How many mistakes per gig do you make?

[The Dark Lord]

I was just reading this topic

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/192864-any-tips-on-how-to-remember-your-songs/page__fromsearch__1"]http://basschat.co.u...__fromsearch__1[/url]

.... which got me thinking. I play the usual two hour-two set pub / club gig in a guitar/bass/drums three piece, and make the odd mistake here or there.

It's a long time since I made a right gaff and can't say I've ever made a song-stopper of a mistake. There are an awful lot of notes to remember - and we often add one or two new songs per set. So I can forgive myself.

I'd say I average two or three minor mistakes per gig .... usually down to forgetting what bit comes next but remembering and recovering half a note into the mistake. I suspect the audience doesn't even notice.

Is this a common average?

Edited November 27, 2012 by The Dark Lord

[neepheid]

I'd say that's fair. Nothing major, maybe only I notice considering I've been greeted with blank faces when I apologise to the rest of the band in the post gig discussions.

What I need to work on is the poker face. It's getting better, but I still haven't perfected it - I can still feel the odd half grimace flash across my face when I make a mistake.

Edited November 27, 2012 by neepheid

[Coilte]

If you are counting your mistakes at a gig then you are not concentrating on the music, or listening to the others in the band.

[The Dark Lord]

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1354009536' post='1880630']
If you are counting your mistakes at a gig then you are not concentrating on the music, or listening to the others in the band.
[/quote]

Get away with you sir. That doesn't make sense, if you think about it. You can only concentrate on things that are happening in the present. Mistakes are instantly in the past - so they can't cloud your concentration. And we are all allowed to have a memory.

[brensabre79]

Yes usually I will make one or two minor gaffes, and like Colite says it usually when I'm not concentrating on the music. I play in a few bands and sometimes it all blurs into one, mid way through set 2 is the usual time for me to switch off a bit until there's some kind of dischord. Luckily I usually have fast reactions and a crisis can be overted before half the band has even noticed...

If there was a James Brown style policy of being fined for mistakes though I'd probably concentrate more! That's why he had the best backing band on the planet!

[Coilte]

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1354009865' post='1880642']
And we are all allowed to have a memory.
[/quote]

Yes, but putting it to negative use like counting mistakes, cant be very helpful.

[paul torch]

just the one... turning up.

[flyfisher]

[quote name='The Dark Lord' timestamp='1354009865' post='1880642']
Get away with you sir. That doesn't make sense, if you think about it. You can only concentrate on things that are happening in the present. Mistakes are instantly in the past - so they can't cloud your concentration. And we are all allowed to have a memory.
[/quote]

Mistakes may not be able to cloud your past concentration, but they can certainly affect your present and future concentration while you're worrying about that mistake that's now firmly established in the past.

[Coilte]

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1354010884' post='1880666']
Mistakes may not be able to cloud your past concentration, but they can certainly affect your present and future concentration while you're worrying about that mistake that's now firmly established in the past.
[/quote]

+1.

[toneknob]

None, it's jazz.

Or, as Miles Davis put it, "If you don't make mistakes you're not trying hard enough"

[Lozz196]

I probably make a few, but none so bad that they would stop the song. I don`t count them, and don`t beat myself up over them either. I`m sure the audience would prefer to see a band of musicians performing and looking like they`re having fun than a band who concentrate so much on playing they have no interaction with the audience.

[Low End Bee]

3.7

[Truckstop]

^ oh my god, me too!

Truckstop

[MrTaff]

None, I just played the part slightly different that time nobody else even notices unless you really screw up or you play over the guitarists intro, it's the only time the guitarist in our bands notices the bass

[Adrenochrome]

2 minors a gig is about right. I can do the thing where I slide a semitone up or down very quickly and the duff note barely sounds... I also hit the odd note where it isn't fretted as clearly as it should be. All normal in a long night of playing, IMO.

[Leen2112]

I just panic when i don't remember what comes next, although most of the time it just comes to me in time. A couple of 'fluffs' per gig and nothing that anybody seems to notice. I once screwed up behind a big guitar solo oooops!

[Conan]

As Wilko Johnson once said "If you make a mistake, just look brash and the audience will think they heard it wrong"

[BILL POSTERS]

As someboy said, possibly Stink.

When you make a mistake, do it again next time round - people will think its Jazz.

[neil_d]

A fair few minor ones that are easily corrected and (probably) not noticed by anyone...

Most fun (during rehearsals) is when there's a stop in a song which everyone except one forgets. Making the correct person sound wrong, followed by dirty looks from them and "We, er, decided to do it a bit different that time. Er, didn't you catch on?" from the rest... (Then followed by: "From the top, and we'll get it right this time.")

[PaulWarning]

in my band we all make mistakes, hopefully not at the same time, the guitard's the worse cause he doesn't practice enough and drinks to much, in the last 2 gigs the worse ones were when the singer forgot to sing the last verse in Tommy Gun so the rest of us didn't know whether to go into the outro or not so we just sort of stopped and the guitard had no volume at the start of the set after I'd said everybody "ready and turned on". But guess what? the crowd loved it had a laugh at our expense and enjoyed the gigs, so we keep getting away with it, some people actually say it makes the gig more 'live'

[seashell]

Never mind 2 or 3 per gig, I'm probably making 2 or 3 per song!

I do have a good poker face though, developed through years of not corpsing on stage when things go wrong in my theatre and comedy performances!

[Spoombung]

I usually f*** up on every track but nobody notices or gives a sh*t

[chris_b]

There's no such thing as bum notes; just poor choices.

Of course I make mistakes, like last week when I was mesmerised by the skinny girl with the "spayed on" black leather pants. The number she started dancing in just went to pieces!! Anyway, bad notes are fine if they are wiped out by the good ones

When I went to the Victor Wooten clinic a couple of years ago he said he made lots of mistakes (even I could hear some of them) but that didn’t matter. It was how you got out of them that made the difference.

[Spoombung]

The common cause of errors for me is relaxing into a groove and enjoying the other guys playing. Then I forget about the tricky bit coming up and it's suddenly on top of me, like I said, no one seems to notice or care ...

[The Dark Lord]

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1354010987' post='1880669']
+1.
[/quote]

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