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Singers who don't understand how music works


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11 hours ago, Waddo Soqable said:

 

You could say it's a form of "sonic weapon".

More the equivalent of a colour party in 17th/18th century warfare IIRC.

The mention of pipes reminds me of a time probably 10-15 years ago when I was taking a long break from bass. My partner and I ended up going to a local folk night where she was persuaded to sing (being Welsh), and they tried to rope me in as well. As I admitted I lived just around the corner and had a "folk instrument" there they asked me to fetch it and perform, which resulted in them being subjected to an abridged version of the tune at the link below at around 102 dBA in a small pub back room (I wore earplugs). They didn't ask again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8H2HHs6Iqg

Outdoors, though, this sort of thing sounds great. Very relaxing.
 

piping_on_tower.jpg.4d2c88bc1da6e937a13c5df8b4fd2fd5.jpg

 

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10 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

As support act, we arrived at the back of a decent-sized hall with the ska-punk-rock band, and approached the sound desk, just when the headlining Brittany-style rock band were doing their sound check. A couple of minutes into it, the singer brought out his cornemuse and played a note or two. All of us (nine in the group...) bounded backwards a couple of metres :swoon:; it was not just loud, it was HORRIBLY LOUD..! We hurriedly tried desperately to cover our ears and stumbled back out to the car park. We waited patiently until they'd left the stage before returning. Sonic weapon..? Geneva Convention..? Hanging's too good etc... ¬¬

Ahh... you need to encounter shawms... not to be used indoors... 

 

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I remember being asked to join a band after sending over me riffing over one of their existing tracks. Nothing fancy, just pentatonics, arpeggios, the usual suspects to fit in line with the drums and compliment the single guitar. It wasn't beethoven, but it was decent enough.

Then I got an email.

"Hey, we want you to join but can you just play E?"

" you want me to play in the key of E? Sure..."

"No, just play E."

"In the verse... chorus....?"

"no, just E for the songs."

"ok... do you mean you just want me to play the root notes? This song is in the key of G, the other is in D... What about the rhythm?"

"No, just E. I want you to go 'do do do do do do do do do do' for the whole song."

"I'm sorry what"

"you know...DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO"

"...."

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26 minutes ago, zbd1960 said:

Ahh... you need to encounter shawms... not to be used indoors... 

 

I saw a lecture about the evolution of early music instruments a few years ago in a village hall and the speaker demonstrated one of those. It was the most piercing thing I've ever heard, you could have cleared a room with it.

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8 minutes ago, nilebodgers said:

I saw a lecture about the evolution of early music instruments a few years ago in a village hall and the speaker demonstrated one of those. It was the most piercing thing I've ever heard, you could have cleared a room with it.

Yep. The altos and tenor shawms are also very loud - that was a soprano. They were used outdoors for leading processions etc. I was singing in an early music workshop some years ago and there was a tenor shawn in the instrumental group. It's a long instrument so sitting down, they had the bell playing into a cushion filled with lambs' wool to reduce the volume...

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On 27/06/2021 at 22:30, Lozz196 said:

They were after the second chorus. In every song. No Carol Vordernans required to count to two. Wrong it seemed.

 

I'm currently available to join any band with Carol Vorderman in the line-up

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On 28/06/2021 at 22:21, Cat Burrito said:

We were talking about this in the studio just the other day. We occasionally work with an ex-pro drummer who is fantastic in every way, except he does this with count ins. It is most bizarre!

At least he's consistent. My drummer often accelerates through the count off then starts playing somewhere in the middle. When he uses his tablet gizmo app I get the tempo from that. If he isn't I have to cop his warm up to the count off. But dang he's a good drummer!

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We had a drummer who would count at a different speed than the song went at. I tried to tell him to count at the tempo you are going to play the song at. It was most annoying as there would be a slow count and then we had to guess what speed the song was going to be at.

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2 minutes ago, ubit said:

We had a drummer who would count at a different speed than the song went at. I tried to tell him to count at the tempo you are going to play the song at. It was most annoying as there would be a slow count and then we had to guess what speed the song was going to be at.

Yup, I knew one like that too. His count was always faster than the tempo he came in with, even when I started counting them in after a period of frustration / annoyance. I'm sure he thought I rushed everything too! Whilst I'm not the greatest bass player by any means, one of my strengths is being able to hold a tempo whatever everyone else is trying to do with it. With a dragging drummer, by the end of the night my right hand was often swollen and sore from trying to drive the song and make the drummer keep the tempo where it should be. I got to the point where in most songs I could anticipate the same places he slowed down every time. When we occasionally had a dep it was such a relief. 

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About 10 years ago, covers band I was in took on a new female singer, replacing our departing male lead.

Her job was as a freelance singing tutor....great on paper......

In fact, all great until she sang with the band. She had no sense, at all, of when to come in, to stop.....anything really.

We persevered for a short while, did some gigs. and she seemed a little better - until we had a go one week at 'Fell In Love With A Girl', by Joss Stone.

We'd barely got through the first two bars, and she'd already exhausted every inch of the entire lyric, leaving her with nowhere to go. Or us for that matter.

No surprise, I departed soon after.....

 

 

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I always said to the band as I was the bass player and singer, if I made a mistake and sang or played a chorus instead of a verse just follow me because its too hard to change once I'm away. I got sick of dirty looks and the band carrying on playing a verse when I was onto a chorus. Not that it happened all that often but when we were playing lots and as I say concentrating on two things, it's easy to lose concentration

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On 28/06/2021 at 12:39, SteveXFR said:

Singer in our band said that when he wanted me to do backing vocals. He admitted he was very wrong. My singing style sounds like a bull elephant that has just stepped on it's own penis

This. Our singist is very keen on harmony vocals, and was (note the 'was') a firm proponent of the 'everyone can sing' school of thought. It took about an hour of my honking and hooting to change his mind. He looked broken, defeated, and well he might. Though your similie was eye-wateringly memorable, I'd modify it slightly if I may: my voice sounds like a bull elephant who's just had it's penis stepped on by another elephant. More surprise in the tone, y'see... 🙁🙂

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1 hour ago, spongebob said:

We persevered for a short while, did some gigs. and she seemed a little better - until we had a go one week at 'Fell In Love With A Girl', by Joss Stone.

Paging Spongebob. Paging Spongebob. Please report to the ‘Songs you didn’t realise were covers’ thread. Thank you. 
😉

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1 hour ago, casapete said:

Yup, I knew one like that too. His count was always faster than the tempo he came in with, even when I started counting them in after a period of frustration / annoyance. I'm sure he thought I rushed everything too! Whilst I'm not the greatest bass player by any means, one of my strengths is being able to hold a tempo whatever everyone else is trying to do with it. With a dragging drummer, by the end of the night my right hand was often swollen and sore from trying to drive the song and make the drummer keep the tempo where it should be. I got to the point where in most songs I could anticipate the same places he slowed down every time. When we occasionally had a dep it was such a relief. 

I feel your pain. It's such hard work trying to regulate the tempo with a drummer that wavers about. Drummer in my band has a habit of slowing down, usually at the same place in particular songs, so, to compensate I end up pushing the beat as those places approach but half the time he just slows down anyway. Drives me nuts.

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I have yet to gig with bass - I've joined local Rock School and will see where it goes... 

But... I play in orchestras where you have a guy at the front waving a stick to keep people together.  Doesn't stop issues... the commonest are speeding up when it gets louder, slowing down when it's quieter. The biggest tempo crunchers are usually the heavy brass (trombones/tuba) - if they charge off there's not much anyone can do about it. When that happens, the rule is watch the conductor. There is a well-know (probably apocryphal) quote that conductors should never look at the trombones as it only encourages them....

Edited by zbd1960
Stupid spelling error - no idea how that got in there
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