What's your way of talking to people about how they play?

[matt.guitarteacher]

I play at a casual coffee house type gig with a sax player who more often that I’d like comes in with the melody at the wrong time in the wrong place,like a beat or two even a bar or two, after his solo and so far the band has been rescuing him without him knowing it.
Most everyone is reading charts, I’m the only one playing entirely from memory and yes I make mistakes, and while I may only very occasionally screw up during my solo like stop playing after the first half of a tune like Weaver of Dreams or some tune where the second half is a lot like the first,this doesn’t necessarily make the band look bad, just me.
I think at rehearsal I should be able to ask any of them them to please toss me a bone and say something like, “second half”, or “keep going”. But when you have your nose in a chart sometimes you often can’t be bothered with your bandmate’s problem I suppose and that’s also unfortunate.
Rhythm sections can be ruthless or ungiving and other players can be oblivious.
In the case of the sax player should the rhythm section stick to their guns, stay on form, until the sax player
( and melody player)realizes he’s off, or should we continue to cover for him (at the expense sounding wrong) by lerching ahead to catch up with him?
I don’t know if mentioning this to him off the stand will just offend or help him better look at the problem either.
I would like to know what the consensus is on proper dealing with these issues .....ask for a little support if I falter?
And, cover for the out of place sax or keep going on in the right place ( knowing we all sound not so good either way).
Maybe the answer is don’t play in public with this act but this is small town stuff not the Grammys.
Should we just suck it up for morale or, say hey, can you like, play better? Jusy kidding ....... maybe.
Whatever helps us improve really is the goal here.

Yeah. Listen to cosmic.

You aren't presenting an either/or proposition by the way. Not the way I'd look at it. Cover for him in the moment (and don't tell him) or DON'T cover for him. How about we cover for each other as a rule when we can but also communicate about where we weren't together.

Again, very specific to the situation. Are you playing together again? Is it a regular ensemble which practices together outside of the gig? If it's mostly amateurs, which it sounds like it may be, some of these things are the type of thing you would practice in rehearsal.

Every member needs to learn to count on their own, but at the same time, each member of the ensemble needs to learn to play larger forms or sections so that they sound like sections , or you can feel four or eight bars. If dude played this with professional musicians , he would probably find himself miraculously better at those turnarounds , because it would be implied explicitly by them.

Reverse engineering these types of things from recordings etc. is among the most valuable learning to be had in music. There are implications for each member of the rhythm section. Most of the above posts assume that you're playing with pros and are a pro yourself I guess. But there are a lot of gigs at lower levels, I would think, and combinations in between.

Conversation is important. Again, I think you make it impersonal and about "the music", as opposed to the person. "The music" is something we're all working on together.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding the situation.

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[tcaster]

You haven’t misunderstood the situation as I can tell but as previously stated, musicians are a touchy bunch when it comes to criticism and previous attempts to discuss the off timing thing have been brushed over with I’ll work on it or something to that effect.It seems to be getting worse.
Were not pros just old hah!
Some of us have been playing a longer time and we have our moments.I wish people would stop pretending to be
pros with the attitude and all yet they bring a real book to the gig that they’ve been playing on the same tunes for months, no years. and still think it’s okay to read everything.I believe if the tunes ( standards,bossas ,jazz type gig)were memorized listening would improve and being helpful would be natural.
I don’t mean to grouse here but it is disrespectful to the music and the other players when little effort is made to know the material and really own it.
Yes it is about the music and I’ll try to remember that tack thanks.
I do sometimes envy you guys that say they’ll just call someone else or slip into another group if there is any problem.
Doesn’t work like that in Hooterville,but you do get your picture in the paper for sneezing!

[matt.guitarteacher]

You haven’t misunderstood the situation as I can tell but as previously stated, musicians are a touchy bunch when it comes to criticism and previous attempts to discuss the off timing thing have been brushed over with I’ll work on it or something to that effect.It seems to be getting worse.
Were not pros just old hah!
Some of us have been playing a longer time and we have our moments.I wish people would stop pretending to be
pros with the attitude and all yet they bring a real book to the gig that they’ve been playing on the same tunes for months, no years. and still think it’s okay to read everything.I believe if the tunes ( standards,bossas ,jazz type gig)were memorized listening would improve and being helpful would be natural.
I don’t mean to grouse here but it is disrespectful to the music and the other players when little effort is made to know the material and really own it.
Yes it is about the music and I’ll try to remember that tack thanks.
I do sometimes envy you guys that say they’ll just call someone else or slip into another group if there is any problem.
Doesn’t work like that in Hooterville,but you do get your picture in the paper for sneezing!

Do you guys rehearse occasionally?

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[pauln]

I'm generally kind of shocked at how meek and reserved the majority of posts are about this... so polite to the point of letting the music suffer?

I played in the school band for eight years and our conductors actively corrected anyone and everyone, every day, relentlessly, until the music was forged into concert ready state. The result was never hurt feelings or dissolution; it was the development of a universal total confidence that we all knew the music and were performing it to a high standard.

I have always been rather fearless about fixing the music during rehearsals. It works because of the results. If I heard muddiness and ask the bass player to play his accents on their preceding "and", and suddenly the bass and drums are working together, or ask him to change from jumping through the circle of fifths to chromatic walking during someone's solo... we all just grin with the excitement of making another step toward sounding better. Same kind of thing has happened when I've asked a keyboard player to shift his hands close together during a sax or guitar solo, or a drummer to move his right hand off the snare to the ride cymbal for the same reason. I don't think I've ever been at a rehearsal where I didn't do this numerous times. I've logged 10K hours of stage performance, so I've been to a lot of rehearsals. The reason this works is because the results lead to musicians' confidence in the performance of the music, the best possible thing of all for any musician.

On stage, it's much more subtle. It all comes from the knowing glance which is below the threshold of audience detection but discernible by another on stage. The positive knowing glance is the one that says, "Nice" or "Nicely done". It is the most immediate and direct way of letting someone know, "I heard that, very nice what you did there".

The negative knowing glance is not a rebuke; it is a signal that assistance is available. If the bass gets lost, the negative knowing glance says, "I'm downshifting from rootless chords to rooted chords - listen and watch my hands, I'm showing you the way". The important thing is that the negative knowing glance without assistance is worthless; it just raises confusion and fear, and loss of confidence. Helping others out on stage is one of the most musical things you can do, if you can do it right - so that in that moment the one in distress becomes a better musician with new knowledge, new experience, and renewed confidence.

[tcaster]

We rehearse every Monday night and I’m optimistic that things will move forward but it seems that often we start back at ground zero .
I don’t mean to be so grim but I do think a rehearsal is the place to improve and fine tune what you already have worked on individually.
Others in our group seem to think it’s the place to learn the tunes by playing them only at rehearsal and they never even try to get off the book.
I am trying to figure out how to tactfully remedy this part time player sounding ensemble.If I come off too demanding they seem to push back with furious indolence.
I hope this stuff is not too far off topic.

[tcaster]

I'm generally kind of shocked at how meek and reserved the majority of posts are about this... so polite to the point of letting the music suffer?

I played in the school band for eight years and our conductors actively corrected anyone and everyone, every day, relentlessly, until the music was forged into concert ready state. The result was never hurt feelings or dissolution; it was the development of a universal total confidence that we all knew the music and were performing it to a high standard.

I have always been rather fearless about fixing the music during rehearsals. It works because of the results. If I heard muddiness and ask the bass player to play his accents on their preceding "and", and suddenly the bass and drums are working together, or ask him to change from jumping through the circle of fifths to chromatic walking during someone's solo... we all just grin with the excitement of making another step toward sounding better. Same kind of thing has happened when I've asked a keyboard player to shift his hands close together during a sax or guitar solo, or a drummer to move his right hand off the snare to the ride cymbal for the same reason. I don't think I've ever been at a rehearsal where I didn't do this numerous times. I've logged 10K hours of stage performance, so I've been to a lot of rehearsals. The reason this works is because the results lead to musicians' confidence in the performance of the music, the best possible thing of all for any musician.

On stage, it's much more subtle. It all comes from the knowing glance which is below the threshold of audience detection but discernible by another on stage. The positive knowing glance is the one that says, "Nice" or "Nicely done". It is the most immediate and direct way of letting someone know, "I heard that, very nice what you did there".

The negative knowing glance is not a rebuke; it is a signal that assistance is available. If the bass gets lost, the negative knowing glance says, "I'm downshifting from rootless chords to rooted chords - listen and watch my hands, I'm showing you the way". The important thing is that the negative knowing glance without assistance is worthless; it just raises confusion and fear, and loss of confidence. Helping others out on stage is one of the most musical things you can do, if you can do it right - so that in that moment the one in distress becomes a better musician with new knowledge, new experience, and renewed confidence.

Good stuff btw!

[rpjazzguitar]

I play in a rehearsal band and I run one.

This may be a little off topic, but maybe the topic has been drifting towards this.

I don't call it a rehearsal band and I volunteer that it isn't a jam.

I use the term "workshop". I tell players that the idea is to try to play some difficult music and support each other as we try to nail the tunes.

I have a home stereo that can be plugged into a headphone jack on a phone, so that we can listen to recordings.

I have charts for everybody. I use concert lead sheets of arrangements, some of which are complex. I have Eb and Bb charts for some of the tunes, but, usually, the reed players transpose on the fly or play flute.

Usually, we don't need to talk beyond somebody pointing out that some part of the tune is rough. We find a section that works as a loop and then we loop it until there's a consensus that it's right. Usually, what's needed is enough repetitions that everyone can find his part. Sometimes we have to talk about it again.

Sometimes somebody will step forward with an idea about how to improve things. What I notice is that some people can only do this irritably whereas other people seem to be able to do it in an emotionally neutral (or better) way. You can imagine which works better.

I have only once felt that I needed to talk to somebody on the side and ask him to tone it down. The vast majority of players are completely supportive of each other and happy to help when they can.

Most of the people who play in this group are pro players. Each one is trying to work on something. So, for example, we have a top pro percussionist, but he plays drumset with us, because he's working on drumset technique. Some come to master the tunes (164 charts in my book). Some come to master the grooves. Some may just want the reading practice.

What has evolved is an atmosphere where, for the most part, people appreciate feedback because it doesn't feel demeaning. But, that said, I still think that people are very cautious about what they say. Perhaps musicians are a particularly sensitive group on the subject of their music.

[pauln]

I play in a rehearsal band and I run one...

I like everything you wrote about and it sounds like an earnest group. I'm not sure I really know what a rehearsal band is, though... a "workshop" to me is like a group that meets to learn and play songs, develop their technique and skills, but does not perform as such... like that?

Maybe performing bands would benefit from a more "workshop" approach and attitude to rehearsing.

[tcaster]

I do like the idea of a workshop based rehearsal whether it be reading complex arrangements, playing new instruments, or learning tunes as long as the intent is clear and people really walk the walk.It’s all useful and yes it takes a certain type to follow the path of greater resistance.
Im not saying your group doesn’t, I’m referring my dissapointment with my group even if they can sound professional in many ways. It’s about getting to the next level sooner.
I try to keep emphasizing that we are there to learn the tunes we’ve chosen inside and out as it’s wasting precious time not to be growing.
When we play out about once a month we aim to just have fun and we find out what’s working and what isn’t.
We’re just not all as scrutinizing as I’d like. Fun is relative.
Small town recreational adult players ( whether or not due to time restrictions) often have issues when it comes to learning new things and or admitting to ourselves where we are at.
A large talent pool is a healthy thing. Even though I generally detest competitive behavior I understand why it
happens and sure it is best when it’s not demeaning but still honest and focused on bettering musical performance, not just one up manship.I guess that’s obvious.

[rpjazzguitar]

I don't know if there is an exact definition of "rehearsal band". I use it to describe a band that rehearses as if they were going to gig the material, but does not.

I played in an octet as a rehearsal band for a couple of years and then the band started gigging regularly. The main regular gig ended when the venue closed and now we're mostly a rehearsal band again, with an occasional gig. Just as much enthusiasm, and that band has some working pros.

I've gigged with the people in the workshop I organize, but we've never gigged the stuff we rehearse with that book. I have no interest in drumming up gigs for that group. That's a story for another thread.

[mrcee]

I've had people read me the riot act on a few occasions. And I've done the same. Toughen up peeps. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's one reason we've got all of this Boy Scout Jazz these days. People are walking around on egg shells.

[rpjazzguitar]

I've had people read me the riot act on a few occasions. And I've done the same. Toughen up peeps. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's one reason we've got all of this Boy Scout Jazz these days. People are walking around on egg shells.

This is generally right. My experience is that when a good musician says something that you find painful, there's usually something in it that you need to pay attention to. In fact, in general, the better you can manage blows to your self-esteem, the faster you can progress.

[mrcee]

You want to be tactful of course. But some people make that impossible. And it's best to avoid potential situations where this even comes up.

[henryrobinett]

I’ve had people read me the riot act too. That’s why I tend to not do it. In my case i didn’t learn much from that. Most guys want to play with me. Not everyone. Lol. But sometimes an unintended glance or eye movement can be interpreted as an invalidation. I try to be careful. I’m not here to school unless they’re students in one way or another. By the time we’re on stage all that’s over. It’s time to play. I’ve found diminishing returns. If someone feels like a failure he can sink into an abyss. I’d rather not have that happen. Afterwards I might give him a call to talk if necessary. Rarely do i do that. I try to hire folks who are better than me so I don’t have to do that.


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