BigRedX Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 A recording of a gig is not the same as the gig itself. For a start one of the most important elements is missing - the visuals. As Bilbo says don't rely on a recording of a single gig. If you record the next 5-10 gigs and they all show the same"problems" then maybe you should do something about them. But the audio from a single gig in isolation is not necessarily a concern. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuNkShUi Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 I know what you're saying. It's only one gig etc. Im not concerned with the level of my playing. I know where i'm at. Or more to the point, i know where i SHOULD be at. I just haven't picked myself up on it in a while i guess. I get that you can't be on point all the time too, but the things i am not doing, i should be! Staccato, proper articulation, timing etc. I also agree that i don't practice as much as i used to be able to, but still, i feel i should be playing better. That's all it is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 I record most things so I get a feel of where we are... On a good night, we have more than a few gears and I'm happy with that. Things like sound HAVE to be there, as does energy and commitment. That seems to set the tone so we never have off-nights as such, just degrees of how happy /we/I am about it all. The rest either hits the marks or it doesn't but that isn't the real deal-breaker. And their is a limit t what you can expect with the money involved. £50-70 a man in a pub tends to set its own limit and a lot work wont for that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Another small point: musicians are obsessed with what their playing is not. Audiences are more concerned with what it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1427893755' post='2735524'] Another small point: musicians are obsessed with what their playing is not. Audiences are more concerned with what it is. [/quote] Yes, but more a question of the more you think you know, the more you find that you don't.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuNkShUi Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 Definitely! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1427893755' post='2735524'] Another small point: musicians are obsessed with what their playing is not. Audiences are more concerned with what it is. [/quote] Well if you're going to go there, then covers bands definitely have a huge advantage. The audience don't actually hear us play. Most of the time they're listening to the music in their heads. They hear what they remember the song sounding like; if we sound vaguely similar then all is well. FACT! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuNkShUi Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 Well it's like i said, the crowd were into it. Had a lot of nice compliments afterwards. The venue booked us in for 3 more gigs and we booked in a wedding, and 2 parties. As a whole, i would still count the gig as a sucess, but still, i do feel i should've been better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 Connecting with the audience and 'performing' is a very important element, which in this case you seem to have done and done well. I'd echo what BRX and Bilbo have said also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Sausage Posted April 1, 2015 Share Posted April 1, 2015 (edited) I think sometimes people take playing in time for granted. I think it needs to be practiced every now and then just like technique. it happened to me once. I hadn't practiced playing time exercises (to a metronome) for a year or two. I heard back a recording that i thought was good and I was all over the place. It's never happened again. I really think a lot of musicians take it for granted. I did a gig where everyone was wearing cans. So i could hear everything perfectly. I told the guitar players that they were rushing slightly when playing straight eighths. They wouldn't have it. Edited April 1, 2015 by Lord Sausage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuNkShUi Posted April 2, 2015 Author Share Posted April 2, 2015 Yeh i think it is exactly what we needed as a band, and individually. I'll be making a point of paying more attention to how tight we are, rather than just how the song is sounding and how the crowd are reacting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkandrew Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 (edited) I saw a news story about Auto-tune on the TV last night and in it they listened to older recordings (such as Bowie's "Life on Mars") where the vocals were technically all over the place but full of feeling and emotion. The point they were making is that it's the imperfections in a performance that actually connect with the audience, and sometimes in our relentless quest for technical perfection we forget that. Edited April 2, 2015 by darkandrew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twincam Posted April 2, 2015 Share Posted April 2, 2015 I think you really can't totally judge something from one pub gig. Also as someone pointed out most of our listening these days is of very good studio recordings or indeed recordings that have had a lot of after engineering these days. I have seen great bands sound a bit crap every now and then live. It's not an excuse to be rubbish but your never going to be perfect all the time, the people who are good constantly are the studio musicians that earn a decent living or the people at the very top of the game and even then they will have an off day. And to add I don't care how good the recording gear is, it can often make you sound better or worse than you actually are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Played last night and I was right off the pace... Running an amp to its limit really really didn't help as I had to dig in too hard but it went down well and dep band were happy. I'm annoyed as I was compromised, IMO, massively... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Have you ever seen a really good band have an off day? Years ago a friend who's a very good jazz drummer went to Ronnies to see Tom Scott and the LA Express. The bass and drums spent most of the night talking to each other and egging each other on. At the end my friend asked Max Bennett what was going on, and he said they were having an off night and they were trying to overcome it. My friend said the gig sounded perfect! I guess you can have some shockers and even informed members of the audience won't necessarily notice but the band should notice and repeated "bad" gigs are an indicator that something needs to be done before the audience does start to notice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancient Mariner Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Is music an olympic sport? I'm very much of the mind that if the most important requirement were to perfectly reproduce a piece of music then it would have been better just to use a CD instead of having a band. It's often the small variations, changes, even 'mistakes' that make hearing a live band pleasureable and worth the time. While there are a small number of people (outside the bass community) for whom perfection is a basic requirement, they are a tiny minority. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 No, but it is a pursuit of a form of excellence and whatever your standard is, if you come up short, then that will get to you...or it will me. I could pick plenty of holes from last night from the whole band, but I wont as I was the dep, and I don't have to do the gigs, but if I'd been watching me... I wouldn't have been impressed, especially as I know what I should have been able to do. Maybe there were technical mitigations etc etc but it still p****s me off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancient Mariner Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 [quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1428147714' post='2738475'] No, but it is a pursuit of a form of excellence and whatever your standard is, if you come up short, then that will get to you...or it will me. [/quote] And therein may lie some of the issue. I get grumpy if I make bad mistakes, but I also enjoy music far more if I'm being creative. There's little pleasure in the technical exercise of note & timing perfect, but without expression. The times I've been happiest have been the times when 'something special' has happened, rather than I've played correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 [quote name='Ancient Mariner' timestamp='1428159360' post='2738637'] .................. I get grumpy if I make bad mistakes, but I also enjoy music far more if I'm being creative. There's little pleasure in the technical exercise of note & timing perfect, but without expression. The times I've been happiest have been the times when 'something special' has happened, rather than I've played correctly. [/quote] You can't have one without the other as far as I'm concerned.... ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 It's great when you go for something on the spur of the moment and nail it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VestonPants Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 (edited) I'm with Ancient Mariner on this. One of the best gigs i ever attended was the Manic Street Preachers at the NEC on the Forever Delayed tour. I wasn't a big fan of the band beforehand but walked out after show thoroughly blown away. Yet midway through the set James Dean Bradfield, an artist I now admire greatly, messed up the intro to one of the songs three times. It didn't matter. They eventually nailed and still put on a great show. I suspect Bradfield was embarrassed but nobody minded; The audience loved the fallibility and the spontaneity and I can no longer remember which song they got wrong. Ultimately, the reason for playing live is to please the audience. Otherwise we would all just stick to the rehearsal room. I appreciate the drive for perfection and that certainly has its merits but if you entertain the punters I would say that you've achieved something more important than pure technical excellence. Of course, if you can do both then you're really cooking. Edited April 4, 2015 by VestonPants Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 Everyone makes mistakes but playing out of time shouldn't be one of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted April 4, 2015 Share Posted April 4, 2015 [quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1428177419' post='2738913'] Everyone makes mistakes but playing out of time shouldn't be one of them. [/quote] Tell that to the drummer last night... I'm not used to playing with people with bad time but this guy was very enthusiastic about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuNkShUi Posted April 5, 2015 Author Share Posted April 5, 2015 [quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1428147714' post='2738475'] whatever your standard is, if you come up short, then that will get to you...or it will me. [/quote] Yup, me too. Don't get me wrong, I am pleased if the crowd are enthusiastic, because that is most important. But doesn't mean I won't be pissed off with myself at the same time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassbiscuits Posted April 9, 2015 Share Posted April 9, 2015 My most recent gig was recorded by one of the guys depping on it, mainly for reference for the arrangements, backing vocals etc. He sent me the file for a listen and to be honest, my playing was in parts a lot worse than i remembered at the time. Don't get me wrong, i knew there were a couple of really beauties in there in terms of mistakes, but not as many as i heard on the recording. Funny thing was that the vibe of the gig was great, it was nicely full with people up dancing etc (always helps!) and mostly my playing was good (some bits surprisingly so!) so I guess it didn't matter that much. It has made me get my arse in gear to iron out those mistakes for next time, however easily they slipped past the average punter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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