Music stands

[Mickeyboro]

29 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..? 

 

...

 

  

Funnily enough I don’t use pedals and have an Xvive wireless system. So for once I can say not guilty!😈

[jezzaboy]

Our singer uses an i pad and I have no problem with it. 

 

Now clip on tuners, they get right up my nose!

[fretmeister]

44 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..? 

 

...

 

  

 

 

[chris_b]

Clip on tuners. . . [sigh] yet another thing to make me look uncool!!

[Mykesbass]

6 hours ago, Mickeyboro said:

 

Mind you, I dont like seeing people play bass with clip-on tuners still attached. Small minded, me?😁

Oh yes, the clip on tuner, bass or guitar is an awful look. Couple of grand worth of instrument, finest hardwoods, beautifully designed and inlaid headstock. Hey you know what would look great - a bit of purple plastic stuck on the end there 😡

[Mykesbass]

56 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..? 

 

...

 

  

'scuse me Mr apostrophe police officer, dependant...

[ezbass]

12 hours ago, jezzaboy said:

 

 

Now clip on tuners, they get right up my nose!

Er, I think you’re using them wrong, they’re meant to go on the headstock.  

 

Musical prompts on stands, or the floor, or a monitor, wherever, are fine, provided they don’t become the total focus of those using them. I think they should be aides de memoir, rather than a word by word (note by note) guide. 

Edited Tuesday at 07:21 by ezbass

[Mickeyboro]

Thanks for all the replies! I think I have decided to try and be cool and not make it an issue… always good to have the benefit of your opinions! 🙏

[Leonard Smalls]

We played a gig once after we'd spent a couple of hours before writing the set so our singer had crib sheets with his hastily scribbled lyrics on them. He got round the slightly duff look by wearing a schoolmaster's hat and gown so the stand became part of it!

 

[tauzero]

19 hours ago, Norris said:

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

 

Mrs Zero was 50% of a duo with the guitarist from a former band a few years ago. She hung the words off her mic stand, and insisted it wouldn't affect her eye contact with the audience. She did backing vocals on "Oh pretty woman" and actually looked at the words for the "ooh ooh" bits.

[tauzero]

19 hours ago, Mykesbass said:

Oh yes, the clip on tuner, bass or guitar is an awful look. Couple of grand worth of instrument, finest hardwoods, beautifully designed and inlaid headstock. Hey you know what would look great - a bit of purple plastic stuck on the end there 😡

 

I have the perfect solution.

 

[PaulWarning]

just remembered an incident at a festival in the summer, the female singer had a stand that was so high it hid her face from where I was standing, then it fell off the stage and the band had to stop the song while they recovered it and got all her paper back in order, most embarrassing for all concerned 😱😄

[Mykesbass]

@tauzero someone out there is inventing one right now!

[zbd1960]

On 23/09/2024 at 14:44, BigRedX said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're not playing the same pieces week in week out are you?

No, I'm not, which I agree is a valid point. Last term for example one of the works in the concert was Tchaikovsky symphony no.3, which lasts about 45 minutes. We had a handful of rehearsals, then performed it in the concert. It'll be years before it gets programmed again.  

[knirirr]

Performers reading charts on a gig is a popular complaint in the jazz community, it seems, though no-one anywhere I play seems particulary bothered by it, and iPads are common. Even the pros use them, but they are usually discreet.

I can remember heads/changes if I play them a lot, but if I don't for a few weeks I have to get the crib sheet out again. For the next gig we have lined up I can play 3/4 of the set without charts but stuff like this never seems to stick in my head.

[Rosie C]

On 23/09/2024 at 19:03, Norris said:

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

 

A revelation! With no gigs for the forseeable, and after following this topic, I've spent the last few days seeing if I can play the tunes we usually perform from memory, and so far yes I have a list of 12 and growing! So pleased I tried it - as you say it became a crutch. 

Edited 22 hours ago by Rosie C

[Phil Starr]

Don't we all bring different skills to the party? I have a good memory and an absolutely terrible grasp of musical theory. I've a fairly decent sense of rhythm and no musical ear to speak of. I'm also lazy enough to take short cuts rather than learn skills which I know would serve me better in the long run. I pretty much learn every song from tab and You Tube videos and I use my one skill to memorise everything parrot fashion. That's my version of lazy. A friend's father when I was in my teens was lead horn for the LSO, played the horn part on one of the Beatles songs and spent hours practising everything with the score in front of him. At the other extreme I've played with guitarists who don't need anything in front of them, one listen to a song and they have the chord sequence/rhythm/melody in their head and under their fingers (sadly not always the arrangement ) Are these people not musicians?

 

I dislike singers with stands between them and the audience. I wonder how they sing words with feeling and expression  if they don't know which word comes next. I'd prefer my front person to be actvely mobile and interacting with an audience and I've rarely seen classical singers, who don't generally dance their way through a recital, singing with a crib sheet. They learn the songs.

 

However I really love that so many peoiple can make music, entertain and thrill other people. We aren't all the same and if the singer has a wonderful voice but a poor memory then why not use a stand? The joy of playing music with or for other people is that the whole is frequently greater than the sum of the parts. Should we really be saying to others this is the only way to do it?

[rushbo]

The singer in my band has used a music stand for the last twenty years - it's more of a prop now and he theatrically flips over each page  at the end of every song. I'm not a huge fan, but it doesn't  get in the way and he's very good at getting his cheat sheets in the right order, so no endless searching through a massive wad of tatty papers.

 

I use an iPad, clipped to my mic stand. I rarely, if ever need to look at it, but there's something about it being there that makes me more confident about my performance. It's very discreet and I use it with a page-turn dealio on my pedal board which makes life a bit easier.

 

As for clip on tuners - I don't understand the hate. And if they're good enough for Leland...

[Crusoe]

If I was the singer in a band I think I would have a wooden lectern and use it as a prop. 😁

[Rosie C]

21 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

If I was the singer in a band I think I would have a wooden lectern and use it as a prop. 😁

 

We sort of do that - I use a stand when playing my medieval recorder music, and we made stand covers with our band logo, to make a point of having stands...

 

[Mykesbass]

1 hour ago, rushbo said:

 

 

As for clip on tuners - I don't understand the hate. And if they're good enough for Leland...

As a hater of the headstock tuner, you have highlighted my point in that Dingwall spent time and care shaping the headstock, adding a nice mother of pearl or abalone D, then reduced the weight as much as possible for this to happen! 
First of all, can Leland actually read this tuner in its current position?

Secondly, massive disrespect to the maker not trusting it to stay in tune for the duration of a gig. It was a running joke in my last band borrowing the guitarist's tuner just to find my Shuker was still in tune from the previous gig.

 

Anyway, each to their own.

[chris_b]

25 minutes ago, Mykesbass said:

. . . .  massive disrespect to the maker not trusting it to stay in tune for the duration of a gig. It was a running joke in my last band borrowing the guitarist's tuner just to find my Shuker was still in tune from the previous gig.

 

 

I check my tuning before each set on every gig and about 5 songs in to the first set. Why would I want to run the risk of playing out of tune?

 

No matter how well your bass was made, the tuning can change when played. On hot gigs your tuning will sag and on gigs that get colder, ie outside, your tuning can sharpen. That's not the manufacturer, that's climate and physics. I've noticed that if anyone else moves my bass in the gig bag, they grab the top with both hands and lift. That invariably moves the tuners.

 

I've now joined the uncool and use a clip on tuner. I can check my tuning whenever I think necessary. That's not disrespect, that's being professional.

[tauzero]

48 minutes ago, Mykesbass said:

As a hater of the headstock tuner, you have highlighted my point in that Dingwall spent time and care shaping the headstock, adding a nice mother of pearl or abalone D, then reduced the weight as much as possible for this to happen! 
First of all, can Leland actually read this tuner in its current position?

Secondly, massive disrespect to the maker not trusting it to stay in tune for the duration of a gig. It was a running joke in my last band borrowing the guitarist's tuner just to find my Shuker was still in tune from the previous gig.

 

Anything that conceals a little bit of the pointless ugly lump of wood that so many manufacturers have at the end of the neck is a Good Thing. And leaving a clip-on tuner clipped on means it doesn't get lost.

[Mykesbass]

5 minutes ago, chris_b said:

 

I check my tuning before each set on every gig and about 5 songs in to the first set. Why would I want to run the risk of playing out of tune?

 

No matter how well your bass was made, the tuning can change when played. On hot gigs your tuning will sag and on gigs that get colder, ie outside, your tuning can sharpen. That's not the manufacturer, that's climate and physics. I've noticed that if anyone else moves my bass in the gig bag, they grab the top with both hands and lift. That invariably moves the tuners.

 

I've now joined the uncool and use a clip on tuner. I can check my tuning whenever I think necessary. That's not disrespect, that's being professional.

Fully understand the gig bag scenario. I've always stuck with the Hiscox hard case. 

 

I still stick with the disrespect statement - sure there are external reasons why the tuning can change (although, honestly, it has never happened to me, previously gigging regularly under all sorts of conditions), but a floor or rack tuner is so much more discreet.