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How do you adapt/recover live


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This is an extension of this thread about screwing up a song with the demo button.

 

I would like to hear stories and wins/losses of recovery in live situations. So I'm sure we've all experienced technical issues on the fly and had to adapt. Then there's the time when somebody else bombs and the rest of the band has to pick it up. Or maybe YOU bomb and have to get back on track. We all seek to avoid a trainwreck, of course. So let's hear your stories and advice.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Best one of these I have is when our excellent lead vocalist "had a moment" and attempted to go to a chorus section of a song way, way too early, and then pulled out, realising he'd stuffed up. Then he tried again and pulled out again.

 

This had the result of completely confusing the rest of the band. If he'd committed to his mistake we would have just followed him but because he twice stopped and started again, no-one knew whether to try and go to the chorus or stay in the correct part of the song in the hope he'd remember where he was.

 

One by one, the rest of us dropped out of the song, not wanting to be the one causing complete sonic chaos.

 

It got to the point where I thought the whole song would grind to a halt amid much embarrassment and apology to the audience, however out of potential disaster a hero emerged: Our drummer took charge and just blasted out a massive fill which we all knew would lead to a particular section of the song.

 

With that, we were back on the horse and successfully got through the remainder of the tune.

 

At intermission our singer is in the dressing room looking for a sharp object to stab himself with. Our rhythm guitarist cheers him up with "don't worry, no-one knows that song anyway".

 

Outside of that story, occasionally technical rather than musical things go wrong - always best handled with good grace and a sense of self-deprecation. In the other thread you referenced Dan I mentioned I stuffed up a sample twice in a row. In that specific situation I just shook my head demonstratively and gave myself a huge facepalm so the audience could easily identify that I was the village idiot. Audience had a good chuckle and we got on with the show.

 

I always say to the boys it's not whether you make mistakes (and I make plenty) it's how you handle them. That's part of the thrill of live music.

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...out of potential disaster a hero emerged: Our drummer took charge and just blasted out a massive fill which we all knew would lead to a particular section of the song.

 

I have had similar experiences where the drummer held things together. A lot of people on here tend to bash drummers, but the good ones REALLY are the glue that holds the band together. I've had drummers reign me in when I was off, and do it tastefully....like, OK, I'll start clicking by sticks to what you're playing, but I'm going to force you back to the tempo you SHOULD be playing. Those are the best drummers.

 

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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...the good (drummers) REALLY are the glue that holds the band together.

Amen to that.

 

I'm fortunate to play with two excellent drummers - the one I referenced in that story is a master of song arrangements, dynamics and tempo. Love working with him.

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A friend of mine told me the story of how he messed up a note of a very well-known pop hookline during audition for a cover band. He shrugged and pointed at the keyboard as he continued playing, as if it was some technical issue.

 

They ended up hiring him, so he kept playing the same clam every rehearsal, every gig.

 

If course, the band eventually wised up (seeing as the key worked fine in all other songs), but the singer didnt, so every gig, the band would get ready as the moment approached, hed mess up the hook, the singer would shoot him a deadly look, and the band would crack up for the rest of the song.

 

Hes the kind of guy who can ride that wave and sell it, though.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

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We've been playing our Genesis music so long we rarely norse up, but there are "moments" in every gig where I suddenly "wake up" and think "what is the next chord/note" and immediately play the wrong one.

My solution is to stop playing the lead (thats usually the problem) until I can rejoin the band in a few bars.

Of course there are old favourites - Firth of Fifth is the equivalent of "the Scottish play" - best not to mention it until you've successfully played the intro!

My solution was once to stop and play back to that point at double speed - that surprised the heck out of everyone (including the band!)

 

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...the good (drummers) REALLY are the glue that holds the band together.

Amen to that.

 

I'm fortunate to play with two excellent drummers - the one I referenced in that story is a master of song arrangements, dynamics and tempo. Love working with him.

 

Yep drummers are key to getting it back under control no matter what happens. Charlie Watts has been doing it for 50+ years, watch almost any live vid of the Stones and see how he starts smacking "one" to get Keef and/or Ron back in the groove, or accentuates the beat to give Mick the hint if he cannot read the set list written on Charlie's perspex drum shield.

A misguided plumber attempting to entertain | MainStage 3 | Axiom 61 2nd Gen | Pianoteq | B5 | XK3c | EV ZLX 12P

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Back in the day I was in a band with a second keyboardist; I primarily handled piano and had encouraged the trumpet player to double on organ so we could be like The Band or the E Street Band. He was still in college (I had graduated recently) and didnt have keyboard gear or a car, so he used my Roland VR-760 on a janky x-stand Id had since middle school.

 

One night, during the aggressive chorus of one of our tunes, the damn thing collapsed right out from under him. Miraculously, he and the vocalist were super quick and grabbed the Roland before it clattered to the floor, and managed to get the stand back up and solid enough to make it through the gig by the time the song was finished.

 

I, on the other hand, went to the double chorus too early and almost trainwrecked the whole band. But a win is a win.

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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Bearing in mind I've only ever played in non-pro bands...certainly I've had my share of player mishaps as well as technical issues. I remember starting "Foreplay" from Boston way back when, we stupidly put it as song 1 set 1 in a cold building at a winter gig, and my hands literally froze up and I had to start again.

 

I try not to call attention to mistakes and most of the time the audience isn't going to know or care (for all they know, I'm not supposed to be playing on a given song, they don't know I had to reboot my keyboard LOL!)

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At a restaurant/pub gig, we were doing alright running song to song. There were even a few dancers on the floor. We just finished a slow one, next up was The Atari's version of Boys of Summer - a faster punk version. The drummer clicked it off fast, but then had a brain fart, and came in at half tempo! The guitarist was playing a sustained chord, so I joined in on 8ths at the slow tempo. The singer had a look of amazement and pending embarassment, if you can imagine that. We all looked at each other hoping the drummer would slowly ratchet up to tempo, but he froze with a basic beat at the slow tempo. Luckily, the dance floor still had 2 drunk couples slow dancing from before, so what was supposed to be a 3 minute quickie turned into a 6 minute ballad.

 

Thankfully people don't always notice when things aren't what they're supposed to be.

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you can smile a clanger off. Of course you only get to play that card once a gig.

 

:laugh:

 

A music Theory professor I had in school said that if you play a clam (he actually called it a dissonance) you need to own it, play it again, and develop a motif around it. I have actually tried this a couple of times and more or less pulled it off with an "I meant to do that" attitude.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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A music Theory professor I had in school said that if you play a clam (he actually called it a dissonance) you need to own it, play it again, and develop a motif around it. I have actually tried this a couple of times and more or less pulled it off with an "I meant to do that" attitude.

 

You just became a jazz musician

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Turn down and listen to find your place.

 

One time I forgot my keyboard power cable. I mimed to a play along for 3 hours.

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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I swore off using the transpose function about 20 years. You can guess why.

 

In my defense, I sat in with a band who, for whatever reason, played Hush in C# instead of C. I transposed, Hush went just fine, it was the next song that suffered the consequences.

 

Only recovery is to stop playing, transpose back, and act like it was an equipment malfunction.

I would like to apologize to anyone I have not yet offended. Please be patient and I will get to you shortly.
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Last week playing a good Friday service at a church we've never been to before. The sound guy shows up a half hour late so we only had thirty seconds of sound check before the service and then found out there were no working monitors. At sound check I hadn't realized that the keyboard had been turned off and back on so the Kurz was in programs instead of setups. so without any monitor I hit the two button pushes I always use and since I couldn't hear what I was playing, I played an oboe sound for sound check instead of EP. At least I discovered the issue before the first song. ~BOB
I'm practicing so that people can maybe go "wow" at an imaginary gig I'll never play. -Nadroj
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Turn down and listen to find your place.

 

One time I forgot my keyboard power cable. I mimed to a play along for 3 hours.

 

This actually is a big reason I dislike the wall wart trend. I've managed to forget my gear bag once or twice when in a big hurry, but the band has backup power/instrument/mic cables to spare. I guess the thing to do is to put them in your keyboard bag if you have a pocket, since if you forget that you are screwed anyway! (I have a nice skb case for one keyboard that doesn't have such a pocket or room for a wall wart...)

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I swore off using the transpose function about 20 years. You can guess why.

 

In my defense, I sat in with a band who, for whatever reason, played Hush in C# instead of C. I transposed, Hush went just fine, it was the next song that suffered the consequences

 

Same here. I only know it if I already know the song but the band insists on playing it in a different key. We play Baba ORiley in F# instead of F (guitarist doesnt want to use a capo like Pete), not going to screw myself up by learning it in F#. Unfortunately one night I was borrowing a board that screwed with my transposition setup (remember Im software). We didnt realize Id been playing it in the wrong key until bass came in after the intro. I switched, but trying to play the violin solo in F# was a nightmare!

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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One time I forgot my keyboard power cable. I mimed to a play along for 3 hours.
Similar situation - many years ago on live TV i blew a fuse in my amp on the first chord of a song. Smiled and mimed my way through the song - i figured no one could tell if i was playing or not listening on cheap TV speakers anyway. (TV crew had to hold the panicked roadies from running onto the stage to try to fix it.)

 

This actually is a big reason I dislike the wall wart trend. I've managed to forget my gear bag once or twice when in a big hurry, but the band has backup power/instrument/mic cables to spare.
After too many such instances, i've come to keep a bag in the back of my car with (in addition to standard cables) a spare power supply for every piece of gear that uses one. (I actually factor in the cost of a spare supply when contemplating purchase any piece of musical gear.)

 

- Jimbo

 

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When I am called upon to play blues in E, I use Transpose down and play in F :)

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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The worst: We were playing with sequences. The guitarist got off, going to a course instead of repeating a verse. We could not get him on track and finally just had to stop the song. It was a disaster.

 

The better than expected outcome: We were playing our favorite club and our second hour long set was to be broadcast live on the top FM station in Louisville, back in the 80's when people still listened to radio. My amp went out during the first set and the singers refused to allow me to put any keyboards into the monitors. I played the entire hour long set on the radio without hearing a note. At that time we were playing 4 and 5 nights a week so I really knew those songs. I pulled it off just imagining the notes in my head. We listened to a recording and the only issue was some erratic volume changes. That Chroma was really bad about that. You have not lived until you play solos without hearing your instrument. :)

This post edited for speling.

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In my old 80s band we used some sequences. Click track was in our IEM's but not out front. A couple times, for one reason or another, we would get off the sequence. I was able to stop it, skip ahead a few measures, and hit "start" on the down beat and get us back on. Most songs, if push came to shove, we could just play the rest without the sequence and it would be missing a few parts, maybe some percussion and sound effects since we played every part possible. But that was one good thing about the sequencer on the Alesis Fusion, dedicated buttons to skip forward and back by measure and it would put it at the beginning of the measure ready to start back up.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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At a festival gig with only a few audience members my cover band (I sing lead on most tunes) played "Two Princes". We had two subs (we're only a quartet) and the band went into the break a full verse/chorus too early. So I started singing (in the same melody/pitch as the song) " No no .. this is not the break now ... so keep on playing ... please play ... this is not the break now ... said keep on playing ". This was a final straw for a particular band member who decided it was his last gig with the band. In retrospect, it was not a very professional thing to do, but it seemed damn funny at the time.

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