winging it

[Root45]

I know a bassist who wings AC/DC. Now that is a skill......

[lowdown]

[quote name='bassjim' timestamp='1493113323' post='3285637']
This makes me laugh when these types turn up. I was told about this local mystical great guitar hero who had been around the world playing with this and that ect. Guy turns up. Gets all this flash gear out. Plugs in and indeed a great clean guitar tone. No interest in checking out over driven sounds as a priority and just sounds brilliant. Really nice guy to talk to. Blah blah blah. Has got all the tunes in chart form plus various "notes" he has made. This is gonna be great. What a treat.
Ok lets get on with the gig then. Guy doesn't know his arse from his elbow start to finish. Tries to cover it up with a few "amazing" solos but this is not an "amazing" solo guitar band. This is funk disco soul covers with arrangements that have stops and starts with featured brass lines we all play ect.
" Oh sorry man. I only had like this afternoon to go over it". "But you agreed you wanted to do the gig 4 weeks ago?"..........huh!
[/quote]

So, a dep turns up with clean Guitar sounds for your 'Funk, Disco, Soul Covers band ?
But you prefer Overdriven sounds? Is your band, AC/DC does Chic?


Sorry, the vision you created just made me giggle.
Carry on.

[tinyd]

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1493289070' post='3287145']

I used to play in (and left) a touring show which, believe it or not suffered this. After nearly four years on the road I discovered that the drummer hadn't ever listened to any of the source material. It's no wonder things wouldn't hang together right on stage. I was playing with a guy who had never heard the records we were supposed to be replicating!
[/quote]

I used to play in a Latin band where most of the members never listened to Latin music, which worked out about as well as you might expect. Preparing for each gig was like pulling teeth with half the band seemingly having to learn their parts from scratch each time.

[bassjim]

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1493361137' post='3287686']
So, a dep turns up with clean Guitar sounds for your 'Funk, Disco, Soul Covers band ?
But you prefer Overdriven sounds? Is your band, AC/DC does Chic?


Sorry, the vision you created just made me giggle.
Carry on.
[/quote]No you misread .....normally a guitarist (including mine)makes a racket and goes through 10 minutes of over driven sounds before anything else is checked. Then sorts out the correct sound for the gig, in this case a clean sound. What I was saying there was,this guy instead of obsessing with fuzz goes straight for the correct tone for the gig. Personally I am not a fan of overdrive, especially used in all the wrong places, from a guitarist on a funk soul cover band gig.

[chris_b]

I don't care what genre we're playing, I'd rather play with a good player winging it than a not-so-good player getting it right!

[bassjim]

And then that opens up another can of worms......yes I agree a good player winging it could be better than a not so good player that actually knows the set. But this is probably down to the fact the not so good player stands out as such, possible irritates and grates, so anyone that sounds like they know what they are doing by comparison is going to be a breath of fresh air.
I think the beef here is players that show up hoping to wing it and by the time you realise they cant, its too late, as opposed to those who comfortably can.

[Bilbo]

The whole subject is, to my mind, an indicator of what the reality of being a musician really is.

There are two extremes. Learn everything by rote and work in a set band playing with the same people who learned the songs with you and nailed every detail and nuance or use professional readers who read the impeccable charts you have written out beforehand.

The reality is usually somewhere between the two. The problem is that everybody starts out playing with like minded mates so spending hours learning your favourite tunes is a buzz. Later on, you start having to balance real life, maybe work, etc with your musical ambitions are comprised. I am never going to learn 30 songs I probably don't like very much for one gig. Give me charts or book someone else.

[Kevin Dean]

For Me the band have to know the structure of the song , we did a run of 3 gigs the first drummer was a dep but had obviously listened to the songs & baught notes & did a very good job getting us through the gig .the other two gigs were supossed to be with our new drummer We admittadley only had one rehearsal with him but He had the set list for over 8 weeks & obviously hadn't listened to a single song & the guitarist dropped certain intros because he said they were boring lol .