more noodles than a ramen store!

[Slade N]

install and use this
bit of juice for negative reinforcement

https://www.chewy.com/hot-spot-pets-wireless-rechargeable/dp/136510

 

[kesslari]

Make him perform naked and feature nude noodling!

 

[Ekulati]

Imma start a Grateful Dead cover band and call it the Noodles. Oh wait... someone already did that!

 

[john_g]

I got noodlers. My noodlers noodle the next song in the set. Almost every time they noodle around on the notes or chords of the song we are about to play. Song Broadcast Noodlers are the worst.

Guitarist in my last band always did this. Play some part of the next song in between songs. And he would set up his rig, full gig volume, and noodle for AT LEAST 20 minutes. Usually the same licks each time so we would know what was coming. One place turned up the house music so loud to attempt to drown him out that when he stopped, he held his ears and had a *** look on his face. It was really embarrassing and completely amateurish.

 

[dkelley]

Lay down the law. Noodling is unprofessional. Nobody wants to hear it except the noodler.
I almost walked out of Tedeschi/Trucks band. Derek Trucks noodles endlessly. The band could go have a beer between songs. Bought the fab T/T live album. Take out the noodling, it would be a single album.

well, when you're one of the greatest blues rock players in history with the family heritage he has inherited, he has earned the right to do whatever he wants. His level of success makes the rest of us look amateur, mostly, and I think maybe it's ok for him to noodle.

But at a classic level of performance control, noodling isn't cool unless it's very brief and to test things (Which unfortunately is a part of life unless you have been rehearsing that setlist verbatim with that effect rack pre programmed for each song....)

 

[Nevada Pete]

Sometimes I end up manning the computer in recording sessions. How about a noodler guitarist who noodles over the talkback mic when you’re trying to tell them their timing is so bad the takes are unusable.

Your probably better off just playing your guitarist's unusable tracks back to him so he (and the rest of the band) can hear the bad timing for himself, instead of trying to verbally advise him of the problem. Trying to tell a retardist , "Your timing is so bad the tracks are unusable", is probably going to be counter productive. Since your doing your own sessions, have some decent playback for the musicians. It saves a lot of time vs everybody having to shuffle back and forth into your booth, and back out to where they're playing. And you don't have to say a thing. Usually.

 

[Samatza]

This is one of my pet peeves. Song is finished, either start the next one, let the singer speak to the audience or wait for the drummer to count in. Why they have to noodle in between I don't know, all I know is I threatened to taser the next guy that did that...

 

[Koog]

It doesn't stop. I have played with guys like this over the years and no matter how kindly, or forcefully, or anywhere in between, they are asked they don't stop.

Not only is noodling unprofessional, it is inconsiderate. From my perspective, a noodler is "all about me". Because he or she has this perspective on life, he/she doesn't care a whit how unprofessional, inconsiderate, and annoying this behavior is.

A conversation about this is in order, but be prepared to back up the conversation by firing this person, if you're in a position to do so, or leave the band if you're not that leadership person. In my experience, the firing or leaving are the only things that will cause the noodling to cease.

Sorry you're in this frustrating position....been there. Good luck!

 

[JimmyM]

2. Noodlers will sabotage your marketability like nothing else. Nobody wants to hear it and it's all based on ego.

 

[Moose22]

Sometimes I end up manning the computer in recording sessions. How about a noodler guitarist who noodles over the talkback mic when you’re trying to tell them their timing is so bad the takes are unusable.

I set up a PA for a chick singer I was mentoring some years back. 18 year old (at the time) with a stellar voice and a great flair for dramatic lyrics and songwriting. She had an opening guitarist/singer to fill out the night, who was terrible with mic technique. He would lean back from the mic so far he couldn't be heard at the level you'd set when he spoke into the mic. It was a small coffee shop gig and the mixing board was at the stage, so it was mostly a set and forget deal, but I'd done shows there and could usually make it work.

I plopped her down for a 5 minute sound check. She sang some, played some, we got her channels perfect. Quick as can be. She was (And still is) a professional. Our 10 minute sound check took only 2 minutes and she was off to have a cup of coffee and talk to her friends until show time.

When he showed up I sat him down and he noodled, he ignored me when I asked him to do some things, when I asked him to sing he saw someone on the other side of the room, waved, then proceeded to talk to the dude. Noodling noodling noodling the whole time, even while talking to his friend, but wouldn't play like he intended to perform or sing like intended to sing. It was like trying to get a kindergarten class to pay attention for 30 seconds. I snapped. I just walked away and took a seat at a table in the back.

Show starts, you can't hear his voice at all (because he leaned back from the mic so the level wasn't anywhere close) and sounded TERRIBLE. The headliner came up to me and said "I can't hear him. Is there something wrong with is mic?"

"Nope. It works fine."

"Are you going to fix it?"

"Nope. I spent ten minutes trying to get him to even talk into the mic setting up. He couldn't be bothered to sing for me. Let him suffer. Tell him next time he shouldn't piss off the sound guy who is volunteering his time and equipment."

Needless to say, headliner lady introduces herself to every sound guy at every show to this day, even at large venues she plays. Especially at the larger venues. I don't think opener dude ever made it past coffee shop open mic nights. Nobody could stand to play with him.

 

[Nevada Pete]

Imma start a Grateful Dead cover band and call it the Noodles. Oh wait... someone already did that!

I never worked with the Dead, but my sound company and I did lots of shows with the Jerry Garcia Band. Once the load in was done, Jerry would more often than not plug in, sit on a road case or something, and just noodle away while we were finishing setting up the stage and patching up the sound system. He was always experimenting with different approaches to playing a riff, and seeing what might work here and there, etc. I can't say I never heard him noodle during a sound check too, or sometimes, occasionally, even during a show a little. I never gave it a second thought at the time, and neither did anybody else, I'm sure. Whatever Jerry wanted to do was fine.

In and around 1965 Jerry was teaching guitar at Dana Morgan Music in Palo Alto, California, and playing in a band called the Warlocks, which is a story in itself. The guitar lesson was you would strum out a rhythm guitar part Jerry would show you, and Jerry would noodle around trying this and that on lead while you were providing back up. From time to time Jerry would then pick up the rhythm part, and if you were paying attention to what he was doing, you could attempt to play what he had just done. Then he would jump in there and you knew it was time to strum some more so he could essentially continue practicing his riffs, etc. That was the guitar lesson, with a certain other aspect thrown in there as well! Quite a learning experience!

Dana Morgan had an old couch in his music shop up against the wall just as you walked in on the right side of the joint, and between lessons or if he didn't have anything booked for an hour or so Jerry could usually be found on the couch back then noodling away on his guitar through one of the rental amps on the floor. So if nobody else was already doing it, you would plug in and play rhythm guitar parts Jerry would ask for over and over again till your fingers got numb, while Jerry noodled away working on his chops.

I would say from my menial perspective that with just a few exceptions, the only times I ever saw Jerry beginning from Dana Morgan Music and going forward was when he was playing his guitar. Somehow, whatever Jerry did always seemed okay. Now, if you start noodling in between songs or on stage before a show, that might be a different story.

 

[Hot Rats]

Do you remember a blues guy named Mike Henderson? He used to open for Jerry quite a bit.

 

[Real Soon]

"Hey, is my dinner ready?"

"Huh"

"You've got noodles there so GO MAKE MY shagING DINNER"

 

[interp]

I got noodlers. My noodlers noodle the next song in the set. Almost every time they noodle around on the notes or chords of the song we are about to play. Song Broadcast Noodlers are the worst.

This is the worst. They are announcing to the audience: “We’re not really confident that we know this next song, and we haven’t really learned it properly, but we think it’s good enough for the likes of you.”

I have an ironclad rule for myself: Play NOTHING between the last note of one song and the first note of the next. So when someone in the band noodles between songs i just stand there mortified.

 

[Axstar]

Worst thing is when the noodling is stock phrases you've heard a million times.

 

[No Malarky]

A serious talk. If it continues, then comes embarrassment. If it still continues, give him the boot.

 

[Oddly]

How to deal with Noodlers ...(with apologies to some cooking recipe book)
Steps

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. ...
2. Drop a pinch of salt in the water. ...
3. Place the noodler in the boiling water. ...
4. Boil the noodler until tender. ...
5. Test to see whether the noodler is done. ...
6. Remove the noodler from heat and drain. ...
7. Put the noodler in a bowl and add a few drops of olive oil.

In fact, I'd replace no 7 with 'rinse and repeat', because these bozos NEVER learn.

If this all seems like too much trouble, just fire the guy.

 

[edencab]

you can have my post-song noodler (song has a hard stop?.... nnnnnope gotta flick the picK up switch 20 times, add feedback, wah wah notes etc etc)

....you can also have our "tune after every song" git player as well

 

[Nevada Pete]

Do you remember a blues guy named Mike Henderson? He used to open for Jerry quite a bit.

Those shows, in the San Francisco Bay Area at least were for the Keystone Family. Sorry, but to tell you the truth I don't remember if there even were any opening acts. I'm sure there were. There must have been. I just don't have an imprint of them.

Aside from the music when the Jerry Garcia Band played which as you know was unique and special, the one thing that stands out in my mind about those shows was that for some reason, there were often people who tried (and sometimes succeeded) to get up on stage during the performance. Never a dull moment. For the Keystone dates in the San Francisco Bay Area, they would not promote the shows for the Jerry Garcia Band. They just left the date off the calendar and counted on word of mouth to sell out the show, which is always what happened. The whole street in front of the clubs probably would have been mobbed if they hadn't done that. As it was, people used to camp out in the parking areas near by, and it took a couple of days to clean up afterwards. It was quite a scene, sometimes beginning a day or two before the show. Incredible.

 

[equill]

Shock collar?
Remote mute-switch on his amp? Possibly with a relay to the shock-collar?

Mercifully, I've only encountered a noodler once. Also the only time I've ever had to deal with friends-of-the-band turning up to a rehearsal. During the usual set-up and warm-up dance, one of said friends picked up a "spare" guitar, plugged it into a "spare" amp and proceeded to noodle. We didn't mind too much while we were still unpacking, plugging in and tuning up, but we sure did when it became clear he was lost in his own little world, oblivious to the band collectively glaring at him and wanting to start actually rehearsing.
You should have seen the look of shocked indignation on his face when the guitarist gave up trying to get his attention, and simply reached over and switched off the amp.