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Quit a band - what do you do with the charts?

#41
I don't keep charts for original music... My brain doesn't seem to have a problem retaining the stuff I write, so long as it hasn't been too long since the last time I played the material.

If its cover music, I always keep the charts. I never know when I'll get a call, or what I'll be playing. It saves me a lot of time if I can just grab what I need instead of having to transcribe it all out again.
 
#42
A few years ago I got suckered into playing with a colleague from work playing his (mediocre) original songs.

After a couple of gigs that yielded no pay despite being remarkably well attended I "discovered" I was already booked for his upcoming shows.

I gave him the charts I'd created as he didn't have any - I figured they might help the next bass player victim and it seemed like the price I paid so he wouldn't ask me to play with him again. It was a price worth paying.
 
#44
Johnny Crab said:
Not charted but do have a notebook full of notes for the 100+ songs learned in 30 days for the current band.
Got an email in 2006 "Can you learn 100 songs in a month? We fired our bassist with an important gig coming up".

Keep 'em in a file cabinet. Having to relearn or chart something years later, again, might be not fun.
Click to expand...

Why? That's just silly. No band ever played 100+ songs in one gig....rarely even half that.
 
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#48
dtripoli said:
I keep old charts in a file folder in case the same song(s) are needed in the future,
but 9 times out of 10, I can never find that needed song in the pile.

Jaco's Law of Charts:
If you throw them away, you'll need them in the near future.
If you keep them, you'll never need them.
Click to expand...
As frequently stated by Jaco himself in Bill Milkowski's book Jaco...

"Write it down!"
 
#50
I keep them in binders in a crate in the garage.
Once in a while, I am in a situation where they are useful.
My old originals are charted out in there as well, in case one day I might want to put one of those back in the rotation, it will be easy to pull it out and photocopy it.

Scanning it will be pointless, because in 5 years if you need it, you will have no clue where to find it.
 
#52
oldrocker said:
Did they play 100 songs at the gig?
Click to expand...
Not possible.
Played 2-1/2 hours straight, 15 minute break, and then about another 1-1/2. That is "the norm" with this band although we did a 5-1/2 hour set at one gig. Drummer & I did a 3(?) minute solo section(unplanned) while guitarist and BL/singer RAN to the restroom and then guitarist and BL/singer did SRV's "Life by the Drop" for our restroom run. We call them marathons sometimes.

two fingers said:
Why? That's just silly. No band ever played 100+ songs in one gig....rarely even half that.
Click to expand...
It was their entire "must know" list of about 90 covers and 10 tunes from their CD. I'm sure it was a test of me as-well. No biggie since it's done now(August 2006) although at the time it was quite a challenge. I listened and played those 100 songs ONLY(no other music) for a solid month, every spare minute I had. Very much worth it. Our current "rotation" list is about 400 songs plus callouts if 3 of the 5 of us know it, makes life/gigs very interesting sometimes. We're all about 60 and have been playing our chosen instruments for about 50 years each(we all started at or prior to 10 years old). At a certain point, you can play songs you "hear in your head" quite well.

Yes, we do....if asked: Freebird, Mustang Sally, Gimme 3 Steps, Hotel California, and all of the other "dance floor fillers" folks in Texas following this band seem to love. Beats the heck out of sitting at home on a sofa or playing once per month or less.
 
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#53
Scan 'em to PDFs (preferably efficient ones) and archive by whatever means you like, including paper backups if you like those. PDFs take a lot less file cabinet space and are much easier to sort through, though. Unless it's a hostile, nasty, "I'll never work with any of those people, or anyone they know, again" deals, give the charts or copies (depends if you made them or the band gave them to you) to the band/next bassist. Doesn't really cost that much to be noble even if you are feeling unkind towards them.

Once you have the PDFs, if you have an iPad or need an excuse to get one, spend $10 on forScore. I'm nearly a Luddite and I can see that making my 3-ring binder ob-so-f-ing-lete, especially once we got two iPads running it and tried out the "Cue" feature.
 
#55
Mine are all done in Finale. I export the parts to pdf, put them on dropbox for the band and archive the whole mess in Subversion. That said, I rarely look at them after I write them.
 
#57
I have 5 enormous 3-ring binders full of chord charts, and I'm glad I've held onto them over the years. About 10 years ago, I had a nasty falling out with a folk fiddler and decided I never wanted to hear or play another song from our set list again. I considered tossing the charts, but stuck them in the binders and moved on to other projects. This past summer, I hooked up with guitarist who wanted to start a folk/bluegrass group. I sat down with my binder collection and found a lot of good songs I had totally forgotten about. Many of them are now on our current set list.
 

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