My situation is weird but not unique as I'm pretty sure at least one or more person(s) have encountered people like this (could be a drummer, keyboard player, horn player, vocalist, percussionist and what not).
This band that I'm currently playing in has this guitar player who is rather lazy and may have an ego problem (at least in my opinion).
I say this because at the previous rehearsal I specifically asked him to level his patches (you must be thinking that patches being balanced or not is also a subjective thing. I would disagree in this situation as he is barely audible during rehearsals, as if he were trying to hide behind everyone else). As he uses analogue pedals, this requires some effort as levels change according to the dynamics of each and every song and it requires him to actively remember these settings and switch them between the set. Either that or your playing dynamics are just that good (which is obviously not the case here). This rehearsal was last Saturday.
Fast forward to yesterday's (Thursday) rehearsal. We had some covers (specifically, 3) that we had planned to do. I made my patches and balanced them out with my other sounds (which is a combo of clean, drive, octave down, +1 and +2 octaves. not including time based effects as they don't actively affect your gain structure unless you want them to. just my opinion, you may disagree). Not only were his patches not balanced, he was simply struggling to remember his parts. To top it off, he was rather aggressive (borderline yelling) in his responses to me pointing out his mistakes. So much so that the vocalist later told me that she would have walked out of the room had I not kept calm, laughed it off in that moment and moved on to the next song instead.
I completely understand that every week in a musicians' life is unscripted (I'm on the same boat, LOL) but, if something like this goes on for too long, you know that something is wrong in the equation. He does teach around the city to make ends meet and claimed to have a rather busy week but I find it hard to believe him on account of the previous night (that the vocalist shared with me) where he played a gig with the vocalist and another person as a trio and left the venue at 2 in the night when he could've easily left at 11 (since that is the time the vocalist left) and could've done at least some homework. Further, in the group chats, Mr You-Know-Who specifically said, "They are just covers." Can't say that I'm a fan of that kind of an outlook.
Now, a little more context.
The band is not "mine". A girl fronts it and is the primary source of all the financial capital because its her music (meaning she writes the lyrics and the melodies and a basic chart and then brings it to us and we have complete freedom to modify it for the better. again, something that is rather subjective).
I'm not the band leader either but I value her time and investment and I genuinely like the music which helps me be motivated and actively think about it. She "depends" on my judgement and I try to do my best.
Also, this band has an "indie" sound. What comprises this specific sound is, again, subjective but I think it focuses on vocals, guitars and drums/grooves.
The issue with the guitar player started a couple of months back when we hit the studio to record an EP of this music. He was unprepared is an understatement; forget patches, he struggled to track his own parts with a click track. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried tracking him with the recorded drums and bass tracks without (and later with) the click. This exercise cost us 4 hours of precious studio time.
The producer also felt that some songs needed more guitar parts and this guy failed to come up with anything that the former liked. Since I had done tracking my parts, I thought I'd help out and I sat down with a guitar, some pedals and an amp in a corner of the studio and started making parts. To my surprise, the producer really liked them and I ended up tracking them and some acoustic guitar parts as well. Since that moment onwards, rehearsals have been unpleasant to say the least.
Having re-read the entire thing to check for errors, I realise that this is a rant.
I would like to say that I have nothing against this person but I clearly do.
Is he irresponsible? Maybe
Does he lack motivation? Maybe
Is he genuinely busy? Maybe
Does he not care? Maybe
Answers to all these questions and more elude me and I turn to you good folks for a solution. I would like to be an adult and just talk to him and solve whatever issue there might be (I did try this once before but it did not yield any positive outcome) but, at this point of time, I feel he will be rather defensive if I point out his mistakes and try to talk about them.
This band that I'm currently playing in has this guitar player who is rather lazy and may have an ego problem (at least in my opinion).
I say this because at the previous rehearsal I specifically asked him to level his patches (you must be thinking that patches being balanced or not is also a subjective thing. I would disagree in this situation as he is barely audible during rehearsals, as if he were trying to hide behind everyone else). As he uses analogue pedals, this requires some effort as levels change according to the dynamics of each and every song and it requires him to actively remember these settings and switch them between the set. Either that or your playing dynamics are just that good (which is obviously not the case here). This rehearsal was last Saturday.
Fast forward to yesterday's (Thursday) rehearsal. We had some covers (specifically, 3) that we had planned to do. I made my patches and balanced them out with my other sounds (which is a combo of clean, drive, octave down, +1 and +2 octaves. not including time based effects as they don't actively affect your gain structure unless you want them to. just my opinion, you may disagree). Not only were his patches not balanced, he was simply struggling to remember his parts. To top it off, he was rather aggressive (borderline yelling) in his responses to me pointing out his mistakes. So much so that the vocalist later told me that she would have walked out of the room had I not kept calm, laughed it off in that moment and moved on to the next song instead.
I completely understand that every week in a musicians' life is unscripted (I'm on the same boat, LOL) but, if something like this goes on for too long, you know that something is wrong in the equation. He does teach around the city to make ends meet and claimed to have a rather busy week but I find it hard to believe him on account of the previous night (that the vocalist shared with me) where he played a gig with the vocalist and another person as a trio and left the venue at 2 in the night when he could've easily left at 11 (since that is the time the vocalist left) and could've done at least some homework. Further, in the group chats, Mr You-Know-Who specifically said, "They are just covers." Can't say that I'm a fan of that kind of an outlook.
Now, a little more context.
The band is not "mine". A girl fronts it and is the primary source of all the financial capital because its her music (meaning she writes the lyrics and the melodies and a basic chart and then brings it to us and we have complete freedom to modify it for the better. again, something that is rather subjective).
I'm not the band leader either but I value her time and investment and I genuinely like the music which helps me be motivated and actively think about it. She "depends" on my judgement and I try to do my best.
Also, this band has an "indie" sound. What comprises this specific sound is, again, subjective but I think it focuses on vocals, guitars and drums/grooves.
The issue with the guitar player started a couple of months back when we hit the studio to record an EP of this music. He was unprepared is an understatement; forget patches, he struggled to track his own parts with a click track. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried tracking him with the recorded drums and bass tracks without (and later with) the click. This exercise cost us 4 hours of precious studio time.
The producer also felt that some songs needed more guitar parts and this guy failed to come up with anything that the former liked. Since I had done tracking my parts, I thought I'd help out and I sat down with a guitar, some pedals and an amp in a corner of the studio and started making parts. To my surprise, the producer really liked them and I ended up tracking them and some acoustic guitar parts as well. Since that moment onwards, rehearsals have been unpleasant to say the least.
Having re-read the entire thing to check for errors, I realise that this is a rant.
I would like to say that I have nothing against this person but I clearly do.
Is he irresponsible? Maybe
Does he lack motivation? Maybe
Is he genuinely busy? Maybe
Does he not care? Maybe
Answers to all these questions and more elude me and I turn to you good folks for a solution. I would like to be an adult and just talk to him and solve whatever issue there might be (I did try this once before but it did not yield any positive outcome) but, at this point of time, I feel he will be rather defensive if I point out his mistakes and try to talk about them.
Last edited:
)
