General Music Chat

Ive been getting out and playing a lot lately and really been in the groove.

Then last night did this gig and I dont know what happened but it was like my mind was just blanking out on simple stuff.

It was just a sit in gig, but for once I just didnt feel like I was pulling my weight.

Couldnt seem to get my tone right, whenever I went to solo it was like I had never had a guitar in my hand before.

Just venting

a "bad night"???

sheeeeeeeeeeeeeet, i KILL 24/7 !!!!

yeah, right. i wish.

i think we all struggle sometimes. i know i do. and i'm definitely my harshest critic.
i know this is true because there have been many times when i've felt i was really stinking it up. then later upon hearing a recording of the gig....i was pleasantly surprised to learn it was not nearly as bad as i thought!

for me (and i'm sure many others) how well i play at any gig is completely dependent on my perceived tone/sound. when my tone is happening and the mix/balance is good it's soooooo much easier to be "in the zone"...and the instrument just plays itself.


jw, my guess is you weren't stinking it up quite as bad as you thought.

once it sounds like a tin can, like my amp often sounds like because of it's engineering (Hot Rod Deluxe I by Fender ) focusing on the crappy sound can distract the train of thought required to do precision guitar work.. imo..

I have had some really bad ones similar to that.
I blamed it on diet, and or medication changes, or being dehydrated - I was definitely not right, mentally.

I bet if you asked a bunch of the people in the audience they would say you were smoking hot as usual.
Plenthy of nights like that, but usually no non-musicians hear it, and only half of the musicians!

I bet if you asked a bunch of the people in the audience they would say you were smoking hot as usual.
Plenthy of nights like that, but usually no non-musicians hear it, and only half of the musicians!

I agree. Even on your worst night your perception may be off.

I bet you were playing much better than you thought.

Yes
I'm also my own worst critic.

Men

I submit that when I actually had a sound man he would record our gigs and to our surprise - audience reaction in no way matched how we felt about a performance.

We'd go home feeling like sh*t because we sucked that night but the tapes would show they ate it up.

Discipline my friends, and hard work. Even when we suck we rock!

Talbot

We are different every day and that is the crazy thing about music. Sometimes we feel like we a killing it and other times the tone isn't right, our timing seems off or we don't bounce off the other players as easily. Sometimes we are really "in it" and the drummer or keys player really isn't. It's all part of the process and what makes those magic at-one-with-the-universe moments so special.

Enjoy the ride and don't sweat the occasional imperfections. They remind us we are human.

J7 I love the music you have posted, but even more... You are a cool dude.

I happen to love all the music JW has posted. Especially his original material.

I guess it's easy to get down on yourself sometimes... I don't think Mr Wilder should go that route.

You are right on. That was one post from a great musician to another!!!

I have always said that one bad gig can undo 10 good ones. Not sure why, but our confidence as musicians is easily shaken when things don't go right even once. Like we forgot how to "do it"???

I've had hundreds of bad nights, but I'm the only one who remembers them. Audiences rarely notice, or place blame if they did. They're also more forgiving than we ourselves are.

But a frontal lobotomy will fix that if it hurts too much.










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Rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Where's the "like" button? LOL

I was going to say that Shiner Bock will fix it, but didn't want neanderpaul to get angry with my stance on alcohol again.

I think we've all had just a few bad nights, I know I have...

Like the night my amp went silent about 5 seconds into a lead...had to run over and plug it into another channel of the other guy's keyboard amp he used for acoustic guitar. And of course by then the lead was over...I think the ground switch decided to vibrate a little and was dirty, CLICK...no power...got it home and it worked perfect again, no trouble again for years.

Or the night I went to a New Year's Eve gig after making a speaker jack plate for my 1x12 cabinet. When I drilled the hole for the jack I was holding it by hand and it spun, chewed up my left index finger pretty good and not a band aid in the house. I put some gauze over it, wrapped it up good with medical tape, took plenty extra with me. I played lots of slide and sax that night, played with 2 and 3 fingers a lot, and spent half the next day cleaning blood off the guitar and sax.

Or maybe any of a dozen other nights (at least) when for some reason I was just half a bubble off, nothing seemed to work right, missing notes in leads all nights, forget the first line of a song I've done for 20 years, go to a C when I'm supposed to go to an A minor...effects decide not to work, 10 minutes to start and I have to solder a guitar cable, serious buzz in the amp and I Can't stop it...no telling what else...and of course that's usually the night the most drunks come up telling me how fantastic I played/sounded...yeah right...

Last gig I did in fact was about 2 months ago, BBQ and get together for Shane's family, it turned out cold, all of us had frozen fingers all night, which caused me to really botch a half dozen leads, no way a guitar would stay in tune, but fortunately everybody did quite well with vocals...

George

Back in the days of yore I had a gig with the city of Baltimore. I noticed that lobotomy was covered in the medical plan. I asked my boss if it was optional or mandatory!

ps - I left that job to go on the road. My boss got fired because he refused to sell tickets to the mayor's ball.

Talbot