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How bad were you...
- Thread starter Yonni
- Start date
skyline_01
Endorsing artist: Nordstrand Audio, Tsunami Cables
When I first started doing $ gigs I was probably in my 4th year of playing. Our band had been a hard rock/metal outfit before that but the only thing that paid around the area was country/southern rock, so we "sold out" and started getting paid lol.
Anyway, I didn't really consider myself to be bad... actually I think that I was probably one of the better players in town at the time (not bragging) but then again there were only about 50,000 people there lol. That being said, the hardest thing starting out for me was singing harmony and playing at the same time, and harmony was a big part of the material we were doing. There were countless times I would go to the wrong string or just drop out altogether bc I would be concentrating on singing, OR I would play the bass notes just fine but my harmony would be squirrely. But as with anything else, with repetition it became easier and easier to do and now I don't have to think much about it to pull it off. Key thing to remember is that everyone was "bad" at some point, even the pros.
Anyway, I didn't really consider myself to be bad... actually I think that I was probably one of the better players in town at the time (not bragging) but then again there were only about 50,000 people there lol. That being said, the hardest thing starting out for me was singing harmony and playing at the same time, and harmony was a big part of the material we were doing. There were countless times I would go to the wrong string or just drop out altogether bc I would be concentrating on singing, OR I would play the bass notes just fine but my harmony would be squirrely. But as with anything else, with repetition it became easier and easier to do and now I don't have to think much about it to pull it off. Key thing to remember is that everyone was "bad" at some point, even the pros.
- Oct 18, 2012
- 6,683
- 5,538
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Fender, Spector, Ampeg, Curt Mangan, Nordstrand Pickups, Korg , Conquest Sound
The first gig I ever did we played the high school that some of the band members had graduated from. We opened for a well established local band. The audience liked us so much that they were repeatedly screaming our band's name while the other band was playing. After the show, the drummer from the other band shoved me and said "thanks for making us look bad". A few weeks later, we became the house band a local club and played every Tuesday and Wednesday and one week each month, we played Tuesday through Saturday. This went on for about 4 years. I've been fortunate to have played with some very good musicians.
How bad were you...
my first paying gig (age 14, 1964): pretty terrible, i'm sure, but since my band had been the winner of several battle-of-the-bands contests = i can only deduce/remember that all bands comprised of 14-year-olds were god awful.
my first paying gig (age 14, 1964): pretty terrible, i'm sure, but since my band had been the winner of several battle-of-the-bands contests = i can only deduce/remember that all bands comprised of 14-year-olds were god awful.
My first gig was about 6 months after starting to seriously play the bass. I'd had one around but did no more than tinker with it most of the time and was a gigging drummer.
I was talking to a friend and they had a 3 pc, guitar/keys/drums and they were considering adding a bassist, something my friend the guitarist really wanted. So I really hit the practice schedule and learned lots of ideas from the keys player had been doing.
My first gig went well, I probably played worse than I remember, but it sure was fun. The band had been playing for over a year already so overall it wasn't a new band winging it. I played lots of root notes that night with little to no fills!
I was talking to a friend and they had a 3 pc, guitar/keys/drums and they were considering adding a bassist, something my friend the guitarist really wanted. So I really hit the practice schedule and learned lots of ideas from the keys player had been doing.
My first gig went well, I probably played worse than I remember, but it sure was fun. The band had been playing for over a year already so overall it wasn't a new band winging it. I played lots of root notes that night with little to no fills!
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A year in........I was pretty decent. Learned every damn thing on the radio. It's what got me invited into bands. I never had to learn anything. It's also what got a lot of bassists fired from their bands. They never learned or knew the songs.
Nightmare gigs early on? None that I can recall. I will say, I had a Univox bass and a late 60's Traynor YB tube amp and 2x15 cab. I think my amp was all of 50 tube watts. Not loud at all. Other bassists around me were playing P's and J's into Acoustic, Plush, Sunn and other more powerful amps available during the mid 70's.
Nightmare gigs early on? None that I can recall. I will say, I had a Univox bass and a late 60's Traynor YB tube amp and 2x15 cab. I think my amp was all of 50 tube watts. Not loud at all. Other bassists around me were playing P's and J's into Acoustic, Plush, Sunn and other more powerful amps available during the mid 70's.
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JeezyMcNuggles
Inactive
- Feb 23, 2018
- 14,723
- 20,970
- Disclosures
- I suck, but nobody really notices
I've only had one gig where I played "bad." We were headlining in Van Nuys, and I felt good about it, so I didn't run through the songs before we got up there. I was off for two or three songs. But I don't think anyone even noticed. But, I rocked the hell out of my first show. Learned the songs in 3 days, had one practice together, and played at the Whiskey a GoGo. It was fun.
I started playing bass at 45 and had my first public gig at 50. I would say I was probably competent, though we were hardly playing the most challenging stuff. Ten years on, while I've probably improved some as a player, the biggest difference is that I'm not nearly as nervous before a gig as I used to be. That first time I had serious butterflies starting a good 24-hours in advance. I don't get butterflies any more.
I started playing bass in elementary school orchestra 3 or 4 years before I started playing out on the punk scene with my older brother's band, so I could certainly hold my own with the other punkbassers... some had no sense of pitch or rhythm and chugged on through a 20watt combo or stereo receiver (but that's punk!)... I had decent gear for those basement and bar gigs though and was good enough to keep time and add fun little fills here and there, so people thought I was a "good bassist". Did great things for my 15 year old self-esteem! Though I was still a little shy, usually being the baby of the band
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My first gig was in the '80s, yet I remember it like it was yesterday. A guitar player friend of mine decided we should put a band together for an upcoming school dance.
Mistake #1: We were 15-16 years old and thought we knew everything.
Mistake #2: I was the lead singer.
Mistake #3: We thought it would be a great idea to film our performance. One of our friends borrowed his dad filming equipment to record the whole thing.
Mistake #4: 3-4 practices for a newly formed band whose member had 0 to 6 months experience on their respective instrument is more than enough, right?
On the night of the show, some of us were extremely nervous. I think it was dawning on us that we sucked. Rhythm guitar player threw up just before we walked on stage, he was that nervous.
Crazy thing is, people loved it and we had fun.
The next day we got together to look at the film. I couldn’t believe how bad we were. Yet, the rest of the band thought it was good! I was horrified!
I learned a lot from that show:
Mistake #1: We were 15-16 years old and thought we knew everything.
Mistake #2: I was the lead singer.
Mistake #3: We thought it would be a great idea to film our performance. One of our friends borrowed his dad filming equipment to record the whole thing.
Mistake #4: 3-4 practices for a newly formed band whose member had 0 to 6 months experience on their respective instrument is more than enough, right?
On the night of the show, some of us were extremely nervous. I think it was dawning on us that we sucked. Rhythm guitar player threw up just before we walked on stage, he was that nervous.
Crazy thing is, people loved it and we had fun.
The next day we got together to look at the film. I couldn’t believe how bad we were. Yet, the rest of the band thought it was good! I was horrified!
I learned a lot from that show:
- Lead singer is not for me. (I bought the bass player’s bass a few weeks later…)
- Good friends don’t always make for good musician or bandmates. Music became important for me, so I studied and practiced hard to get to a level where I was comfortable playing in public.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously. Having fun (you and the public) is important.
- It’s hard to evaluate your own playing. Recording is a great way to learn to do that. Now it’s so easy to record yourself with a laptop or your cellphone; record yourself!
You start improving when you play with other musicians, as opposed to practicing at home. When you start playing live, it forces you to improve really quickly. You will start noticing details that you will remedy for the next show. It's a never-ending exercise in self-improvement.
My first few shows, I was nervous as he77 & made numerous mistakes. I eventually became more comfortable. Everyone makes mistakes. Dust them off & recover as soon as possible.
My first few shows, I was nervous as he77 & made numerous mistakes. I eventually became more comfortable. Everyone makes mistakes. Dust them off & recover as soon as possible.
I do remember being quite terrible, but we enjoyed ourselves. I think I was 14...
From there the guitar player and I got in some new blood. The drummer was the guitar players brother, and he'd never played before. Second guitar player was his best friend who knew one chord shape that he'd slide up and down as needed. All we needed was a singer.
I school friend of mine was singing along to the radio one day, and to my surprise he had the voice of a young Steve Winwood. It all came together. The second guitar player turned out to be a talented songwriter. Between the singer, the second guitar player and myself we wrote A LOT.
Within a year we had a residency in a pub, and were playing many gigs. Couple of covers here and there, but mostly originals. Looking back, I was way too busy on the bass, and we were average at best.
However, the energy we had was amazing.
If I learned anything from that time, it's that a 15 year old bass player with no transportation has to have good friends if he's to get his behemoth Acoustic 371-clone cabinet to the gigs.
From there the guitar player and I got in some new blood. The drummer was the guitar players brother, and he'd never played before. Second guitar player was his best friend who knew one chord shape that he'd slide up and down as needed. All we needed was a singer.
I school friend of mine was singing along to the radio one day, and to my surprise he had the voice of a young Steve Winwood. It all came together. The second guitar player turned out to be a talented songwriter. Between the singer, the second guitar player and myself we wrote A LOT.
Within a year we had a residency in a pub, and were playing many gigs. Couple of covers here and there, but mostly originals. Looking back, I was way too busy on the bass, and we were average at best.
However, the energy we had was amazing.
If I learned anything from that time, it's that a 15 year old bass player with no transportation has to have good friends if he's to get his behemoth Acoustic 371-clone cabinet to the gigs.
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
I had been playing bass for about two years and didn't know my behind from a hole in the ground. No lessons - just making noise and playing by ear as best I could. No knowledge of the neck to speak of, no technique, no nothing! So, what happens? I was playing with a bunch of friends and looking for a drummer for a while, but then another friend who had an upcoming show asked if I would play bass with her. It was a quick turnaround (she asked if I would play on a Saturday and the gig was the following Saturday). I didn't know the songs. We got together to go over the songs, along with another guitarist who was going to more or less play lead with us. I started messing around with the bass lines a little, and what started out as country songs turned into Motown-ish vamps and reggae. Uh, oh... Then we didn't have time to get together again until right before the show - we did a quick rehearsal in a lady's room before we went on. That was a little weird, but oh, well. There were doors on the stalls and nobody seemed to care that I was in there. So, we get out onto a stage, a raised stage, in front of several hundred people, and we launch right in. I was trying to keep track, but started getting a little lost. The "lead" guitarist got completely bamboozled and started looking at me to figure out where we were. I didn't know. The original guitarist/singer just kept plodding along, more or less, but the timing kept changing. That was the first song. At least we didn't stop. It got better after that, but it was pretty bad.
Moral of this story - to be good at anything, you must first suck. If you suck in public, you suck in public. Not much of a moral except that most people do not suck as badly or as publicly as I did during that first gig.
Moral of this story - to be good at anything, you must first suck. If you suck in public, you suck in public. Not much of a moral except that most people do not suck as badly or as publicly as I did during that first gig.
There was a lot of room for improvement from then on but we did not totally suck or bomb or anything. I actually can say I had the most fun my first ever gig than I have on a lot of gigs that have come after but also I think I have improved a lot in many areas as well.
My first public performance was a high school dance in 1973. I was 13 and we were awful. I had spent 2 years in front of the hifi my parents owned learning every song by ear. You can only imagine how sketchy that can be. A friend recommended me to these guys who had a band that included a sax, trumpet, keyboards as well as two guitars. They cobbled together what became my first real amp, a Kustom 100 with a Coral 3-15" which sounded terrible but was loud. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that it was around my birthday and my father had bought me a Rick 4001. We played songs from bands ranging from The Beatles to Zeppelin. I particularly remember having fun with Southern Man, Funk 49 and Fresh Air but I can't fool myself into believing we were terribly good at those covers.
All I can say is for however bad it might have been, it started me on a course of playing all through the '70's into the early '80's and I'm happy for the experiences
All I can say is for however bad it might have been, it started me on a course of playing all through the '70's into the early '80's and I'm happy for the experiences
We are players, not music critics. Leave the criticism to others. It’s time for you to get into a band and do an open mic night or play a party somewhere.
Remember the rules:
1) Don’t stop.
2) Keep playing.
Remember the rules:
1) Don’t stop.
2) Keep playing.
