Ever felt inadequate?

[plasson]

Hey Justin,

I love reading all the insights you share with us.
I'm a big fan of "behind the scenes" stories and how things are made, especially coming from an efficient swiss-knife like you.

I was wondering if you would care to share any "horror" story, or simply stories of situations where you felt inappropriate for the job, where you just didn't feel up to the level required, or maybe someone else didn't.

Unless it's a too personal/covered-by-professional-secret request.
I understand it might be a lot to ask.

 

[jmjbassplayer]

This happens to me, just as much as anybody. I'm not exactly sure why you need to know this, but yes...there's no one alive that goes through a professional career in music unscathed by feelings of inadequacy or tricky situations. For instance:

The Muppets movie songs recording sessions. Jim Cox, the legendary piano player, got angry with me because I was reading something wrong on the music. Keep in mind, I'm a shoddy reader, and I had to read charts with lots o' notes. So that was daunting, to say the least. Jim actually yelled at me in frustration: "IT'S A D FLAT, JUSTIN!!!!" which made everyone on the session (lots of execs from the movie studio, etc) very nervous and dead quiet for a minute. He felt bad about it afterwards, though never apologized.

At any rate: I felt very, very small at that moment. It was hard enough for me already, then add that to it and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Thankfully, everything turned out great and the soundtrack and score speak for themselves, and it ended up being a real career highlight and one song I played on even won an Oscar.

There you go.

 

[plasson]

I'm not exactly sure why you need to know this

I was literally wondering if this kind of stuff happen at your level as well.
And your post answered that question perfectly.
thanks for sharing.

 

[Dan Bozek]

Ever thought about writing a book? It seems like you probably have enough material. I just read Guy Pratt's book when I was traveling earlier in the month and it was wildly entertaining.

 

[sayman]

Thanks for sharing, it helps to know even the pros sometimes have to deal with these problems like the rest of us.