what to know before going to the band

[dlloyd]

Just to add another complication...

Pay most of your attention to what the drummer is doing. Don't watch the guitarist's fingers.

 

[LeftyLB]

I know what you mean. But on the other hand- opening yourslef to all the options is important just as well. I think that the most important thing is to always do what's best for the music...!

Maybe I should put in to context what I mean by this idea of space. For the past 10 years I have played with the same guys, most weekends playing covers. Weddings, Nightclubs, Birthdays, you get the picture. We get paid good bucks at this stage.

In the early days, I would learn the song like everyone else, but then I would ensure that I would stick in as many complex chops as I could that weren't actually part of the song.

It was only later on, when we started to record some of our gigs from time to time, that we listened and "heard" and then learnt that everyone was doing their best to stick in their chops in every song and often the song was just a noisy racket and had no feel to it.

So we learnt discipline.

Now I am 36 and have a busy job and a wife and three kids, I cherish gigging at the weekends, but now it is a case of me and the others pulling it back and enjoying "listening" to a great band at the same time as playing. That is why I have some guitar and keyboards mixed into my monitor mix along with some other vocals.

I can hear me play anytime at home in the garage, now I am at the stage where I want to be part of a "synergy" - an overused American "Power phrase" from the 1990's, but I think relevant, which means that "the total is greater than the sum of the individual parts"

Each to their own, so "Rock with the new or the old sensation!"

LB

 

[jifty]

I understand what you're saying. It doens't contrast anything of what i wrote.
Nice story too!