Music stands

[skidder652003]

If I have to make the effort to learn the bloody song then so should the singer!

[Beedster]

If a singer had been singing the same setlist for 10 years then a music stand that he’s owned since he learned violin at school in the 70s plonked right in front of his face at gigs is at best a comfort blanket, at worst amateur musicianship, but either way should not be there.
 

Mention no names, but you know who you are, so just stop it 😄

[Happy Jack]

For singers / guitarists / bassists I'm firmly in the NO MUSIC STAND camp. Echoing many others, if you can't be arsed to learn a couple of hours' worth of covers then IMHO you shouldn't be on stage trying to perform them. This applies particularly to dedicated singers who need only learn the lyrics to - usually - a bunch of famous pop songs that they grew up listening to and singing along to. If you can't remember famous lyrics, you're probably not actually a singer at all.

 

Orchestral players - and that definitely includes the horn section for, say, a soul band - is a whole nother thang. Those people have to play perfectly in sync with each other and with the rest of the band (even when they're being 'loose') plus all their training points them at reading the songs from the sheet music.

 

The crossover point seems to be keyboards. I play a 3-tier rig using each tier in any given song for one of brass, strings, piano, organ or synth. But it's not as simple as that ... I have a dozen different organ sounds for different songs, half a dozen different pianos, half a dozen brass sounds, etc.  Every song starts with 30 seconds of frantic button-pushing to get the right sounds cued up for the next song. Inevitably, I have a tablet mounted on my rig which tells me what settings I'm going to need. Equally inevitably, since I have a tablet with all the songs in the set in the correct sequence, I also have the chords for some tricky passages. 

 

Does that make me a bad person?

 

Edited Monday at 15:00 by Happy Jack

[Kev]

I do feel a lack of ability to memorise and retain information is being overlooked in a lot of comments here.  If a person has a fantastic voice and performance etiquette, I don't think they should be stigma'd away from performing because of a lack of memory skill.  If its laziness, sure, but I'm not sure how anyone would ascertain that without asking.

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

For singers / guitarists / bassists I'm firmly in the NO MUSIC STAND camp. Echoing many others, if you can't be arsed to learn a couple of hours' worth of covers then IMHO you shouldn't be on stage trying to perform them. This applies particularly to dedicated singers who need only learn the lyrics to - usually - a bunch of famous pop songs that they grew up listening to and singing along to. If you can't remember famous lyrics, you're probably not actually a singer at all.

 

Orchestral players - and that definitely includes the horn section for, say, a soul band - is a whole nother thang. Those people have to play perfectly in sync with each other and with the rest of the band (even when they're being 'loose') plus all their training points them at reading the songs from the sheet music.

 

The crossover point seems to be keyboards. I play a 3-tier rig using each tier in any given song for one of brass, strings, piano, organ or synth. But it's not as simple as that ... I have a dozen different organ sounds for different songs, half a dozen different pianos, half a dozen brass sounds, etc.  Every song starts with 30 seconds of frantic button-pushing to get the right sounds cued up for the next song. Inevitably, I have a tablet mounted on my rig which tells me what settings I'm going to need. Equally inevitably, since I have a tablet with all the songs in the set in the corect sequence, I also have the chords for some tricky passages. 

 

Does that make me a bad person?

 

So logical that I will call you Mr Spock going forwards 👍

[Beedster]

6 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

For singers / guitarists / bassists I'm firmly in the NO MUSIC STAND camp. Echoing many others, if you can't be arsed to learn a couple of hours' worth of covers then IMHO you shouldn't be on stage trying to perform them. This applies particularly to dedicated singers who need only learn the lyrics to - usually - a bunch of famous pop songs that they grew up listening to and singing along to. If you can't remember famous lyrics, you're probably not actually a singer at all.

 

Orchestral players - and that definitely includes the horn section for, say, a soul band - is a whole nother thang. Those people have to play perfectly in sync with each other and with the rest of the band (even when they're being 'loose') plus all their training points them at reading the songs from the sheet music.

 

The crossover point seems to be keyboards. I play a 3-tier rig using each tier in any given song for one of brass, strings, piano, organ or synth. But it's not as simple as that ... I have a dozen different organ sounds for different songs, half a dozen different pianos, half a dozen brass sounds, etc.  Every song starts with 30 seconds of frantic button-pushing to get the right sounds cued up for the next song. Inevitably, I have a tablet mounted on my rig which tells me what settings I'm going to need. Equally inevitably, since I have a tablet with all the songs in the set in the corect sequence, I also have the chords for some tricky passages. 

 

Does that make me a bad person?

 

In my experience nine times out of ten it’s laziness. 
 

Edit: quoted the wring post, meant to cite Kev’s

Edited Monday at 14:59 by Beedster

[Steve Browning]

8 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

For singers / guitarists / bassists I'm firmly in the NO MUSIC STAND camp. Echoing many others, if you can't be arsed to learn a couple of hours' worth of covers then IMHO you shouldn't be on stage trying to perform them. This applies particularly to dedicated singers who need only learn the lyrics to - usually - a bunch of famous pop songs that they grew up listening to and singing along to. If you can't remember famous lyrics, you're probably not actually a singer at all.

 

Orchestral players - and that definitely includes the horn section for, say, a soul band - is a whole nother thang. Those people have to play perfectly in sync with each other and with the rest of the band (even when they're being 'loose') plus all their training points them at reading the songs from the sheet music.

 

The crossover point seems to be keyboards. I play a 3-tier rig using each tier in any given song for one of brass, strings, piano, organ or synth. But it's not as simple as that ... I have a dozen different organ sounds for different songs, half a dozen different pianos, half a dozen brass sounds, etc.  Every song starts with 30 seconds of frantic button-pushing to get the right sounds cued up for the next song. Inevitably, I have a tablet mounted on my rig which tells me what settings I'm going to need. Equally inevitably, since I have a tablet with all the songs in the set in the corect sequence, I also have the chords for some tricky passages. 

 

Does that make me a bad person?

 

 

I used to work with a guy who midi'd everything and had all the settings saved with the song title so it was a simple scroll for him to be ready. Way beyond my ability but certainly made for no gaps betweeen songs (maybe 2 seconds).

[bassbiscuits]

1 hour ago, Steve Browning said:

If I'm using a crib sheet, it's on the floor and in big letters. 

Best gaffer taped to the stage too - I found this to my cost at outdoor dep gig when my cheat sheet blew away during the first song. 

[BigRedX]

1 minute ago, Steve Browning said:

I used to work with a guy who midi'd everything and had all the settings saved with the song title so it was a simple scroll for him to be ready. Way beyond my ability but certainly made for no gaps betweeen songs (maybe 2 seconds).

 

This is what I have done with technology-based bands in the past. I was in a band in the 90s where all the patch changes for keyboards, electronic drums, guitar, bass and vocal effects where synchronised with the backing track, including any mid-song changes. The first bar of each song set everything up, and at the end any extreme delay was muted on the vocals so that between song announcements would be legible. It made for a much tighter and energetic performance since no-one was anchored to their "pedal board" and could simply concentrate on playing and performing.

[Happy Jack]

7 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

 

I used to work with a guy who midi'd everything and had all the settings saved with the song title so it was a simple scroll for him to be ready. Way beyond my ability but certainly made for no gaps betweeen songs (maybe 2 seconds).

 

I've spent the last few days looking at exactly this solution ... or, more accurately, at the truly enormous range of solutions out there. You can start with BandHelper, OnSong, GigHelper and Camelot Pro. There's loads more. And that's just the Apps. 

 

All of these assume that:

1. You are an Apple afficianado and already own loads of Apple kit;
2. You have a background in software development and programming;
3. You have spent the last 20 years using Midi for everything except wiping your arse;
4. Everyone in your band is keen to fall in line with your solutions and let you control the set lists etc.

I have spent literally hours just this past weekend scanning websites, watching YouTubes, downloading manuals (srsly), asking my friends over at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1096679527422725 and I haven't found anything designed for the ... ahem ... elder musician with no interest in falling down this particular rabbit hole.

 

Essentially, "entry level" = a degree in computer programming.

[chris_b]

2 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

If I'm using a crib sheet, it's on the floor and in big letters. 

 

With my back I'd never get down there to turn over the page!!

[BigRedX]

12 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

All of these assume that:

1. You are an Apple afficianado and already own loads of Apple kit;

 

There is a very good reason for this in that only Mac OS and iOS are designed from the ground up to allow applications to prioritise the transmission of MIDI and audio data, so that it is all sent at exactly the time you want it to, and is not stuck in a queue behind a number of other system events like because the OS has has no idea about timing critical data. Android devices are particularly bad in this respect which is why there are very few music apps for the platform and none of them appear to work reliably.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Across the bands I’m in I would have to memorise songs well into the 100’s and my ageing brain can’t cope with some of the more challenging lines.

I use an iPad attached to a guitar stand which is usually to my left so it appears I’m looking at my fretting hand when I do glance over at it. Everything is operated by a Bluetooth foot switch with OnSong pre-loaded with the songs in set list order. I don’t need to touch it unless someone calls a song that has been requested that isn’t in the set. 
 

For the Queen gig I was determined to learn everything and not have it on stage. So far so good.

[Beedster]

15 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

 

I've spent the last few days looking at exactly this solution ... or, more accurately, at the truly enormous range of solutions out there. You can start with BandHelper, OnSong, GigHelper and Camelot Pro. There's loads more. And that's just the Apps. 

 

All of these assume that:

1. You are an Apple afficianado and already own loads of Apple kit;
2. You have a background in software development and programming;
3. You have spent the last 20 years using Midi for everything except wiping your arse;
4. Everyone in your band is keen to fall in line with your solutions and let you control the set lists etc.

I have spent literally hours just this past weekend scanning websites, watching YouTubes, downloading manuals (srsly), asking my friends over at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1096679527422725 and I haven't found anything designed for the ... ahem ... elder musician with no interest in falling down this particular rabbit hole.

 

Essentially, "entry level" = a degree in computer programming.

 
I find it’s less the complexity of the processes than the complexity of the writing that describes the processes. It’s like learning statistics, every book is written by a statistician, and they don’t think like the rest of us. Same with tech, guy who helps me out is lovely but often after a very long explanation that I failed to decipher I’ll ask him to explain as if to an idiot and bingo. There seems to be a tendency among experts to make the thing in which they’re expert seem more complex than it is 🤔 

[Woodinblack]

45 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

The crossover point seems to be keyboards. I play a 3-tier rig using each tier in any given song for one of brass, strings, piano, organ or synth. But it's not as simple as that ... I have a dozen different organ sounds for different songs, half a dozen different pianos, half a dozen brass sounds, etc.  Every song starts with 30 seconds of frantic button-pushing to get the right sounds cued up for the next song.

 

 

45 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Does that make me a bad person?

 

It makes you terrible - Not for the music stand thing, but if you are one of those keyboard players that have to spend half an hour pissing around trying to get a sound between each song, yes, orders of magnitude worse than a singer who has to have several books in front of them! How many hours have I wasted waiting for keyboard players, using the most presettable instrument known to man, trying to recal some sound.

 

How many songs are you playing, all the keyboard parts for every known symphony or just 30-40 songs that you have played before. Song 10 - right, press present 10. Better still, if you have an iPad, change to the right song, the iPad sets allt he keyboards to the right thing.

 

 

Also you dont' need half a dozen pianos, in the same way the audience can't tell if you are using a fender P or an ibanez, they can't tell one piano from another!

 

 

 

[Boodang]

I actually don't have a problem with it, except... our last vocalist in our covers band had a great voice but at times he would be in full flow but looking down at the music stand like he was reading a text. Not a cool look. I think provided it's not used overtly it's ok. 

Having said that we've got a first outing for our punk band on Saturday, music stands and Anarchy!

[jonnybass]

I think any equipment that doesnt impact negatively on the performance is fine, this includes sheet music, lyric sheets, stands, ipads.  I mean if you have a sketch of a couple of songs from a 40 min set and it doesnt affect the performance not an issue, in the same way someone bends down to fiddle with a distortion pedal delaying the start of a song, then adjusts it again delaying the next song would be a problem for me.

 

Jonny

[chris_b]

For the bands I'm a member of, I will always know the songs.

 

For the bands I dep with, 18 this year so far, that depends how often I play with them. For the regulars I know the songs. For one-offs I'll use charts as a safety net. Most bands would rather I get the songs right and as I make John Entwistle look animated visuals come a distant second.

[Steve Browning]

58 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

 

I've spent the last few days looking at exactly this solution ... or, more accurately, at the truly enormous range of solutions out there. You can start with BandHelper, OnSong, GigHelper and Camelot Pro. There's loads more. And that's just the Apps. 

 

All of these assume that:

1. You are an Apple afficianado and already own loads of Apple kit;
2. You have a background in software development and programming;
3. You have spent the last 20 years using Midi for everything except wiping your arse;
4. Everyone in your band is keen to fall in line with your solutions and let you control the set lists etc.

I have spent literally hours just this past weekend scanning websites, watching YouTubes, downloading manuals (srsly), asking my friends over at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1096679527422725 and I haven't found anything designed for the ... ahem ... elder musician with no interest in falling down this particular rabbit hole.

 

Essentially, "entry level" = a degree in computer programming.

 

In fairness, he's got #2 covered. Helped design the microdrives in set top boxes, too.

[PaulWarning]

I know a band that's been going for years and the singer/guitarist always used a music stand with a light on it, and because it's there he looks at it all the time, when I started doing open mics I used one but then discovered if it's there I'll look at it so I learnt the words.

Unless it's a dep I take a very dim view of a singer that can't be bothered to learn the lyrics, it just makes them look amateurish 

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

I was in a covers band , and we replaced the vocalist at the time . He was a good fit for us , no problem .

We noticed in rehearsals that he had his lever arch file which we thought it was just for rehearsals . That was not the case ..

 

He used it at gigs leaving it on the floor , turning over the pages in a break from vocal duties between songs . He had a cheeky chappy persona so to speak , and kept the crowd  entertained . He was in another covers  band at the time as well . 
 

To me if we are all rehearsing our stuff and doing the homework as well in preparation for next rehearsals and gigs , there is no excuse for him to have his lyrics on stage at the dog'n'duck etc , 

 

The last singer saw him with us a couple of times, and was baffled / appalled at what he saw . 
 

On the plus side , me and mr. Drums seemed to get the best feedback and compliments from the punters . 
 

I checked out the vocalists band a couple of years ago , and yes they're still going. One or 2 different band members .He still uses the lever arch file 🤦‍♂️So yes, you've gotta make a stand ..

Edited Monday at 17:25 by RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE

[Japhet]

Don't see a problem with it to be honest. I'd rather get it right than try to look cool and nonchalant and make a pig's ear of it. I have a few bits of paper knocking about when I do dep gigs for that very reason. People may well question that but I can't retain a couple of hundred songs in my head perfectly. If that's unprofessional it's probably because I'm not a professional.

[Norris]

It becomes a crutch, a dependency, a chain around the neck of spontaneity. Cast it out I say!

[Dad3353]

12 minutes ago, Norris said:

It becomes a crutch, a dependency, a chain around the neck of spontaneity. Cast it out I say!

 

I presume that you don't use a pedal-board, so not dependant, nor chained to a spot, ruining your spontaneity..? 

 

...

 

  

[Norris]

7 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

I presume that you don't use a pedal-board, so not dependant, nor chained to a spot, ruining your spontaneity..? 

I'm struggling to see the relevance tbh.

 

People who rely on the words being there will always rely on the words being there. It always looks crap imho