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Boy I played like crap today at the farmers market. I had a nice intro to How High The Moon worked out and halfway through I just biffed 3 chords and got lost. I got lost in the changes to Perdido, Perdido of all things.
Time to stop learning new tunes and internalize the set we already have.
None of the licks and tricks from the Donna Lee thread came to me and I made the mistake of trying to force them out.
On the other hand, I went to my first jazz jam last July and I’m out there playing gigs now…
Sometimes the journey isn’t enjoyable.
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05-18-2024 07:01 PM
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Doh!
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Thanks for sharing your journey! Wish you all the best.
The gig set list has several tunes (e.g. Blue Bossa, ATTYA, Fly Me, etc.) that are jam session staples in places I jam at.
Given similar tunes, I wonder what’s the difference, in your experience with both, between a jam session and a gig?
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Don't tell the band leader
Internalizing/memorizing the changes and critical passages has to me made performing a much better experience giving more room to communicate with band mates and audience.
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Nor the audience or the person who contracted you Originally Posted by teeps
Don't tell the band leader
Everyone makes mistakes, it's how your recover from them that makes the difference.
As someone once said: "don't be afraid to get lost on the fretboard, because if you get lost, you get found" (meaning, you can learn something new and unexpected.)
FWIW, if you notice something like this happening to someone, try to pick up the mistake: echo it, or even weave it into an improvisation. As an exercise it's probably best left to rehearsals at first, but it ought to work as a nice de-stressor/ice-breaker in any context. (And an attentive audience usually appreciates when they see that the musicians are actually having fun together.)
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Looks like a good basic repertoire list to start learning, if that’s any help. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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If you haven't gone home angry at your own playing at least a couple hundred times you probably haven't done enough gigs yet. If you've done all that then you still have to go home angry at someone else's playing a couple hundred times. After that you just need to go home pissed at the venue for being a trash venue with no respect or crap soundmen a couple hundred times. You're on your way Allan, just keep moving forward. You already know what you need to do and it is truly enjoyable seeing you having gone from a guy hitting jams to now running and booking your own band. Frustration is part of the gig sometimes. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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When things go wrong, go back to the beginning. In a duo or trio setting, a decent bass line will usually guide you back to the changes if you listen to a bar or two. If your drummer is at all musical, there will also be rhythmic clues to support this. You may even have to lay out or hold a few universal chord tones (like the 5) that fit anywhere until you find the structure again. If you have a keyboard or other instrument comping behind you, there are even more road signs for you to follow. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Communicate with your bandmates in rehearsal. I interact frequently with my bassist and drummer during tunes through gestures, mouthing, etc. Almost all of us get lost, forget a repeat, etc from time to time. It’s hard to push everything out of your mind every time you play - stuff happens in life, and it clutters your brain. It takes intense focus to perform flawlessly. Top pros respect this need and focus is second nature to them. But they’re not plagued with worry about their playing, and confidence comes with experience.
Trying to remember “licks and tricks” in a panic is a recipe for disaster. When the going gets tough, go slow and go simple. The audience won’t have a clue that you threw a melodic change up in distress. Remember that despite his prodigious chops, Johnny Smith made a lot of beautiful music that stuck mighty close to the melody.
Some players are thrown off by something as simple as a broken string. Develop your own “disaster recovery plan” and practice it. Feeling like you know how you’ll respond to unexpected misadventure will give you more confidence and make you a better player.
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I’ll try to hit everything in one reply. Firstly I am the band leader so, no worries about him finding out.
I didn’t tell the band how I felt, just thanked them and said looking forward to the next one as I paid them.
JazzPad, the main difference between a gig and a jam for me is when I’m all done, we still have to keep playing. 3 hours is a looooong time to play.
There should be a couch to 5k, noodling in your room to 3hr gig program.
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It's been said that only 30% of what you can do in the practice room makes it to the bandstand, and I've found that to be true. There are sooo many distractions on a gig: the sound overall is different at every venue, forcing you to change the way you play and the way you adjust your gear; anyone on the bandstand may make a mistake, and it's everyone else's job to make sure that it doesn't cascade into a train wreck; just knowing there is an audience can be a distraction, and audience members themselves (loud drunks, kids, someone dropping a glass on the floor, whatever) can be distracting.
As you continue to play gigs, you will become more able to maintain focus on the gig, and continuing to work things out in the practice room will help you to internalize the skills or songs you are working on till they are so strong that nothing can disturb them.
As others have said, kudos for having accomplished a great deal already, and just keep on keepin' on :-)
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If you haven't felt like throwing your instrument in the trash and changing your life after a gig, you haven't fully paid your dues yet.
I once got yelled at by my teacher at a jam when somebody else got lost.
He yelled, "you're supposed to help him!". Good lesson.
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That’s a perfect example of what I suggested. I’ve had to play the head quietly to get a wandering soloist back on the path many many times over the years. But I think drummers have gotten lost during their solos more than any other player, and playing the head doesn’t seem to help them as much as playing a chord on the first beats of bars that shape the head. A few of the drummers I regularly play with actually prefer soloing over chords on the 1 of every bar with a change in it because they know they often drop or pick up a beat or two without a guide. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Audibly counting down the beats of the last bar of the form is almost automatic when playing with sidemen who habitually end up a beat off (or more). If everyone can see me, I’ll hold up my hand and use fingers to count off the last bar.
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I've played in situations where players don't seem to take this kind of responsibility. Sometimes it's spoken aloud, although usually not. It's kind of "you should be able to do this on your own and if you can't it's on you." Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
But, I've also been told by a world class bassist, "everybody gets lost, it's what you do to get back on".
Two more pet peeves.
Tune in 2/4 starts with a long pickup. One leader I know insists that all count-ins are properly two bars. So, the count-in is 1, 2, 1. Hard to internalize the tempo from that, and it feels abrupt. In other situations the leader says something like "6 beats and then da,da.." (sings the opening notes). That gives me plenty of time to internalize the tempo and I know exactly when the tune is going to start. Others snap their fingers for a while, you get the tempo from that and then the count-in is easier.
Some drummers solo by twisting the time into an unrecognizable knot. When nobody in the room but, maybe, the drummer knows where 1 is, the solo is over.
What these two situations have in common is not that the leader and the drummer are wrong about their views, but that they aren't being user-friendly. Would it hurt anything to make this as easy as possible for everybody?
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I’m learning a lot from this thread. Great tips from everyone, especially NeverShouldHaveSoldIt’s insight on how to keep the form. So that last bar, do you not comp?
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It depends. If I'm holding up my hand and counting the last bar with my fingers, I obviously can't be playing anything. But I can hit a chord on the 1 while counting out loud. None of this should be necessary very often with decent players. I'm often surprised at how poorly otherwise accomplished players keep time. I've been with the same tenor sax player in one band for about 20 years. He was a high school band director for many years and taught in a major university's jazz program. But he consistently comes in at the wrong time, especially when there's a pickup or the melody starts on a beat other than 1. He's come in on the 1 in My One and Only Love 90+% of the time we've played it, even though the melody starts on the 2nd eighth note of the bar. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I don't know, there's a lot of individual variance in time to internalize tempo. The place to work it out is in rehearsal; stage jams not so much or not practical (to satisfy everyone, but most can bear it). Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I do not like any of the long versions - bars of finger snaps or counts in, etc. Even for up tempo tunes I prefer the drums to just play two eighths before the first bar whether 2/4, 3/4, 5/4, 6/8... if that doesn't work because of lead in notes, those can be treated as tunes that launch with an intro, the others coming in. I can bear the long versions by waiting for the two eighths, even if they aren't sounded as such. I like the natural sound of tunes with single instrument intros; those I either bear the long count in and play the lead in notes or come in after someone else does.
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The value of learning things like "Donna Lee" or, in my case, learning the book of Jimmy Raney solos from Aebersold, is not immediately that you "use" them or extract licks. Learning a challenging piece like that elevates your musicianship. After struggling through Donna Lee, lots of things that used to seem hard to me now seem... not hard. Training my ear to hear what Jimmy Raney was doing in a solo doesn't mean I run out and do that, rather, it means I have broadened what I can hear in a certain context. It's kind of like the Overton Window of chops. IN the practice room we study things that might take a long time to show up directly in our playing. BTW we don't want someone to say "Dude I enjoyed you dropping a Donna Lee lick into Stella..." What we (at least, what I) want is someone to say "I never thought a bebop type idea would work there, but you really nailed it" or something like that. We're elevating our musicianship by working out at a higher level than what we play on. That raises the level of our playing. People who never practice anything but what they already know don't get better.
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Really thoughtful post there. Thanks a lot. It reminded me of the tag to Tomo Fujita's youtube videos. Something I forgot.
Don't worry
Don't compare
Don't expect too fast
Be kind to yourself.
Are you working the Raney book like the Donna Lee thread? A few bars at a time?
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What I've learned is that even good musicians do not always make good conductors in terms of counting the song off. I've let a couple otherwise good players make the count in and it didn't go well. It's because it's a separate skill that needs stage tested so aside from just having good meter it takes time to develop. It requires separating oneself from the heat of the moment and from the meter of the previous song and focusing on a good, solid count and really ingraining the song into your mind so that the proper meter is already inside your brain. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I generally do about 95 percent of the counts in my group since I am the bandleader, this way I can't blame any of the other musicians if the count is too fast or too slow. On a few songs that are drum heavy or songs that begin with drums I will let the drummer count it off because they will have a natural feel for that meter and know where it needs to be and this way I won't hang them out to dry on something like a rhumba.
Admittedly I have a couple songs that I only give a 1....2....but they are slower songs and everyone is already on the same page anyways.
Here is my favorite count off from a live performance by the great Tony Joe White. Obviously, the band is 100% on the same page already but it's a cool effect and kind of shows off the band. Yeah it's not jazz but who cares:
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I went to a festival in Chicago and Steve Albini's band Big Black reunited for it. They started every song with no count. For those unfamiliar the lineup was 2 guitars, bass and a drum machine. The other guitarist must've said something because a few songs in, Albini said "I'm not going to start counting you in now" and started the next song. Originally Posted by DawgBone
I always love skipping through a Ramones live album and hearing Dee Dee yell 1234 over and over as I look for Listen To My Heart.
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Tbe Ramones made counting in the song, and even counting on breaks during the song, into art. Pretty cool. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ATE!!!! Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Here’s my favorite count off Originally Posted by DawgBone
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Pretty great week last week. Played a funeral home's 100th anniversary party on Thursday, gig was 4-6 and I was home before the sun was down.
Saturday we had a slot at the local jazz fest, and 40 minutes just flies by. FB clip of us mid-song, can you guess what it is?
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This Saturday we're out as a Trio, Monday is Big Band Rehearsal, then a break for a few weeks.
What's everyone else up to?
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