Where am I? (Lost inside a song)

[dincz]

Is this the first or second chorus? Do we go into the bridge next or another verse?

I go blank sometimes and am wondering if it's just me or is this a common problem. I think the reason may be that I don't pay attention to lyrics so don't have the cues that they provide - or it could simply be (slightly) early Alzheimers.

Any fellow sufferers, any tips and tricks?

[EssentialTension]

I like to have little changes to phrases, or an additional note or rest, or a particular fill which all operate to tell me where I am in the song.

In fact I'd like to think that, at least sometimes, maybe the rest of the band know that we are going to the bridge because the bass just set things up to take it to the bridge.

But I do listen to the lyrics and to the other players.


EDIT ... and I'm not immune from getting it wrong.

Edited June 17, 2013 by EssentialTension

[gary mac]

Yep a fellow sufferer.

If it happens to me, it tends to be pub gigs, late in the set when I'm fatigued and sometimes worrying about which direction the really drunken dancers are likely to fall in.

[skej21]

Happens to me a lot in the function band... If I'm playing something repetitive but not challenging, my brain wanders and when I reengage with the song I've forgotten how many choruses we've played or whether we've done the solo yet etc. it doesn't help when we've played the same set 6/7 times over the space of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It all blurs into one and I can't remember what's going on lol.

Edited June 17, 2013 by skej21

[tonyquipment]

Yeah happens to me sometimes if I'm playing something really robotic.. The mind begins to drift ..

Of at the same time playing something which has lots of changes... Generally speaking it only really happens if there is no formulated structure.. A song that lasts for more than 6 minutes.. A mistake might happen!

[51m0n]

I never used to get this at all. Then I took a long break from playing and get it a lot.

Especially now I'm in an instrumental band dping very very long funk tracks. I'm rubbish at counting!

[Earbrass]

What I find is that I need to consciously pay attention to where I am in the tune (if I get distracted or start thinking about something else, I will sometimes lose my place), but that doing the same with regard to the actual notes I'm playing is fatal - if I start thinking about what note comes next I'm very likely to balls it up. It seems there's two quite separate processes going on, requiring different bits of the brain.

[bonzodog]

I never used to suffer with it, but now I am older I have to constantly concentrate on where I am in the song so it is definitely an age thing...........also depends on how attractive the female members of the audience are, as I very often find my mind wandering onto other things and I forget where I am

[cytania]

Sing along with the words, makes the band seem really into the song.

If counting try and visualise a large number right there on the fretboard.

[51m0n]

[quote name='cytania' timestamp='1371545658' post='2115183']
Sing along with the words, makes the band seem really into the song.

If counting try and visualise a large number right there on the fretboard.
[/quote]

Yeah, no lyrics or vocal melody clues for me, and I dont look at the fretboard at all when I'm playing.

I'm so busy playing, and kind of directing the band that I find I havent got a spare processing thread left always to remember where the hell we are. My solution is to try and off load this on the horns more, they are less busy than me, consumate pros at counting, and more free to signal the rest of the band.

Find out how this works out over the next few rehearsals.......

[BigRedX]

[quote name='cytania' timestamp='1371545658' post='2115183']
Sing along with the words, makes the band seem really into the song.
[/quote]

Try being in a band with a man who regularly sings the verses in the wrong order, who transposes lines within a verse and who will sing some lines from one verse and others from a different one. By the end of the song we'll have had all the lyrics - just not necessarily in the order that they were originally written (and maybe recorded). The only way for me is to simply practice the songs until I can play all the parts in the right order with the right number of repeats of each part without having to think about it, but can still if required cycle around the main riff until Mr Venom starts to sing.

[Muzz]

Then there's the evil step-twin of this syndrome, which is that moment of frozen terror as the four-count into the songs starts, and you can't remember the first note...it all comes back in a rush, but just for that moment...

[Bassmonkey]

I suffer from all these horrors but as I'm also the singer, i get the sheer terror of approaching the opening line and complete blankness as I can't remember the words, that and a backing vocalist who often sings the wrong line over mine - I sometimes tend to over think the songs rather than just let them come. I do know them but then have weird anomalies that I regularly forget. It is bizarre how my brain works. Mind you, we do 33-35 songs per show of around 70 in the repertoire so can be forgiven for the odd f*ck up i guess?

[danthevan]

Learn the verse, chorus and middle 8, then listen to the singer to see what particular order he wishes to put them into at that specific time

[fumps]

I always practice a song until I play it without thinking........I wonder if often over do it

[51m0n]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1371546654' post='2115198']
Try being in a band with a man who regularly sings the verses in the wrong order, who transposes lines within a verse and who will sing some lines from one verse and others from a different one. By the end of the song we'll have had all the lyrics - just not necessarily in the order that they were originally written (and maybe recorded). The only way for me is to simply practice the songs until I can play all the parts in the right order with the right number of repeats of each part without having to think about it, but can still if required cycle around the main riff until Mr Venom starts to sing.
[/quote]

Not to mention the fact that while he does this he's running amok in the venue, hanging off the chandelier in nowt more then his keks and some big s*** kicker boots. Its a disgrace! (Or a damned good show, but I digress)

[BigRedX]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1371551618' post='2115293']
Not to mention the fact that while he does this he's running amok in the venue, hanging off the chandelier in nowt more then his keks and some big s*** kicker boots. Its a disgrace! (Or a damned good show, but I digress)
[/quote]

*GRIN*

Thanks! It can be somewhat disconcerting when Mr Venom is out in the audience and consequently nowhere in sight and the only indication we have that he's still performing the song is his disembodied voice coming through the monitors. Especially when the lyrics we're hearing are not the ones that we heard at the last rehearsal...

I don't know if you saw the most recent video I posted, but at one point he's outside the venue in the street singing to the smokers and looking in through the window! In these sorts of situations if we didn't have the songs down so we knew exactly what we we were doing at any moment the whole thing would fall apart.

[Low End Bee]

[quote name='Muzz' timestamp='1371547214' post='2115206']
Then there's the evil step-twin of this syndrome, which is that moment of frozen terror as the four-count into the songs starts, and you can't remember the first note...it all comes back in a rush, but just for that moment...
[/quote]

I know this very well. Then I get the intro and the first bit of the verse out of the way and there's a split second of doubt as to how the chorus goes. It's always something I've written too.

[xilddx]

I always love vocal cues the most. I use them a lot. But doing that when the lyrics are in Zulu, and you have a repetitive one bar bass line with repetitive drums and an improvising percussionist over 92 bars before a one bar drop, one can either count (impossible and awful to do), or one learns those vocals. If the vocalist loses it too, then one is f***ed. It happened on Friday. We f***ed it up beatufully

[51m0n]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1371553503' post='2115326']
I always love vocal cues the most. I use them a lot. But doing that when the lyrics are in Zulu, and you have a repetitive one bar bass line with repetitive drums and an improvising percussionist over 92 bars before a one bar drop, one can either count (impossible and awful to do), or one learns those vocals. If the vocalist loses it too, then one is f***ed. It happened on Friday. We f***ed it up beatufully
[/quote]

Hah! Excellent, but I bet you just all carried on as if the f*** up was whatwas intended all along

[xilddx]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1371553614' post='2115330']
Hah! Excellent, but I bet you just all carried on as if the f*** up was whatwas intended all along
[/quote]

It was a truly crap gig mate, and yet we got great comments by people you would expect to know better. I've been depressed ever since

[Norris]

Forget where I am in the song?! Sometimes I forget how to play the bass!

[lojo]

Lines, chords, fills etc are easy to learn, but remembering structures without prompts or relying on hearing something someone else is supposed to do is the hard part, you either have to know or really love to song in question , or have played it a lot.

Some index cards and a discret clip with led on my stand help, when I know I've no chance during a new song that I might have trouble with.

[51m0n]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1371553946' post='2115334']
It was a truly crap gig mate, and yet we got great comments by people you would expect to know better. I've been depressed ever since
[/quote]

Have you got a recording of it?

If you dont you honestly cant be sure. Oh you can be sure thats how you felt about playing it on stage where you were, but unless you have a decent recording of the FOH in the room, and the audience reacction to the gig in the moment you cant judge a gig purely on how many cockups there were.

Even if you can hear bodges in the recording, its the audience that 'know best' regarding the energy and the excitement and emotional impact you delivered. Right notes certainly play a part, and all the better if they are in the right places, but I am a pretty firm believer that the right notes int he right place must also convey the right energy and excitement and emotion to the audience or you may as well be a wall of washing machines as far as the audience (and me) are concerned....


Actually I'm going to add a bit more to this. I've only seen BigRedX's band once, in a nice little venue in Brighton. They must have travelled for hours to get there that evening.

If I was to get all self important muso w***er about his band, I'd say, the guitarist looked great, but she did play a few duff chords, she missed a couple of queues, and I think her guitar went out of tune a couple of times. I'd say that BRX himself has possibly the most crabfisted excuse for technique on the instrument I've ever seen, he looks great, bit short though ( ). I couldnt hear most of the words due to the singer's extravagant flailing around and daft over theatrical nonsense, great bit of Theremin though. The drummer, I'm sure is a lovely fella but comes across a little quiet, maybe even scared of the rest of the band.

On the other hand, if I were to express how I felt about being there in the atmosphere they created, in the presence of that furious mad hair ball of energy that they produced, I'd say it was one of the best gigs I've ever seen, just glorious, and every band on this forum would love to see them play, and couild probably learn a few things about ditching their inhibitions and actually performing to the audience.

I rather think they didnt wander off in to the night after that gig all het up about the couple of possible almost train wrecks there might have been - if they did, they needn't have....

Edited June 18, 2013 by 51m0n

[xilddx]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1371559405' post='2115473']
Have you got a recording of it?

If you dont you honestly cant be sure. Oh you can be sure thats how you felt about playing it on stage where you were, but unless you have a decent recording of the FOH in the room, and the audience reacction to the gig in the moment you cant judge a gig purely on how many cockups there were.

Even if you can hear bodges in the recording, its the audience that 'know best' regarding the energy and the excitement and emotional impact you delivered. Right notes certainly play a part, and all the better if they are in the right places, but I am a pretty firm believer that the right notes int he right place must also convey the right energy and excitement and emotion to the audience or you may as well be a wall of washing machines as far as the audience (and me) are concerned....
[/quote]

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