Played in a school play last night...

[ben604]

I played in our school play last night - Return to the Forbidden Planet.

Line-up was:

Bass: Me - can't read at all, relied completely on my ear and the practice runs, pretty poorly!
Drums: Session player - played from the sheet music, to the note (more on that shortly...)
Piano: Music teacher a - from the sheet, to the note
Synth/pad: Music teacher b - from the sheet, very poorly
Lead Synth: Music teacher c - from the sheet, to the note
Guitar: Music teacher b's 16 year old son - from the sheet, "improvised" solos

I've now got a lot of respect for session musicians. The drummer and piano player were both excellent, note perfect and their timing was impeccable. I will say though, that there should be some wiggle room - the notated drums for Born to be Wild, for example, are awful and completely destroyed the feel of the song (my band play it pretty well in pubs).

I actually felt quite out of my depth and embarrassed that I couldn't read music, it's something I'm going to start learning.

It's a shame that teacher b and her son let us down really, I made a decision, if I couldn't nail the bass, I wouldn't play at all and let the paino handle the bassline, but she just ploughs on trying desperately to work out where we are and what chords she should be playing.

Not only that, she was complaining about not being able to hear herself in the monitor mix (we only had one mix initially, which the pit shared) so we had her so loud during the practice runs that I found it difficult to hear the piano (vital for how I was following the music). So, before the performance, I managed to set up 3 different mixes - she had one just for herself, loud and clear. She wasn't mixed into our mixes at all and her FOH volume was barely audible... Harsh, but I've got to work with the woman, so I couldn't tell her she was useless and spoiling the show...

One more performance tonight, then back to the day show! Yey!

[PTB]

I did something similar many years ago and quickly realised my lack of reading skills was going to be a problem. I noticed that the bass music was notation only whereas the guitarist's music had the chords printed over the top. Next rehearsal, I sat myself right next to the guitar player and looked at his music and mine. I took the chords from his music and looked at mine to see if the line ascended or descended. It was exhausting but I made it through a week in the pit and was feeling smugly that I'd got away with it.

I probably would have but the MD then took the band into the studio to record the soundtrack and my cover was blown!

P