Dumbing down: a slight rant

[Killing Floor]

I guess if the guitarist looks good enough you can make accommodations?
Or you can call it in an interpretation instead of playing correctly?

But yeah, I think if you are referring to musicians playing for compensation you can expect them to learn the material. I'm trying to imagine She Said... with a dissonant guitar wah solo through the change ups and trying to land at the next verse. Funny mess.

 

[DWBass]

Funny. I'm in a decent band with 99% musically educated musicians. I'm the 1% who has no formal musical education. However, the keyboardist is as basic a player can be and has zero funk/soul chops. The guitarist doesn't properly play the intro to "Beginnings' by Chicago correctly. It's supposed to be an acoustic guitar and the chords are played with a droning E. Nope. Just the plain chords on an electric. Doesn't even remotely sound the same. You'd think he would have listened to the song after being in the band for almost 2 years now.

 

[Renaissance]

 

[Yellow Bang66]

there are some things you can't "dumb down" effectively. counting is one of them.

AARRGHH! my horrible drummer story continues. SORRY. we were trying to learn GLORIA , not a hard song, until after the solo(I think, the Doors Live version)where he says "slooow it down".. and the band goes into half time for a few measures.then builds back to normal after a rant into "a little highernow"(faster)the drummer could NOT slow down but could NEVER get back up to speed! even with me(bass) & the lead guitar player cueing him! it felt like trying to run in knee high mud! it was a mess I couldnt figure how he couldnt get out of 1st gear! its not a hard riff at all! We had to can the song. much to the singers dismay. some how I got blamed for his inabilities! I know the guitar player and later the singer realized his lack of ability!(started a search for new drummer).

 

[LBS-bass]

Sometimes the opposite is the problem. It's fairly common for multiple guitar tracks to be layered in studio cuts to create a nice lush sound. Often the different tracks use multiple voicings.

A guitar player in one of my bands used to insist on trying to play overly complicated chord voicings for the intro of a simple country song to try and simulate the sound of the studio track. Because of this, he would frequently get his fingers tied in a not and totally cave. I couldn't get him to stop doing it even though it made him appear unprofessional and was embarrassing for the whole band. Our lead vocalists, who was not a great guitarist, could dumb it down, nail it every time, and sound great.

Guess who got to play the intro?

Of course the guitar player was and said he was going to play it anyway. I made sure he knew there would be serious consequences if he did. You can only give somebody so many chances and then you have to pull the rug out from under them .

Oh yeah, been here too. There's one particular song that is hard for one of our band members to play consistently throughout. I've taken that song off our list a half-dozen times but he always says he wants to do it. The train wreck just gets worse every time. It's a hard song to play, and when he manages to get through it, it's brilliant but I'm going to have to put my foot down if we ever play out again. It is embarrassing for him, which is why I don't get that he keeps wanting to keep it on the list.

 

[lowphatbass]

Recall many decades ago in AP English trying to cheat by not reading all of Beowulf
or Heart of Darkness, ad infinitum.
" You are only cheating yourself" said my mom.

Since joining TB, have read every post on every thread I choose to click in order to gain context and not miss the post that may have actually clarified or answered the OP on page 3 of 31
I still make ill informed replies but not for lack of reading.

It’s better to have read and lost than never to have read at all.

 

[LBS-bass]

Playing a simple song well is different than what the original poster described though.

Have heard way too many bands play Satisfaction where the bass simply doubled the guitar, verbatim.

Oh, man. When I first decided to get back to playing my bass for reals, I briefly joined this little "jam band" that was run by this woman who was a few cards short of a full deck. I was just getting my chops back and thought that little band would be a perfect venue for it (which it was, for a few months). They did that song and I launched into the correct, harmonizing bass line and she went nuts. "No! Don't play it like that." "But that's how it is on the recording!" "I don't care! It will confuse the other players if you play that!"

Uh, no. No it won't. I lasted with that for a short time, while I got back into shape, but she proved far more impossible than that little excerpt would even indicate so I moved on quickly, and that's when I went out and found the main band I am still in today. But I never did dumb down "Satisfaction" for her.

 

[Michedelic]

Recall many decades ago in AP English trying to cheat by not reading all of Beowulf
or Heart of Darkness, ad infinitum.
" You are only cheating yourself" said my mom.

Since joining TB, have read every post on every thread I choose to click in order to gain context and not miss the post that may have actually clarified or answered the OP on page 3 of 31
I still make ill informed replies but not for lack of reading.

Yeah, the point of this site is information; opinions, as long as they’re relavent, are useful, maybe even thought provoking, but secondary. I have to respect the input of those who got to a thread before I did, and don’t want to chime in like a late-to-class idiot(doesn’t mean that my track record is perfect, but I try). The irony is, the more redundant/irrelevant posts in a thread, the longer it gets. I find the TLDR thing a bit arrogant at times. While, yes there are rambling posts, over all in a thread, just why can’t people be bothered? Short attention spans? Can’t grapple with anything beyond a soundbite? I want to know what the consensus is before I kick in my 2 cents, or before I may say something stupid.

 

[RocknRay]

I’m in a nice side project (with a horn section) that plays about a half-dozen times per year, playing eclectic tunes at catered events. One song we do is Chicago’s ‘Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?’, including the very elaborate intro, which has an extended section of 5/8 that changes to 6/8 before going into the light swing of the main song. The keyboardist cannot get it down to save his life. There is no way to dumb it down. He tries to force it into 6/8 throughout. It sounds like hell. Those 5/8 measures are vital. The rest of the band does its best to tune him out. It makes me crazy. Either get it down or sit down. But with this one, sitting out is not an option. I’m not the leader, or I would’ve been looking to replace this guy.

Can the guy play Take Five?

 

[ToneMonkey]

The last duo I played in, the other guitarist wants to do James Taylor’s “Close Your Eyes.” I love that song, particularly the modal Bb to F change in a song that is otherwise in G. Nope, this numbnuts didn’t bother to actually learn the song. He just sort of figured out how he could shoehorn the entire song into a repetitious G-C-D thing. It was bloody awful participating in the desecration of such a beautiful song. But my personal rule is always defer to the person singing lead. The last thing you want to do is give a singer too much to think about. They might brainfart and go back to playing it their way anyway.

 

[ToneMonkey]

^ This.

With my current band I have refused to play one song because the drummer wanted to dumb it down.

He is quite capable of playing things correctly but he can't be bothered to listen to anything more than once. There are lots of songs that that we play that would sound a whole lot better if he played then a bit closer to the original.

We rehearse at his house, if you arrive a few minutes early you can catch him "learning" (having a quick listen to) the songs that the guitarist and I may have spent hours working on. He always says "I've been a bit busy this week and not had chance to do any work on them", yea, right, every time!

I know that drummer!

 

[Breeze3]

I recently realized that I've been posting some grumpy old man comments... Sorry about that, but here's one more.
This is a companion to the "repetitious parts are a drag" thread.
Have you run into situations where your bandmates asked to dumb down a song? One example: A few years ago, a band I was in wanted to try "She Said She Said" by the Beatles. The bridge has time changes (listening in my head right now): three bars of 4/4, one bar of 2/4, seven bars of 3/4. The guys were tripping over it, so for the next rehearsal, I wrote out lead sheets and sort of tried to conduct. No good. Of course, no one but me had actually played along with the recording; they just thought "cool song" and went for an internet lyric sheet, which naturally had nothing about timing.
The guys suggested that we simply make it all 4/4. I think one look at my face made them decide to jettison the tune, instead.

If the band is doing a rearrangement of a song I would go in playing it like the recording. Then again being older and growing up on the Beatles I alway try to talk band members out of doing Beatle covers , no matter how well they think it is sounding to me they always fall short and are lacking but I don't mind doing Joe Cocker versions of Beatle tunes , he always did them well.

 

[jdh3000]

It depends on if it will save them a lot of confusion, but I'd prefer to do it the righr way.

There are some songs that aren't consistent at all with chord changes from one verse to another... these changes are similar but still different. Just tweaking minor changes to keep everyone on the same page is not a horrible idea... but then I get used to doing it the wrong, then join another band, it's hard to get those things out of my head.

This is particularly difficult when freelancing in several bands who all play mostly the same songs and each one does them differently... It’ll keep you on your toes...

I've been in bands where they take a complex progresssion and almost make a 3 chord change out of it...I really don’t want to be in a situation like that more than filling in.

This really the only “dumbing down” I run into.

 

[MegaSwing]

Can the guy play Take Five?

I wonder. But the band will never have to play it. Not our niche.

 

[MegaSwing]

Funny. I'm in a decent band with 99% musically educated musicians. I'm the 1% who has no formal musical education. However, they keyboardist is as basic a player can be and has zero funk/soul chops. The guitarist doesn't properly play the intro to "Beginnings' by Chicago correctly. It's supposed to be an acoustic guitar and the chords are played with a droning E. Nope. Just the plain chords on an electric. Doesn't even remotely sound the same. You'd think he would have listened to the song after being in the band for almost 2 years now.

Boy, do I ever get this one.

 

[GretschWretch]

It’s better to have read and lost than never to have read at all.

Unless the text in question is by Ayn Rand. Seven hundred pages of The Fountainhead in high school junior year is a violation of the eighth amendment.

 

[DrMole]

Yeah, the point of this site is information; opinions, as long as they’re relavent, are useful, maybe even thought provoking, but secondary. I have to respect the input of those who got to a thread before I did, and don’t want to chime in like a late-to-class idiot(doesn’t mean that my track record is perfect, but I try). The irony is, the more redundant/irrelevant posts in a thread, the longer it gets. I find the TLDR thing a bit arrogant at times. While, yes there are rambling posts, over all in a thread, just why can’t people be bothered? Short attention spans? Can’t grapple with anything beyond a soundbite? I want to know what the consensus is before I kick in my 2 cents, or before I may say something stupid.

(A non-denominational) AMEN!

 

[mongo2]

Anyone else ever have a band member persistently count off a song in 3/4 time as 1, 2, 3, 4?

 

[DrMole]

If the band is doing a rearrangement of a song I would go in playing it like the recording. Then again being older and growing up on the Beatles I alway try to talk band members out of doing Beatle covers , no matter how well they think it is sounding to me they always fall short and are lacking but I don't mind doing Joe Cocker versions of Beatle tunes , he always did them well.

The perfect example of a superb cover and rearrangement of a Beatle's song. There are not too many out there- Though the Spooky Tooth version of I Am The Walrus
works well

 

[LBS-bass]

There are great rearrangements of all sorts of songs. I don't mind those at all, not even when "cover" bands do them. The thing that irks me is when bands want to actually cover the song but can't play it so they make it simple. There's a lot of actually simple music out there they can choose from.