across strings and possibly on just one string
There are many more but when you can sing your basslines and you can play with it in unison or even better harmonized, you are getting somewhere.
Having said that if there is a gig this Saturday and you have a few fretless songs, there is time to get it all done for that dark gig
You had a bad gig and this won't be the last one! It is not uncommon to have problems at a gig whether it's band or venue related. As a band and personally, take note of the problems encountered and fix them.
Lots of good advice here. Nothing new to add on the gig itself, you just have to roll with it. I cant possibly imagine a show with that many bands (even half that many) and having it go smoothly. If it were me, with all of the delays, I would have preferred to go first. Not sure being 4th vs 1st would have made the poor lighting/bad power situation any better.
I mostly play EUB, often in places without good lighting (we play alot of breweries in the summer). I agree with the advice about using open strings - its the only true reference point that you have. Also, 3 months is really very early in the game. Give it time - much more time - to get your confidence up. Not sure that I agree with the "practice in the dark" approach - since you'll likely not often play in those circumstances. Best thing I think is to practice in normal lighting but concentrate on not looking at your hands. If you read music, do lots of reading practice - that way you are forced to look at the music. I also find that I practice only non-fretted bass; once you have things down on fretless (or in my case, URB), switching to a fretted bass is easy.
One thing to consider - if you had been playing a fretted bass, would you have done so in poor lighting easily, or would it have been problematic also? If so, a big factor is watching you r hands rather than trusting your muscle memory.
It'll get better (all of it) as you gain more experience.
I mostly play EUB, often in places without good lighting (we play alot of breweries in the summer). I agree with the advice about using open strings - its the only true reference point that you have. Also, 3 months is really very early in the game. Give it time - much more time - to get your confidence up. Not sure that I agree with the "practice in the dark" approach - since you'll likely not often play in those circumstances. Best thing I think is to practice in normal lighting but concentrate on not looking at your hands. If you read music, do lots of reading practice - that way you are forced to look at the music. I also find that I practice only non-fretted bass; once you have things down on fretless (or in my case, URB), switching to a fretted bass is easy.
One thing to consider - if you had been playing a fretted bass, would you have done so in poor lighting easily, or would it have been problematic also? If so, a big factor is watching you r hands rather than trusting your muscle memory.
It'll get better (all of it) as you gain more experience.
Don't beat yourself up over it. The audience was probably sympathetically rooting for you. Having power outages during a gig isn't your fault and it can cause you to falter. This was a valuable lesson for you pertaining to the fretless versus fretted. Big difference. Chances are the audience will remember the gig for the loss of power rather than for your flubs. I built a fretless mutt with a completely blank neck. No dots or lines at all. Playing that taught my hands the correct positioning by memory exercises. Same as playing in the dark, but not as boring.
I always ask to play first in a situation like this, with multiple acts. I also try to be as friendly and cooperative with the sound guys and the promoters. I want them to be my friends! Often, my wife and I will chase a soft drink or bottled water for the soundman, and I always take a direct box along with my amp. Try to have your rig ready for a quick sound check, and I ask the soundman if he has what he needs from me. If he says he does, I don't noodle or ask for any more bass, treble, or any specifics in the monitors. I use my amp to hear myself, and leave the rest to the FOH guy. Take it easy, brother.
I think you have to look at your hands to a certain extent. People beat themselves up over this but on a fretless there's no way you're going to be milimeter perfect by feel alone. On an upright you have it near your head and that's actually a little easier to do that without a visual reference.
That said.... if you are practicing sitting down you are likely looking over the neck at the front of the fingerboard - when you play standing up you'll be looking at the top/back of the neck. Try and practice standing or kneeling... look at the top dots for reference, not the front.
Ya know, as bad gigs go, it doesn't sound all *that* bad. You just ran into a trifecta of problems that we all experience from time to time. By any chance did anyone record the gig? Was it really that bad?
When monitoring is bad to non-existent, we all work as best we can with what we can see and hear, and a reasonably well-rehearsed ensemble will sometimes come off OK for the audience even if they can't hear properly on stage. Those mistakes you made may or may not have been noticible in the mix - and even then, they may or may not have been noticible to a non-bassist.
Losing power during the set is horrible, but it's clearly not your band's fault and you'd get audience sympathy as much as anything.
Not being able to see is a real pain, even if you're not playing fretless. My eyesight isn't great, and after a few gigs at the back of a dark stage where I could neither move freely nor see the fingerboard of my bass, I resolved to get an axe with LEDs on the neck (Status Graphite have this as an option, as it's easy to run wires in a graphite neck). I've got one now - but haven't had a lost-in-the-dark gig since I bought it!
When monitoring is bad to non-existent, we all work as best we can with what we can see and hear, and a reasonably well-rehearsed ensemble will sometimes come off OK for the audience even if they can't hear properly on stage. Those mistakes you made may or may not have been noticible in the mix - and even then, they may or may not have been noticible to a non-bassist.
Losing power during the set is horrible, but it's clearly not your band's fault and you'd get audience sympathy as much as anything.
Not being able to see is a real pain, even if you're not playing fretless. My eyesight isn't great, and after a few gigs at the back of a dark stage where I could neither move freely nor see the fingerboard of my bass, I resolved to get an axe with LEDs on the neck (Status Graphite have this as an option, as it's easy to run wires in a graphite neck). I've got one now - but haven't had a lost-in-the-dark gig since I bought it!
I played an unlined fretless exclusively for about a year at my church gig. Dark stage and all that stuff. Best learning experience on perfecting my intonation I've had. Stick with it and train your ear and touch.
This.
I did the same on my fretless MIM Jazz. I drilled new holes at the fret positions, filled them with a paste of glow powder and epoxy, and filed them down when they hardened (glow powder is the active ingredient in Luminlay rods). Then I obscured the original side dots with a sharpie. Works great with or without the lights on. Plan to do the same to my other fretless basses.
at least you were playing your own songs, you can always say: "the song is like that"
