TimR

One should never forget that Jimmy Saville did loads of charity gigs just for the exposure...

Band members who complain you're not playing any gigs, but don't go out and get any and don't provide dates for when they're free... ...and then aren't available when you get offered a gig.

Actually have just remembered the first time I'd ever heard Living Next Door to Alice was at the aforementioned gig. Busking along root fifth and listening for the changes with the whole hall singing along. Was like taking candy from a baby. 😁 Enough to give you imposter syndrome - except it hadn't been invented then... Absolutely awful song. You'd never listen to it by choice.

If you're in a function band that's getting gigs then you're playing tunes that entertain people. That's all that really matters. That's pretty much why they become standards, loads of bands have already done the trial and error to find out what goes down well. It also helps immensely when finding Deps which is important if you're doing well paid work. You can play non standard songs as long as they're entertaining, and try fresh new material, and often it'll go down really well. But it's a risk, which should be fairly simple to minimise by watching the charts closely and seeing what gets airplay on stations like Virgin. Just because you find a song boring because you've played it twice a week for the last decade, doesn't mean that your audience will be, because, well, they won't be watching a live function band twice a week.

Just because they're not in the news everyday doesn't mean they're not doing anything. They don't give out Kinighthoods for just being famous. There's a long list of criteria and a process. https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/mick-jagger

I think you'll find that they need to do an awful lot more than just set up and run a worthwhile charity to be considered for a knighthood. His list of charity endeavours and support is very long. Ranging from Land mines to Animal Cruelty...

Another Tuba player here. If you're going to play a brass instrument you're pretty much going to have to learn how to read the dots. Although a lot of the dots I was given were treble clef so my bass clef is still a bit rusty. Mainly because the Tuba players had graduated from originally drinking shandy and playing trumpet.

You'll be lucky to narrow it down. I once depped for a band who I'd never met until the night. The only interaction I'd had was with the band leader by email when I asked for a setlist. He replied, it's all standards, you'll be fine. I spent the whole evening working very hard playing 3 hours of tunes I had never heard before in my life. "This one is in E. After 4..."

Quite. And in the UK Engineer isn't a protected profession. Anyone can be an engineer. However a professional engineer is something different to an 'engineer'. They will have a degree or a similar level experience based qualification. So let's not get bogged down in semantics based on proffessional snobbery. As I say, it's 'recording' engineers trying to make the band sound like they do on the 'CD' or maybe MP3 or Radio. Everything louder than everything else. Maybe it is the problem with the musicians not playing dynamics and making the music actually come alive. I rolled my eyes again last night as one of my band members said "We need to play it faster as it's lacking any energy." Maybe if they learned some internal dynamics and concentrated on phrasing instead of turning up to 11 it would have more life..

I'm pretty sure they're engineers. They use skills and equipment to solve problems. Pretty much what an engineer does.

Indeed. Where the objective is to reproduce the sound on stage as closely as possible and amplify it. I think the engineers bands bring with them are recording engineers who are trying to reproduce the CD sound.

We have a band get together with instruments tonight. Won't be a practice or rehearsal as we don't have a gig lined up. But will hopefully be allowed to show the guitarist how his PA works following our gig two weeks ago when I found out he just puts the main mix back through the monitors. Which is somewhat less than ideal for outdoor gigs.

Personally I think you should PM Rosie. I suspect she knows exactly how it works...

Yes. Sure. We played a fair last week. Cash. They're not organised businesses with £m turnovers, auditors and HMRC requiring returns.

Yes. Practice is what individuals do at home to get an idea how the song goes, chord progressions, bass lines, important riffs, basic structure. Then rehearsal is when you find out that none of it works and has to be rearranged to suit the band. Then you go away and practice the new parts to the new arrangement. What you don't do is use rehearsal time to complain to each other that you're not all playing what's on the record. 😁

Our singer has managed to get us on their system and it looks like we might actually get paid for the gig we did in August 2021. Although I suspect it'll be in the last financial year or something else will stall it now. 😁

It's the same the world over. Clients who are a nightmare get charged more for your services, and if they decide you're too expensive and go somewhere else it makes your life easier. Otherwise they can pay a premium for the luxury of being awkward.

Yes. Going through this at the moment. Fairly new female singer. Guitarist thought she be great as a rock front lady and tried to get her to sing songs from when he was a teenager, about 5 years before she was born. We've eventually steered him round to what she knows and likes. Sometimes for things to work, everyone has to change what they want to do. And I think the band is much better for it.

Practice is cheating.

One of each and an imperial one.

She needed a different app. Simpler the better. Plenty out there.

Something went terribly badly in that first song. May played some really duff notes and then started scowling around the stage. Again. Autoprompt hidden in the stage isn't visible to the audience.

There's a very long thread about this somewhere. Depends entirely on your show. If people have come to see a band, they don't want to be faced by a wall of music folders with musicians hiding behind them. If they've gone to listen to a band and/or watch the singer, it doesn't really matter what the musicians are doing. With the advent of small Ipads, that problem is mostly resolved now. The use of an ipad/tablet for reference is fine but if you're putting on a show you shouldn't be hiding behind it and anchored to the spot. You might as well be staring at your shoes or frets.

Doug Helvering. Worth a follow. A lot of 70s musicians would have grown up listening to Jazz. It would have been played everywhere.