Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

So I have a cpl shows coming up with a guy I've worked with before.

We get together about once a year, & do a show or two. I think I'm his go-to guy when his bands quit on him, like they do every year.

He has a very good drummer this time, & we're going 3-piece, mostly blues.

Got 27 songs down in about 4 hours yesterday for an up-coming 2 hour gig.

Not too bad, I think.

You da man!

I couldn't fathom getting soo many tunes down for a show in such little time as I try to replicate the leads note for note as close as possible. Try perfecting leads by: Zak Wylde, Halen, Vai, Slash, Disturbed, Aic, etc.. in that short of time! Sometimes it takes a couple of rehearsals just to perfect ONE tune for a show,,,,, but it's well worth it as we've got a lot of critics and haters in our audience just waiting for us to fuk up! Yup.... Because all the members of my band left other bands, their former band members come down hoping for a sinking ship.... For some reason, it's very, very competitive in my neck-o-the woods due to the fact that the better band gets the most gigs!

It's possible if you go to a lot of jams. People should be practicing on their own anyway. There's nothing wrong with replicating leads from other people, but if you do that on your own time, and the other band members are learning their parts on their own time, you shouldn't be spending two rehearsals on one song. When my hub's band practice they have given everyone the song list before the rehearsal so you're expected to know the song when you show up. All they do then is work on the transitions between songs.

What makes you badass is when you can not know the song that well but you can wing it to a point where you mix in other songs with it to stretch it out, like a medly. I've started singing other songs and the band will follow me. We rarely do stuff like the record. Why? Because we can do that and people like it.

If you got wankers in your audience boohooing because you don't play a solo exactly like the guy in Disturbed then they're idiots and should be treated as such. You take Zak Wylde's solo and make it yours. If they want to hear it just like the record then you throw them his CD and say Bite me, bitch!

Chaeya

Crip2nite wrote:I couldn't fathom getting soo many tunes down for a show in such little time as I try to replicate the leads note for note as close as possible. Try perfecting leads by: Zak Wylde, Halen, Vai, Slash, Disturbed, Aic, etc.. in that short of time! Sometimes it takes a couple of rehearsals just to perfect ONE tune for a show,,,,, but it's well worth it as we've got a lot of critics and haters in our audience just waiting for us to fuk up! Yup.... Because all the members of my band left other bands, their former band members come down hoping for a sinking ship.... For some reason, it's very, very competitive in my neck-o-the woods due to the fact that the better band gets the most gigs!

I guess I am old school. I have been playing live since 1970 and come from the bluesman era "take what you need and make it your own" style of making music. While I do sometimes knock off a signature solo note for note, I think it's kinda lame. That practice should be strictly reserved for the woodshed on our own and not burden other bandmates with learning our parts during rehearsal. Drummers generally don't like to rehearse anyways so making them sit through multiple takes while we work out all those sneaky little notes is mind numbing and disrespects their time.

As for pleasing the bozo wannabe musicians out in the audience that are keeping score... they are free to leave anytime. My goal when playing live is to make sure the honeys are having a good time. If the girls are having fun, everybody is having fun.

Yeah, I've played some of these songs before, but not like this guy does 'em, so it's just a matter of adjusting to his style, & preferred key. Once I know a tune, I pretty much just go on autopilot until I feel like changing it up a bit, to give it a different feel. Depends on the drummer more than anything else, really.

This drummer was clicking pretty well with me. When I threw in a triplet, he'd catch on quickly, & do it with me the next time it came around. I love that. It sounds so tight! I was trying to catch his lil sweetnesses, too, of course.

There are some songs this guy does that I don't think I'll ever catch on to, though. He has an odd approach sometimes that I just can't seem to grasp, not that it's bad, I just don't think that way, & I can't find a lick for it. Perhaps if I heard someone else do the thing, I could catch on & think it was very simple, but thus far I just have a mental block, I guess.