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New audition experience...opinions

J

jonas_24112

Jul 11, 2011
416
1
#1
Got the song list of 40 songs. Spent 1.5 weeks working on material. BL texted me 4 other songs 2-3 days before audition and asked me to concentrate on them for the audition. No problem.

Went to audition. Played maybe 3 of ALL the songs I had been given, then was thrown to the wolves on stuff I didn't know.

BL said I did well on the songs I was given beforehand, but their current bass player is a much better "faker", sometimes just noodling around the 12th fret when he gets lost. Therefore he can't move as fast as he wants (was gonna hire me for next week) but wants me to come back and play again to go over the material.

So, what do y'all think?
 
#3
Auditions are tricky things. Many are hard to read and others, by the time you're done, you don't want that gig.

It sounds like they're testing you by jerking you around. If you handle it very, very well, then you've handled it as you should (get used to it) and the chips will fall where they may.

Being in the wilderness as I have been for 2+ years as I have been, I still don't trust any of the acts I am working with even though some are emphatic that 'I'm in!'

Whatever happens, just stay current on learning songs and stay good at that. You don't have to learn all the new top 40's out there, just learn songs you like and keep your ears working.

FWIW
 
#7
Agreed, auditions can be nerve wrecking and/or annoying.
Having to learn a bunch of new songs on a regular basis makes you a better player and
gives you a better ear. When and if you need to vamp or ad lib, you got larger mental library to draw from.

That said, I've been to auditions where I flubbed a few key parts and that was it, not hired.
On the other hand, been to some that I couldn't wait to get away because the band totally sucked and while packing it up they are begging me to join their band.

Bottom line, win or lose you come out ahead
 
#10
PDQbass said:
I'm not sure I would want to join a band where it was considered acceptable for the bass player to noodle around the twelfth fret when he was lost. Pretty low standards by the sound of it.
Click to expand...

Thus the reason they're looking at me. All the guys in this band are extremely talented and a literal song books on legs. Me, I need to know the song before I play it. An example of what happened is they started playing a country song I was not familiar with. By the end of the first verse I had the key and pattern (playing the right notes), and root/inverse 5th-ing away when the drummer stops and tells me it's a walking bass line. BL shows me the walk, basically 1,2,5,6,8. I do it and we play the song. It wasn't perfectly clean, but I got through it.

Basically, the BL asked if I knew a lot of country music. I admitted I know a lot of modern country and can fake a ton of the classics, but knowin that song from the 80's was a walking bass line was a real stretch.
 
#11
They sound disorganized. If they have songs (a set list?), why not just have you learn, and play that? That's going to be your job.

Did you call out a few tunes they didn't know and see how well they could "fake it"?
 
#13
jonas_24112 said:
Thus the reason they're looking at me. All the guys in this band are extremely talented and a literal song books on legs. Me, I need to know the song before I play it. An example of what happened is they started playing a country song I was not familiar with. By the end of the first verse I had the key and pattern (playing the right notes), and root/inverse 5th-ing away when the drummer stops and tells me it's a walking bass line. BL shows me the walk, basically 1,2,5,6,8. I do it and we play the song. It wasn't perfectly clean, but I got through it.

Basically, the BL asked if I knew a lot of country music. I admitted I know a lot of modern country and can fake a ton of the classics, but knowin that song from the 80's was a walking bass line was a real stretch.
Click to expand...

If its a country band doing walking chords then how does the other guy fake it and noddle around the 12th fret? That sounds pretty strange and would leave me scratching my head.

This falls back to another thread here lately where some TBers said they fake songs to pick them up quick for gigs. Like you said you did not know the country song was walked not root /fitth so if you faked and the drummer corrected you to walk the chords.
Some of my country bands songs have root/ fifth then walks then stops and turnarounds...you can't fake that.

I would tell them look if you stick to the songs I practiced you will get a better Idea of what I am and how I play. Throwing you the the wolves type of try out and telling you the other guy noodled when lost might make me think this is not the band for me.
 
#14
Winfred said:
They sound disorganized. If they have songs (a set list?), why not just have you learn, and play that? That's going to be your job.
Click to expand...

Well, the OP did say these guys were extremely talented and leterally "song books on legs"...that tells me that they know (or can fake to a high degree of sincerity) WAY more than the 40 songs on their written list. Given that, it's very possible they play gigs where playing requests is extremely important or being able to morph genres is extremely important. In that case, if I were them and was looking for an improvement at the bass position, I would care just as much about the ability to improvise as the ability to learn songs beforehand.
 
#16
Paid gig.... heck yeah. But I am awesome at fakin it and winging songs. Heck I used to do whole nights with a band leader where we would just play whatever the crowd called out. I was constantly floored by how this guy could remember lyrics to songs I hadn't even heard in a decade and had lots of lyrical content even including a bunch of rap. Most songs in the blues/country vein are just I IV V anyways.

Unpaid gig - nope... I don't show up for free.
 
#17
Regardless of how good the other guys are at faking it or knowing lots of songs, they should have told you that is what they were looking for. To throw out a song you have never heard and not give you a key or a basic idea of the form before hand is just silly. Maybe if they had said going in that they were looking for someone who could wing every song in the last 60 years of any style as part of the audition, otherwise I just wouldn't trust these guys. What other surprises are they hiding.
 
#18
First off, I would not have learned 40 songs FOR AN AUDITION. 4-6 maybe. If they then wanted 4 different ones I would say, no, you already gave me a list and I have already been learning them. Then if they wanted to play all completely different stuff at the audition, I would have just faked it the best I could (which is pretty good), but I would get them to tell me the basic chord progression, etc...

But this band sounds like a total joke. They really need to get their $hit together. I would ignore their call and emails and let Mr "Noodles at the 12th Fret" guy keep his job.
 
#20
Last year I had the best, most professionally conducted audition I was ever a part of. They asked me to learn three songs with several days of lead time. At the audition, we played those three songs, then they had me try a song I had never heard with the band. Then they had me listen to the song and then we played it again. Then I was asked to play "whatever I feel" with the band as they played a repeating progression. Then we talked.

I ended up not getting the gig (rockabilly, and they were looking for a stand-up bass player), but it was absolutely a great experience.


In the OP's situation, after learning 40 songs and playing three of them, I think it would have been appropriate to ask what exactly the purpose of the audition was, what exactly they they are looking for in a bass player, what exactly is the nature of their gigs, and about how many times or in what circumstances he would be expected to play songs with zero preparation. It might still be possible to have that conversation, given the fact that they aren't happy with mr. noodles. Remember, it's you auditioning them just as much as it's them auditioning you.
 

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