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Humbling Audition Experience

lustersilk

lustersilk

Guest
Apr 26, 2012
689
62
Orange County California
www.dimestorezombies.com
#1
Well I have spent the last four Mondays rehearsing with a new originals band. Super good front man and really awesome material. Just got an email today, I'm not going to work out. I thought it was going pretty good. I had all the song structures learned and about half of the complex riffs down. This is a first for me.

I'm taking away from this experience the following:

1 - Practice more scales, especially higher up on the neck
2 - Rehearse in different keys
2 - Practice scales in different modes

This was a very humbling experience and I'm sure going to learn from it. Not complaining, just working through it - thanks for listening.
 
#2
I would take away that you need to become a better bass player/musician and scales is only a small part of that. You can know all the scales in existence, but if you can't apply them it won't help.

Everyone has room for improvement.
 
#6
there could be a million other reasons, I think a lot of people get gigs more on personality than any technical playing. What kind of originals band was this anyhow, that had this amount of high neck action? (Please do not say any kind of ____Metal)
 
#10
lustersilk said:
Well I have spent the last four Mondays rehearsing with a new originals band. Super good front man and really awesome material. Just got an email today, I'm not going to work out. I thought it was going pretty good. I had all the song structures learned and about half of the complex riffs down. This is a first for me.

I'm taking away from this experience the following:

1 - Practice more scales, especially higher up on the neck
2 - Rehearse in different keys
2 - Practice scales in different modes

This was a very humbling experience and I'm sure going to learn from it. Not complaining, just working through it - thanks for listening.
Click to expand...

Your choice to take responsibility and turn this experience into motivation to make yourself a better player is to be applauded.
"Why do we fall down? So we can learn to pick ourselves up." ol Master Wayne had that one right. Good luck....
 
#11
StyleOverShow said:
The entire package includes being classy in disappointing situations.

And, who knows why bands make decisions? Sometimes it's chemistry, or someone just didn't like your style, although technically proficient.
Click to expand...
+1. Don't want to discourage some well earned wood shedding, but having been on both sides of the audition process lots of variables could have been in play.
 
#12
Did they give you any feedback on why they were going to go with someone different? If the experience made you recognize some weaknesses in yourself, that's great and you should work on those things, but they may have made their choice for completely different reasons. Those reasons could be something else that you may want to work on (someone with more background vocal skills, for instance), or it could be something you can do nothing about - like they have people of all different races and you make them double up on one race when they'd rather add another (don't laugh, people have chosen band members for even stupider reasons than that).

Of course, it could also be that the band leader just started sleeping with this really hot chick that plays bass, and you're out.

If they don't tell you, it could really be almost anything.
 
#15
How was your look and overall attitude? We you involved, spoke enough but not to much and asked some questions?

Almost all of the auditions I have been in or a part of attitude has won out at times over how good of a player they are. I believe if you are decent with a good attitude you can beat out a cat that is an awesome player with a bad attitude.

Just a month or two ago I sat in at a so-called bands horrible practice. The keys player was as dry as a burnt piece of toast in a desert and the guitar player was so-so.
The lead singer came in with a "tude" an hour late and the drummer had quit that day I was told :rolleyes:

I said little and jus tried to get thru it. I'm sure half way thru this bore fest they saw me yawning and looking rather uninterested. I packed up and took off. A few days later they emailed me and said they found somebody else..wonder why?

FWIW, I have always been asked back to all the additions I have played at since I got back into music 11 years ago. Sometimes I stayed ,sometimes not but always asked to join or come back. I will tell you right here I am an average player so it was not only my skills or lack of them. The big thing was at those other auditions I was engaged, interested and showed positive aptitude until that last one that is. :rollno:
 
#17
It's good you're doing self-evaluation, but I wouldn't take it too hard.

Every time I've been turned down after an audition, it's always later been a situation where I had no regrets later that I didn't get the gig (band went nowhere, they broke apart, too much drama, etc).

Found out once about a year after I auditioned for a local band the reason I didn't get the gig...turns out the other bass player who auditioned "knew some hot chicks" that the drummer/leader wanted to get with! Singer admitted to me I was the better bass player. I certainly don't have any regrets about not getting into that band.
 
#18
Did they give you any specifics as to their decision? Sometimes it can be constructive criticism about your playing and sometimes it's just chemistry. Nothing you can do if they felt the chemistry wasn't right. If you were lacking something because of your playing, then that's something you can work on for the future. Make it a good learning experience.
 
#19
Ahhhh - thanks everyone for the kind words of support. Really appreciated. I posted this yesterday right after I read the email and I was a little down. I'm feeling great today.

It was original music, funky bluesy stuff. Front man sounded like Lenny Kravitz in a good way. I loved the material but it was much busier than I was used to and they pretty much wanted it note for note. I was missing some of the key nuances.

My son the music major commented that I need to be practicing different modes so I can hear some of these things more naturally as they occur.

I've contacted one of my son's old teachers and am going to take about three months of lessons as well as expand my practice style.

Thanks again for helping a brother back up.
 
#20
You never know what might happen or what it might lead to. It sounds like you are going after it head on, and you are going to be a much better player because of this. It will lead to more opportunities that may be even more fun than you can imagine now. I'm sure it will work that way for you if you go after it like that.
 

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