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I went for quite a few years of not doing public performances, owing to the usual combination of family, professional obligations, and lack of obvious opportunity, but at one point 10 years or so ago, I realized that delivering good loud rock music is something I enjoy more than anything else except sex, and that it was worth some extra effort - so I started sleeping less and working more under headphones in the dead of night, to get my chops back up and learn the material that the band I'd helped found wanted to play. It may have been exhausting but it kept me something closer to sane.
My observation isn't that it's so much about being seen as it is about the majority of people out there doing local stages just not being able to hear well enough to know what's right and what isn't.
So many players will look up a chord chart online and fail to hear that it isn't correct. There are common mistakes that I listen for in cover bands and when I hear those I know that whoever is in the band either can't hear or doesn't feel empowered to make corrections.
I'm playing with a BL like this right now. He's a decent player technically speaking but his charts are wrong and he doesn't really listen to my suggestions on how to improve them. I like those guys personally and audiences really love them, so I put up with the discrepancies for now. I'll likely drop that band when have my hand surgery, which will make me a little sad, because they are really nice people and I don't want to disappoint them. But I can only do that for so long.
Good distinction there. I don't get how people who can't hear the difference between a composition with a reference recording and a broken chart/tab can function as musicians, but there are certainly some who do. But I myself have been put in positions where the vocalist/rhythm player absolutely insisted on persisting in an error that made their job easier, and I had to grit my teeth and not play the "right" part. It's a tough call. Is my higher duty to the original songwriter or to the band?
Well, he's the BL so all things being equal, it's his call. How does the rest of the band feel about this? There have been times when I was pretty sure things would sound better if done differently, but could get no headway until I persuaded at least a quorum of the band to run it through the way I was hearing it, at which point sometimes people said, "oh, I see, yeah, that does sound better".
Rock/blues/jazz leaves a lot of room for interpretation. One person's mistake is another person's experiment or personal touch. "I meant to do that" is the eternal excuse of the bad rock musician, and part of a good stage presence is the ability to hit absolutely the wrong note, but do it with enough confidence and aplomb that no one but you knows that it was unintentional. There reaches a point where the song is no longer the same, but whether that's by rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic deformation that it crosses the line first is very much in the ear of the beholder.
I don't think they care much either way. He and I are the only harmonic instrumentalists and so it falls to us to play the changes correctly (or as desired). One song I mentioned to him has an instrumental break with a string of changes that he isn't playing at all. I mentioned it and he added a few of them in, but it's still nothing close to the original. So yes, it's his call and I don't want to be the constant troublemaker or complainer so I just take what I can get with as much of a smile as I can muster.
The obvious solution is to find players with better ears, and I do have that band, it's just not gigging yet. When that band gets its act together and starts doing shows it will likely become my main focus.
I think our higher duty is to do the job that fits the situation we're in, but that doesn't mean we don't look for better situations.
I learned to play with a guitarist and drummer starting in our teens. We did a few gigs back then as we went through singers never finding the right fit. The three of us got together sporadically over the decades but never cranked it up again. Now the guitar player has terminal cancer. Today I’m content to play at home to recordings.
Like many, just returning to gigging after Covid...
For the next months, weekly gig with one band, second band re-uniting and auditioning singers, to get back to gigging. Third band - last gig tonight, then the band will disassemble. Much better than during Covid!
So... My original post was edited by a moderator, making it now being in part written by someone else (and not me).
However, as it is no longer MY text, and I want to delete the altered post, which is not possible?
Could someone either reinstall the uncensored post, alternatively delete the post altogether?
Thanks - much appreciated!
Covid killed gigs around here until recently. We hadn't gigged since February 2020 until last month, played a local bar and remembered the songs despite only a few rehearsals in over a year. Looking forward to doing more over the balance of this year.
Click ‘report’ on the post in question and a moderator will see your request & respond.
So, I posted a request to get my post deleted, on the foundation that the moderator had replaced my "China flu" (Covid), followed by a smiley emoji, with just "Covid".
Apparently, "Spanish flu" is OK, but China flu" is racist??? Although it is from China, and a virus?
Below is the response I got. It is not signed by anyone.
"
Unfortunately, your recent report has been rejected: Post in thread 'How many TBers do not gig?' - Your post was not "re-written", racist/inflammatory language was removed. If you don't like that, don't use racist/inflammatory language."
Going to address this here and close the thread until a forum mod wants to come clean it up.
1) You did not say "China flu", you said "Chinese plague". Either term though has racist connotations and has been consistently removed from the forums when we see it. So "china plague" was replaced with "covid". This is the least intrusive action moderators can do, as one had the option to delete your post an issue an infraction for rule 4, which didn't happen. Your post wasn't rewritten, nor was the meaning changed.
2) You've been here long enough you should know the rules. Rule #5: Questioning a Moderation Decision Publicly If you have a disagreement with a moderator (If your thread gets deleted, if you get a warning, etc.), DO NOT post your complaint publicly on the forums. If you would like to raise a complaint regarding a moderator's actions, start a private conversation or email the moderator. If the moderator's response is unsatisfactory, please contact the forum admin staff by clicking the "contact us" link in any page's footer.
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