Do "Pro-Bassists" Ever Mess Up?

[jeffbassguy]

i watched a concert sunday in northampton ma and one of the best in the world made quite a few mistakes..only because he doesnt worry about it and takes chances expressing himself instead of staying in a music bubble

 

[Jay2U]

Gene Simmons...

 

[bassdude51]

Do "Pro-Bassists" Ever Mess Up?

Hey, "Pro-Anybody" messes up and all of the time. If it's a human being, it's flawed.

 

[MD Stingray]

Yes, and when you do, you shake your butt.

Verdine is one of my heroes.

 

[stringthrough]

We're bassists and we tune in on bass players. Truth is many people in the audience won't notice the occasional bass mistake. They're too busy listening to the singer, guitarist, etc to notice, and this assumes they even have descent ears.

 

[deste]

I'm a professional, meaning that I earn my living from music (playing and teaching) and I just can tell you this: although there's a difference depending on what you play (classical is less forgiving that jazz, if you have to play something exactly as written - more or less), the thing is not
never making a mistake
but
how you sort out of a mistake.

(sorry for my english...)

 

[Captain Chaos]

Hear a wrong note? Have another beer. Hear two wrong notes? It's not wrong, it's jazz.

Does that make me an insanely good bassist?

 

[Jaycephas]

When it happens, I just make a face at the guitar player. Everyone else thinks he missed a note. Hell, he even believes it, too!

 

[PillO]

It can happen to anyone. The best play through and recover.

 

[DavC]

we're human ... we all make mistakes ..! ( i have 2 X wives to prove it )

lots o practice = near perfection

 

[AztecViking]

Agreed, plus he's my friend, although it's been quite a while since I've seen him But I saw him live with the Dregs once, and he made such a clam that he swore at himself! Only clam in the show, though.

I'll have to watch Hammer Of the Gods DVD again to be certain but I'm pretty sure you see Dave mouthing the F word right after the flub. Then you see Portnoy cracking up laughing.

My favorite drummer to gig with ( who is a stellarly amazing musician ) says "mistakes are the most entertaining part of a show!"

 

[Jimks]

Paul McCartney made a comment once, in xxxx song I made some mistakes during the recording and they put the song out with the mistakes I made still in it. He said, I knew how 'exact' the Japanese were in copying a song when I heard a group play that song .... and even had the mistakes in it too.

There's good days and bad days for anyone playing music. Some days you are 'on' and can't miss, and others where you can't do anything right no matter how hard you try. Enjoy the days you're "on".... and work thru the other ones.

Normally at a gig, people are enjoying the overall music.... few hear the mistake that stuck out like a sore thumb to you. But perfectionism, is what makes you strive to be better.

In large venues, the Beatles would stop singing and just act like they were, to see if they audience even knew it. They didn't.

 

[TREYontheBASS]

Yes, it's called hours and hours (and hours) of practice. Depending on the artist, it may also be called "pre-recorded track," but there's tons of amazing players out there.

Also keep in mind part of a pop gig like you talk about on SNL, etc. Is playing the exact part every time, which is a different skill set from constantly coming up with variations such as in a jazz situation or Jam band. Neither skill set is better, easier, etc, just different.

Check out the justin Timberlake concert video on Netflix. Even if you hate his music, the band will absolutely floor you.

I was gonna mention that as well! Adam Blackstone is a freaking genius.. Not only an other-worldly bass player but a crazy good musical director as well.

 

[socialleper]

Probably a lot less than others, and they know how to make a mistake sound like it was on purpose.

 

[prd004]

I'm pretty sure it was Berry Oakley that missed the break on "one way out" from The Fillmore album........
He's one of the greats, nobody is always perfect. Better players are more perfect, more often

 

[organworthyplayer337]

Another great band to check out is Bruno Mars' backing band, The Hooligans. They are absolutely fantastic.

But to answer the question, yes of course they screw up. They're professional, not perfect. They might screw up less than non-pros, but they still do from time to time. Remember, they have hours and hours of practice on us. We all have full time jobs (well most of us anyway) and play bass when we can. Playing bass IS their full time job. So if they take that theoretical 40 hour week and just practice their upcoming sets all week, they're gonna play pretty darn flawlessly. Plus, a lot of those guys have been playing the same songs for years of even decades. It's engrained in their brains, they could probably play without thinking about it.

A lot of them probably live by the old adage "don't practice until you get it right, practice until you don't get it wrong"

That was actually the band I was mostly referencing (more specifically their performance on SNL last Saturday)

The bassist is a friend of mine so I started listening to the live performances and I can't hear anything wrong in 99% of it. So it made me wonder...

 

[Session1969]

Well, there are three ways to look at this kind of thing:

1. If you're talking about an actual "band" made up of regular people who hit it big, then sure - mistakes can happen. It's usually no big deal unless it becomes a problem. But if you're in Rush or one of these other legacy bands, where you built it and you own it, and you're the boss anyway, you could mess up all night. Heck, go out and set your bass on fire. Wouldn't matter. But, an interesting thing about this was the Bon Jovi episode of Behind the

2. No, they don't usually make mistakes. If they do, you'd never know it because they'd cover up. But if they kept on making mistakes they ain't gonna have the gig for long, at least if it's high profile or one where the MD takes his gig seriously. Go to a Rickey Minor clinic and he's got no problem telling you he fires players constantly. One strike, warning. One more? Gone. A lot of these gigs to go players who are insane with both precision an feel, in that you have to hit exact parts that are lined up with walls of sequenced backing tracks on point, every night, exactly the same way. If you screw up at all it'll jump out. But then, most pros have devoted their lives to playing at that level. You might hate Madonna, but check out videos of her eighties concerts, where she had guys like Omar Hakim and Victor Bailey playing in her bands. Check it out, because by the time they get to around 6:00 they are absolutely killing it. I dunno - I've known a lot of dudes from that circuit and they get and keep the gigs because they nail it, spotless, night after night, and if you're singing backing vox you better be on-pitch, on-time, all-night. There's a reason why guys like Lee Sklar, Jimmy Johnson, Pino, etc., get all the gigs when they come up - they're pro and don't make mistakes. It's a totally different discipline than jazz or funk or jam based music, because...

Great answer to the OP's question. I read an interview about a famous drummer commenting on his memories of playing with "Duck" Dunn and how he never made mistakes. It's a focus thing for me.

 

[mellowinman]

People make a lot less mistakes when I listen to them. That's because I assume that was what was supposed to be played, and just enjoy it.

 

[rolandm]

The band that I play upright bass with is nearly 100% request driven. Now, several songs, we've played before, and some of them often enough to be really good at. We don't rehearse, we just rely on individual talent to get us as far out on that limb as possible before we begin sawing it off behind us. And typically, the mistakes, gaffs, wrong keys, etc., are all what the audience finds so entertaining, because we have all learned to play it off rather well. And then we pull out some Beginnings or Ants Marching, just to reassure them we actually ARE competent musicians.

 

[franklindayala]

Willis just rocks.... And shows us how to recover from an imminent train wreck