at least a wrong note proves you're not playing along to a cd in a hidden cdplayer milli vanilli style
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Have you ever messed up at a gig?
- Thread starter ericmknight1906
- Start date
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." -Albert Einstein. Okay, so this doesn't apply all the time. If you're playing a wedding, don't f- up. However, there are many gigs in which you should push yourself. Most instrumental music, without the element of danger, is really freakin' boring.
The reason why I am scared to go on stage (been asked a few times, gotta get nerve) is b/c I am afraid of screwing up, and I always figured that the bass player-like the drummer--if one of them messed up, it is more noticeable. Of course we get not noticed as the bass player other than that!
My first gig was so messed up, it was beyond funny. I messed up alot, but to save myself, the rest of the band messed up waaaaay more.
The first song we play was Higher Ground by RHCP and it was too fast for me at the time, yet they wanted me to play it anyway.
The first song we play was Higher Ground by RHCP and it was too fast for me at the time, yet they wanted me to play it anyway.
Mistakes sure we all have them and they suk. The longer i do this the less i care and dont take them to heart so much. Look i play in two bands one a good country band with great vocals and palyers and another a decent rock band with decent vocals. In the country band every mistake sticks out. We do alot of slow songs and clean playing so mistakes are heard but still nobody seams to care or notice.
You and you bandmates notice...trust me.
In the rock band i let lose and let it fly ...mistakes are hard to hear even to the band sometimes.
Im not talking about blowing parts now like verses insted of bridge etc, I am talking fingering goofs like a half step sharp or flat or rolling over a string maybe mess up a walk and have to get back to the chord.
If you are blowing songs then you will stick out and you need to learn the songs better. Of course there is the always the dreaded lurking BRAIN FART!
Remember what a great guitarist told me when i asked him how do i get over making mistakes. He said practice and play but never play so tight you are sweating every note or chord or dreading a song...thats no fun. Music is fun , let it flow from your soul and heart and its will be alright. The trick is to learn to cover mistakes quickly and never make it look like you made one by making a face or yelling etc. Play for fun enjoy!
You and you bandmates notice...trust me.
In the rock band i let lose and let it fly ...mistakes are hard to hear even to the band sometimes.
Im not talking about blowing parts now like verses insted of bridge etc, I am talking fingering goofs like a half step sharp or flat or rolling over a string maybe mess up a walk and have to get back to the chord.
If you are blowing songs then you will stick out and you need to learn the songs better. Of course there is the always the dreaded lurking BRAIN FART!
Remember what a great guitarist told me when i asked him how do i get over making mistakes. He said practice and play but never play so tight you are sweating every note or chord or dreading a song...thats no fun. Music is fun , let it flow from your soul and heart and its will be alright. The trick is to learn to cover mistakes quickly and never make it look like you made one by making a face or yelling etc. Play for fun enjoy!
Play for fun and enjoy. +1
There will always be mistakes. What you now consider to be flawless will be flawed when you finally get to that point. It will be something small - rhythm, timing, coordination with the rest of the band. And if you are flawless (none of us are, but...) then one of the other guys will make some small error.
We are all pretty self critical. Our audience see's and hears us playing music and having a good time, and they pick up on the vibe. Have fun and they will have fun too. I've picked up the bad havit of smiling at any mistake on stage, looking like I'm having a great time. This is how my wife knows that I've just made a mistake. I smile even more when the guitarists make mistakes, but I turn my head when the drummer does - to do that "we're really getting into it" kind of R&R bobbing we do on stage when we're driving the music hard. Of course it may not be his mistake, it may be mine... Never know.
There will always be mistakes. What you now consider to be flawless will be flawed when you finally get to that point. It will be something small - rhythm, timing, coordination with the rest of the band. And if you are flawless (none of us are, but...) then one of the other guys will make some small error.
We are all pretty self critical. Our audience see's and hears us playing music and having a good time, and they pick up on the vibe. Have fun and they will have fun too. I've picked up the bad havit of smiling at any mistake on stage, looking like I'm having a great time. This is how my wife knows that I've just made a mistake. I smile even more when the guitarists make mistakes, but I turn my head when the drummer does - to do that "we're really getting into it" kind of R&R bobbing we do on stage when we're driving the music hard. Of course it may not be his mistake, it may be mine... Never know.
And instead of your fellow musicians telling you that you played horribly, you just get the silent treatment? My Playing is usually decent but every now and then I may have an off night. Does that make me a bad musician?
I guess I'm still in that trial N Error Stage.
I would also like to know if I play horribly tonight and play great the next night do people forget about your horrible night?Am I as good as my last performance? ....Feedback please.
We mess up every gig, and I mean every gig. We laugh it off though, otherwise the band wouldn't last long. No one notices anyway because the mistakes aren't huge, just would be better without them. It's hard not to mess up with having to load in, sound check and having adrenaline going.
One of the marks of a pro attitude IMO, is recognizing the mistake so you can improve on it, but not dwelling on it and make it a issue. It's already done, so no reason to give anyone the stink eye the rest of the night. Same mistake over and over in the same spot, sure mention it, but don't make it a big hairy issue. Music is art, part of art is pleasant imperfection IMO.
I think it's the opposite. I'm the bass player and sound man. Both of those are similar in that they aren't usually noticed until they make a mistake. (barring the occasional solo line).
This is the foundation. You don't walk into a house and notice the foundation. You notice the walls, the chandeliers, and the furniture. But when the foundation is wrong, you can tell. The walls are shifted, the chandelier doesn't hang right.
Many times I have opted to play the simpler line if I know I'll probably mess up the more complicated one. Better to play solid than to play fancy/sloppy.
The worst thing you can do when you make a mistake on stage is to keep thinking about it. All that will accomplish is to make you screw up again, which leads to a situation I call "cascading f**kups". Never look back.
Avoid mistakes when you can; recover gracefully when you can't.
Avoid mistakes when you can; recover gracefully when you can't.
I agree, when you try fancy stuff do it at practice or home first, or in a not so important gig. (Among drunks?) LOL....
or on a very experimental gig. I do shows where NOTHING is supposed to be rehearsed or planned ahead. That can be interesting.
...An occasional bum night is not a deal-breaker - as long as you don't have a complete melt-down, and it doesn't happen too frequently. Even frequent flashes of greatness won't save you otherwise.
The goal here is to play consistently well - then in time, to play consistently great. And in time, to play consistently brilliantly.
The key concept is consistency. That's what separates the pro players from the hacks...
MM
Excellent post!
I believe that the ONLY time anyone notices the bass is when they screw up.
6jase5
Mammogram is down but I'm working manually
The best part of playing all originals is that if we hit a clam (other than vocally) no one really knows but us. We all just laugh, like when the drummer ends a song a bar early I'll smack a cymbal. sadly too many people are starting to know our songs so the innocence is fading.
We did a live cable TV show once, we finished up our setlist and had time for one more. The other guys suggested a song, which started with me. For the life of me I could not remember the song, even though we had played it flawlessly for years. They had to sing it to me before it clicked. We laughed and I made a comment about "only on live TV", hoping that nobody I knew saw it...WRONG!! :scowl: the next day, I opened an inbox full of Alzheimer's, substance abuse and rookie comments.
Still to this day, once in a while I'll say "how's that go now?" when we play it, much to the rest of the band's amusement...
EVERYONE messes up at gigs. Bands who play every weekend make less mistakes and Bands who gig less and maybe only rehearse once a week might mess up more. I played a gig last night and made a few blunders, and so did the rest of the band on a few songs. If it's an individual mistake, we might acknowledge our own faults that we made, but we don't say "Hey you...." If it was a mistake that took down the whole band we just say "Yeah next rehearsal we should work on ________" and name the songs that had issues.
Hit up YouTube and watch Rush from Colbert last night. During the solo, when it modulates up, Geddy hits a note that sliced open one of my eardrums.
If Geddy hits 'em, trust me, you can too!
I saw Yes way back but not too far back, in 1984. On Owner of a Lonely Heart, Chris Squire totally messed up on the high bass riff near the end, not just a wrong note, it sounded like he dragged the string off the side of the fingerboard. No recovering from that; I remember he just looked around and smiled. My reaction was I puked a little bit on my Members Only jacket and it spilled into the pocket on my Aquanett can and onto my Kangaroo sneakers
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I thought of this last night after a few mishaps and I think that melodic instruments are more noticeable if the mistake isn't easily covered. I'm a drummer primarily and I feel like if I make a mistake, as long as it's in time, I'm all. People aren't going to notice if a note in a fill is slightly off or if I play the wrong thing to a section as long as the time doesn't fluctuate too badly.
But maybe it's just me getting better at hiding my mistakes and making them look like I did it on purpose...actually a few mistakes I've made have reappeared in songs on purpose because they didn't sound half that bad
Have I ever messed up at a gig?
Sure.
But they're not gonna fire me, because I can sing. Maybe we should rename the band Government Work. You know, "good enough for..."
Sure.
But they're not gonna fire me, because I can sing. Maybe we should rename the band Government Work. You know, "good enough for..."
well... playing an alternative cover band for a while i dropped the pick midway through 
had to finish it fingerstyle and all the riffs were very fast and god, my fingers were sore and for that style of music, fingerstyle sounded terrible
and no that's not the reason i left, the lead guitard was a gigantic, well, you know
had to finish it fingerstyle and all the riffs were very fast and god, my fingers were sore and for that style of music, fingerstyle sounded terrible and no that's not the reason i left, the lead guitard was a gigantic, well, you know
