Am Dram, Big Band and other reading gigs!

[ChunkyMunky]

Anyone here played with a big band? Done any pit work? Any other reading gigs? I'd love to hear about your experiences! I'm looking to get into the aforementioned in preparation for a load of cruise ship musician work.

[TorturedSaints]

I haven't (well, not on bass anyway). However, this [url="https://www.reddit.com/r/MusicalTheatreScores/"]https://www.reddit.com/r/MusicalTheatreScores/[/url] is a great resource and has made a great difference to my sight-reading. I've spent quite a few hours recently playing along to cast recordings. Yesterday I went back to some other music books and instead of my eyes straying to the tab lines, they stayed fixed on the notation. I've always been a confident sight reader in treble clef for the clarinet/sax, but doing this was just the ticket for improving my bass clef sight-reading and not looking at fret markers/fingering while playing.

[scalpy]

I’ve done loads of am dram pit gigs. Can be a snooze fest of root fifth root fifth (obligatory panic on the page turn to see a unison section with the brass) back to root fifth, or outright terrifying, see West Side Story or Sunset Boulevard, or pretty funky with some of the newer shows. Very dependant on the MD, and who is drumming. I’ve yet to hit the perfect show, funky pad, funky guitarist, funky drummer, although Made in Dagenham a few weeks ago got close.

[cytania]

I'm the dep bassist in a local big band. Most gigs I'll be on the mixer desk which is just as well as I'm in at the deep end, there are alot of songs, alot of styles and some fierce arrangements.
My reading skills have come on greatly but sight reading the scores live is a problem. Partly because some have been copied many times they are getting unreadable and partly because I get caught up in the music and lose my place!
Some songs I've memorised, some I've tabbed out myself, some I have charts that just tell me keys and repeats. The regular bassist is very talented. Now I know the dots I can hear him add tasty fills and scale runs that aren't in the score. Being around a better player certainly spurs you on!
Playing with the big band is a pretty amazing experience. The bass doesn't have such an immediate interplay with the drums and the horns, it's like piloting a luxury yacht, it turns slowly but the feeling of being on the bridge is wonderful.

Edited November 10, 2017 by cytania