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Ever screw up at rehearsal?
- Thread starter dbase
- Start date
Being perfect and all ... 
About 50 minutes ago at our last practice! I dropped more balls than a man with no arms. We've got a gig coming up and i'm putting it down to pre gig tension!!
My train was usually perma -wrecked when i played bass. I sure did look good though!!!
At rehearsal I thought I was playing an A, but it was an Ab. It's as though someone farted and it became a train wreck as everybody was looking at one another to determine who did it. I cant stop laughing at the screw up I did. I normally don't play like that. But it was a train wreck. They caught me. Lets hear your train wrecks. I know I'm not the only one.
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Rehearsal are where that occasionally happens.
Always funny when people look at their fingers thinking its them and its not.
Any body have any ideas when I totally forget the intro to the song?
Doesn't happen very often, usually do a different song and come back to it later.
Doesn't matter how many years I've known the song
Yeah, I try to screw up everywhere but it only happens in front of people.
My favorite memory (at a show, of course, things never go wrong in rehearsal) is one particular time I started a song, which starts with a simple rock groove, just me and the drums, off by a fourth, and then the guitar part sounded a bit funkier than usual, but not wrong because it was rock, modal music you know, lots of fourths already happening, and hey, what's one step around the circle of fifths between friends? And then the vox started and chord changes happened and that's when it became modern jazz...until everything ground to a halt.
Do I screw up at rehearsals? All the freaking time. I'd say the majority of times I screw up at practice are due to fatigue.
Have I gotten something perfect hundreds of times in rehearsals and hiccuped on a gig? More times than I care to admit.
Have I gotten something perfect hundreds of times in rehearsals and hiccuped on a gig? More times than I care to admit.
If you wanna make mistakes at a gig, you gotta practice them in rehearsal
There are no wrong notes...only passing tones.
Thats it? You played one note down a half step? That was your screw up???? Thats it, nothing else???
Well, now I consider myself an over achiever.
Well, now I consider myself an over achiever.
Here's a non-funny train wreck story...
In 1999 I agreed to sub on bass for a country covers band after more than half an hour on the phone with a great drummer that I had worked with many times in the past. He called me at the last minute and somehow convinced me that I was good enough to do it. By the last minute I mean the day before the gig...
I was taking a break from day to day work and was pursuing a college degree. Big whoop... I have the diploma somewhere in a box on a shelf. Anyway... It had been more than 4 years since I moved away to another state. The only "band" I found to play bass with was at a local church playing acoustic guitar and bass on contemporary christian music. I've always prefered classic rock so I didn't listen to a country radio station even in my car. I was expecting to have to play songs that I had never heard before. But I was expecting to get them all charted out.
I got to the gig 2 hours early so that I could chart out the songs that I didn't know. A half hour later the drummer showed up. He had no set list and no recordings of any of the songs that they played. The guitar and keyboard players show up 15 minutes before start time at 8:00pm... They refused to change the set list to take out some of the more complicated newer songs that I had never listened to... ever. And there was not enough time left to chart them all out even if they wanted to... Which they didn't.
So... for the next 4 long hours I proceeded to fumble through songs that were completely foreign to me with no charts to look to for guidance. The guitar player kept his back to me most of the night, so I couldn't see his hand. The keyboard player thought he was being helpful by screaming out numbers that I couldn't even hear because his amp was so loud...
And it sucked... (By it I mean I.) "It" was REALLY Bad...
Oh... And I'm still waiting to get paid.
In 1999 I agreed to sub on bass for a country covers band after more than half an hour on the phone with a great drummer that I had worked with many times in the past. He called me at the last minute and somehow convinced me that I was good enough to do it. By the last minute I mean the day before the gig...
I was taking a break from day to day work and was pursuing a college degree. Big whoop... I have the diploma somewhere in a box on a shelf. Anyway... It had been more than 4 years since I moved away to another state. The only "band" I found to play bass with was at a local church playing acoustic guitar and bass on contemporary christian music. I've always prefered classic rock so I didn't listen to a country radio station even in my car. I was expecting to have to play songs that I had never heard before. But I was expecting to get them all charted out.
I got to the gig 2 hours early so that I could chart out the songs that I didn't know. A half hour later the drummer showed up. He had no set list and no recordings of any of the songs that they played. The guitar and keyboard players show up 15 minutes before start time at 8:00pm... They refused to change the set list to take out some of the more complicated newer songs that I had never listened to... ever. And there was not enough time left to chart them all out even if they wanted to... Which they didn't.
So... for the next 4 long hours I proceeded to fumble through songs that were completely foreign to me with no charts to look to for guidance. The guitar player kept his back to me most of the night, so I couldn't see his hand. The keyboard player thought he was being helpful by screaming out numbers that I couldn't even hear because his amp was so loud...
And it sucked... (By it I mean I.) "It" was REALLY Bad...
Oh... And I'm still waiting to get paid.
Our rehearsals are extremely loose. I mess up all the time. We all do. Rarely play a song twice. Fortunately we all step up at a gig. I mean, yeah, I may hit a couple of clams during a show but it's nothing compared to a Saturday afternoon with no one listening but the band. 
At rehearsal I thought I was playing an A, but it was an Ab. It's as though someone farted and it became a train wreck as everybody was looking at one another to determine who did it. I cant stop laughing at the screw up I did. I normally don't play like that. But it was a train wreck. They caught me. Lets hear your train wrecks. I know I'm not the only one.
View attachment 3456464
Egads!! I screw up all the time in my constant search of the perfect note, or series of notes, but I rarely laugh about it.
That’s where playing a fretless bails you out, baby!At rehearsal I thought I was playing an A, but it was an Ab. It's as though someone farted and it became a train wreck as everybody was looking at one another to determine who did it. I cant stop laughing at the screw up I did. I normally don't play like that. But it was a train wreck. They caught me. Lets hear your train wrecks. I know I'm not the only one.
View attachment 3456464
What was the first rule of bass playing I learned?
If you screw up a note, do it a second time, and call it "jazz".
Also - there was a point where I was playing in two bands with the same guitarist but different drummer, singer, etc. One of the bands played everything tuned a half step down, the other played in standard tuning. You'd think that genius here would keep one instrument in standard and the other half step down, but I love this Sadowsky so much that I insisted on bringing it to each gig and retuning. Problem is, I would not infrequently forget which band was which. Guess how many times I screwed that up??
If you screw up a note, do it a second time, and call it "jazz".
Also - there was a point where I was playing in two bands with the same guitarist but different drummer, singer, etc. One of the bands played everything tuned a half step down, the other played in standard tuning. You'd think that genius here would keep one instrument in standard and the other half step down, but I love this Sadowsky so much that I insisted on bringing it to each gig and retuning. Problem is, I would not infrequently forget which band was which. Guess how many times I screwed that up??
A couple years ago I auditioned for a band that was a drummer and singer couple (I know, I know) and they changed the key on almost everything to accommodate the female singers voice. I played an entire song—well maybe not entire, but most of it—in the wrong key. I wondered why they sounded so bad..... I also wondered why the drummer was staring at me the whole song. Honestly, they changed so many keys, I couldn’t keep track....
They declined to avail themselves of my services. But they’ve thrown me some gigs too. So I guess it all worked out.
They declined to avail themselves of my services. But they’ve thrown me some gigs too. So I guess it all worked out.
That’s where playing a fretless bails you out, baby!At rehearsal I thought I was playing an A, but it was an Ab. It's as though someone farted and it became a train wreck as everybody was looking at one another to determine who did it. I cant stop laughing at the screw up I did. I normally don't play like that. But it was a train wreck. They caught me. Lets hear your train wrecks. I know I'm not the only one.
View attachment 3456464
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