The host band ruined the jam.

[higain617]

Megalomania can occur at open mic night. Just because it's informal, doesn't mean the jam leader won't try to go all Whiplash.

 

[madbass6]

I went to a newish jam where the host band is also fronted by the venue owner.
The host band-not bad- tuned to E flat. Why? Because when they play by themselves that's what they do.
I got up and tuned down. Everybody else was out of tune all night, two piano players couldn't play at all because the band leader called all the keys wrong (When you're tuned down, it isn't E anymore moron) Everybody scrambled to get in tune.
I mentioned it in passing to the BL, but it wasn't my jam. Everybody left (bad sound didn't help things.)
When his jam dies, it will be nobody's fault but him.

agreed!!
Some things are just better off being left alone !
Like the original 440 tuning!
The way it was meant to be .

 

[Mushroo]

Here is an example of how guitar music is traditionally and correctly notated. Note that the music is written in the key of E Major (4 sharps). However, there is an indication at the top of the page: "Tune down 1/2 step, low to high: Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb." This means that the music, while written in the key of E Major, actually sounds in the key of Eb Major (3 flats).

Jimi Hendrix "The Star Spangled Banner" Guitar Tab in E Major - Download & Print

If you say, "you're doing it wrong, you lazy moron," but your guitarist friends give you a crazy look, that's probably because they're just doing what their teacher trained them to do, and how most guitar sheet music is professionally notated.

Being able to easily transpose to any key, while thinking in an easier key (by retuning the strings, using a capo, or simply moving your finger pattern up or down a certain number of frets) is a feature, not a bug, of the guitar family.

 

[2playbass]

There needs to be a distinction between calling a chord by shape or pitch. Most guitar players are going to know chords by shape, so calling an "E" with a capo on 2nd fret may be an F# by pitch, but still looks like an E. When talking about pitch, an E is always an E. Try removing the capo, and to get the same pitch it will have to fretted as an F# shape. It may be musically correct to call everything by pitch, but it's not necessarily common practice.

Transposing to a flat tuning on a 5 for songs that rely on bouncing off open strings can be a challenge. Same goes for drop D. Every try playing a song like "Slither" on a 5 in standard tuning? Knowing the tuning going is a big help.

 

[Ross W. Lovell]

I went to a newish jam where the host band is also fronted by the venue owner.
The host band-not bad- tuned to E flat. Why? Because when they play by themselves that's what they do.
I got up and tuned down. Everybody else was out of tune all night, two piano players couldn't play at all because the band leader called all the keys wrong (When you're tuned down, it isn't E anymore moron) Everybody scrambled to get in tune.
I mentioned it in passing to the BL, but it wasn't my jam. Everybody left (bad sound didn't help things.)
When his jam dies, it will be nobody's fault but him.

I'm used to it, I play with horns.

Our keyboard player used to just hits transpose in the early days, but he likes his Hammond and twenty plus years on, his theory is waaaaaay better than mine.

 

[trailer]

How hard is it to drop a half step? I can do it without a tuner in 20 seconds.

 

[Mark Ambler]

I don't think there's anything wrong with changing the key to a song. I do it all the time... But we leave the instruments tuned to standard tuning. I have a hipshot drop D tuner on my bass, so I will use that if need be. I don't actually change keys to compensate for range (although I do change Walking on the Moon from Dm to Bm). It's a huge drop, but I like the way it sounds and it's easier to add bass harmonics).

I think the whole cover band mindset that you need to do the song in the key it was intended to be performed in, is a load of nonsense.

But there is a big difference between transposing the key and just tuning down and pretending you're still in E. That is lazy and ********.

Totally agree. As a Piano player and Bass player, I've never encountered tuning down a semi tone, anyway, it would totally mess with my head, especially when playing Piano. Transposition is fine, that's what (dare I say it) pros do.

But, if you're playing in a band that is into that sort of thing, that's fine, but not if you're having people sit in, that's just daft.

 

[Hambone70]

For those transposition-challenged among us, HX Stomp Simple Pitch. Done.

 

[gln1955]

How hard is it to drop a half step? I can do it without a tuner in 20 seconds.

Kinda not the point.

 

[AndyPanda]

Maybe they wanted to weed out the amateurs who don't know how to figure out the key of a song.

I weed out amateur passengers in my car by not informing them that their seat isn't bolted down and the passenger door flies open when I go around corners. The ones who survive are the best of the best so it's win-win for everyone.

 

[The Biz]

How hard is it to drop a half step? I can do it without a tuner in 20 seconds.

Still longer than giving the right key to people!

And that's not the issue. $#%$$#@. This is a $?&?@* stupid conversation. There are people arguing here that telling someone the wrong key is some kind of musical genius move or everyone else's musical shortcoming.

Being able to play in any key is an important skill. Being able to communicate the name of the key you want the others to play in should come first though.

?@#&*)@# it's dumb reading sometimes.

 

[smeet]

Calling that chord "G" is 100% standard operating procedure. I always carry a capo in my gig bag. Bassists need to understand capos and alternate tunings, if they want to play with guitarists.

This baffles me. Should sax players understand capos? Why? Why doesn't each musician just play in different keys and tell the audience it all looks like it's in E so it's OK?

Think about this - why do notes have names? Here's a hint, it's not so everyone knows what shape you are making with your fingers. Would you be happy if the keyboard player transposed their synth down a major third, played on all white keys and told you they were in "C"? Note names are to communicate with other people. About sound. Not about fingers.

Would you think it was OK if the guitarist tuned their G string up a half step and then played minor chord shapes that sounded major, but called them "minor chords"?

Nobody cares what chord shapes or frets you are using. Nobody. Not even your mom cares. Tell me what the note SOUNDS like, because I don't care what it LOOKS like on your instrument.

 

[Hambone70]

This baffles me. Should sax players understand capos? Why? Why doesn't each musician just play in different keys and tell the audience it all looks like it's in E so it's OK?

Think about this - why do notes have names? Here's a hint, it's not so everyone knows what shape you are making with your fingers. Would you be happy if the keyboard player transposed their synth down a major third, played on all white keys and told you they were in "C"? Note names are to communicate with other people. About sound. Not about fingers.

Would you think it was OK if the guitarist tuned their G string up a half step and then played minor chord shapes that sounded major, but called them "minor chords"?

Nobody cares what chord shapes or frets you are using. Nobody. Not even your mom cares. Tell me what the note SOUNDS like, because I don't care what it LOOKS like on your instrument.

IMO, it's just a lazy way out for guitarists.

 

[lz4005]

How hard is it to drop a half step? I can do it without a tuner in 20 seconds.

When you get up on stage at a jam, which is what this thread is about, and the bandleader says "this next song is a I IV V in E...1, 2, 3, 4" and then starts playing in Eb you don't have 20 seconds.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Here is an example of how guitar music is traditionally and correctly notated. Note that the music is written in the key of E Major (4 sharps). However, there is an indication at the top of the page: "Tune down 1/2 step, low to high: Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb." This means that the music, while written in the key of E Major, actually sounds in the key of Eb Major (3 flats).

Jimi Hendrix "The Star Spangled Banner" Guitar Tab in E Major - Download & Print

If you say, "you're doing it wrong, you lazy moron," but your guitarist friends give you a crazy look, that's probably because they're just doing what their teacher trained them to do, and how most guitar sheet music is professionally notated.

Being able to easily transpose to any key, while thinking in an easier key (by retuning the strings, using a capo, or simply moving your finger pattern up or down a certain number of frets) is a feature, not a bug, of the guitar family.

As a longtime (>50 years) guitar player, I'm telling you that this is absolutely NOT how most guitar music is traditionally and correctly notated. Well, better to say: It's not incorrect in that the variables are accurately specified, but it's definitely not the traditional practice. If only because tuning the whole instrument down a half or whole step is a relatively small use case out of the whole body of guitar music.

If you are playing a guitar piece where you tune the low E down to D and the A to G, do you think you continue to write them as E and A and just note that they are tuned down a whole step? You most certainly do not. You write them as D and G.

A qualifier to what I said above: In some cases, players prefer a pitch standard other than A = 440. You might decide to use, say, A = 415, in which case your E would indeed be somebody else's Eb (I can't say for sure that 415 would be that number; it's just a frinstance).

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Being able to easily transpose to any key, while thinking in an easier key (by retuning the strings, using a capo, or simply moving your finger pattern up or down a certain number of frets) is a feature, not a bug, of the guitar family.

But one that is of no value at all to the keyboard and horns players working with them. They don't care at all, nor should they, how the guitarist produces the notes; that's his/her problem. They want to know what the notes actually are.

 

[The Biz]

In some cases, players prefer a pitch standard other than A = 440. You might decide to use, say, A = 415, in which case your E would indeed be somebody else's Eb (I can't say for sure that 415 would be that number; it's just a frinstance).

Murder the jam bandleader if he does not tune A440. Only thing worse that Eb Fredo.

 

[MrLenny1]

I work with a singer who gigs at a 1/2 step down, saves his voice
but records in standard tuning.
I avoid open jams for all the reasons mentioned by Paulabass.

 

[meycom]

6 pages on this, geez... This is why I skip open mic's and jam's ... rather set up with some experienced
folks in my studio..

 

[Paulabass]

For those transposition-challenged among us, HX Stomp Simple Pitch. Done.

Yeah, I'll tell all the new players who are trying their first shot on stage to bring one.