I'm guilty of this. I think that it partially has to do with lack of trust in the sound engineer. So often it's someone that I've never met before that showed up minutes before we start playing and I can't hear what he's doing from the stage anyway. The amount of times I've wondered if the stage monitors are just for looks because nothing is coming out of them probably doesn't help.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Things that surprise you about other musicians...
- Thread starter glocke1
- Start date
there are lots of guys who own drums but only a small percentage of them who are drummers.
Most of the times I've played, there have been no monitors at all.
I never even implied someone was a poor musician. They do however, perform poorly. I believe this because I've experienced it again and again in different decades, genres and with musicians that play different instruments. I know it's the dope because I've had rehearsals with the same musicians when they were straight and they played great.
Here are 2 examples. Great guitar player. Studied with Pat Metheney. Played great. Original band. We eventually told him not to get high on stage because his playing suffered. He stopped.
Drummer. Same situation (no Pat Metheney). He wouldn't stop. Fired.
These occurred 3 decades apart.
There may be musicians that were stoned, drunk or on something every time I played with them so I never knew the difference but I doubt it.
There's that too. If you aren't used to having someone else manipulating the levels from the other side of the room you're going to play as if there wasn't.
Now I am surprised to see that we are at the point of being lectured by other musicians about ENJOYING A CUP OF COFFEE IN THE MORNING. Can we chill please?
Read you statement again and tell me if it makes sense.
Categorically false in some cases?
That's like saying its 100% accurate in 47% of the occurances.
Every musician that I have ever played with has been hampered by substances. I had a knee operation, was taking oxy for the pain, I was hampered.
To this day the thing I remember being most surprised about coming from another musician happened when I was in grad school while talking about the Integer Model Of Pitch (the system used starting in the early 20th Century by composers moving away from traditional tonal harmony). The professor showed a mathematical proof that demonstrated how a G major triad was structurally equivalent to a D major triad, then joked "Of course, you don't need a mathematical proof to understand that."
17 of the 18 students in the class laughed. The remaining student was completely perplexed: "How can a G major chord be identical to a D major chord?" she asked, "They don't sound anything alike!"
This was not some neophyte; she was a musician who had spent a couple dozen years immersed in traditional Classical and Romantic music, and who happend to have perfect pitch, but who also had almost no exposure to any non-tonal musics and no experience with post-1900 music theory. The operation of Transposition in her mind was a transformative one rather than a relative one, and so the triads G-B-D and D-F#-A were so unalike in her mind -- and in her ear -- that she simply could not fathom how they could ever be considered similar.
That really surprised me.
17 of the 18 students in the class laughed. The remaining student was completely perplexed: "How can a G major chord be identical to a D major chord?" she asked, "They don't sound anything alike!"
This was not some neophyte; she was a musician who had spent a couple dozen years immersed in traditional Classical and Romantic music, and who happend to have perfect pitch, but who also had almost no exposure to any non-tonal musics and no experience with post-1900 music theory. The operation of Transposition in her mind was a transformative one rather than a relative one, and so the triads G-B-D and D-F#-A were so unalike in her mind -- and in her ear -- that she simply could not fathom how they could ever be considered similar.
That really surprised me.
Do you whip out the story about OxyContin every time you on a gig and one of your band mates orders a pint of some craft-brew nonsense?
The ones that say "I don't play that" I was taught to learn everything because someday you will be asked to play it. And if you are on a gig you should be happy to play whatever you are being paid to play. It blows me away how many times I've seen a guitarist or drummer blow a good paying gig because they "don't play that kind of stuff"
Nope. Don't preach. I'm responding to people that responded to my post. Just trying to make the point that it's universal. To a greater or lesser degree in different people I'm sure. To deny that a drug that influences you in any way (pain, mood, etc.) doesn't influence you in other ways is just ignorance or pure rationalization.
Should be "People who play stoned." Just because they dont realize how bad they sound.
Last edited:
I'm surprised by how many musicians don't really listen to music that much. It's a constant in my world.
have to admit, I'm a bit guilty of this myself... unless I get lucky and come across something I haven't heard before (doesn't happen often), mostly because IMO 90+% of newer music is just well marketed crap... haven't turned on a radio in 15 years... plus, if I listen to other peoples music it ends up seeping into mine... and while I love their stuff, I don't really want to sound like them, intentionally or not...
As a bassist, I tend to think from the bottom up. It always surprises me when guitarists try to play bass....its usually terrible. That's because I've come to realize that most musicians think of music from the top down.
For example, a guitarist might know their solo or lead part, and to many the stuff the rhythm section is playing is just a bunch of "stuff."
For example, a guitarist might know their solo or lead part, and to many the stuff the rhythm section is playing is just a bunch of "stuff."
That is actually pretty brilliant.
It explains why I have a hard time communicating with so many keyboard and guitar players.
I play keys and guitar, lead and rhythm, well enough for a good Top 40 Variety cover band anyway. But even when I'm not the bass player, I've always been extremely aware of the foundation and how the other instruments weave in and build on top of it. I hate to admit it, but experience has shown it to be a relatively rare mentality.
