Bass Subs as in substitute.

[Brocko777]

We've been having players sit in with us for our 5th member the last few gigs. A couple keyboards and this week a sax player.

Is it uncommon for bassist to sit in for each other.

I know Bump and Lizzy have sat in for each other.

 

Do you know each others set list? Are you improvising? Reading chord changes? Charts?

I've had people ask if I was interested in sitting in a night.

I am fairly versed in different music (style wise). But if there are certain hook lines or groove patterns for a song that 'you' are not familiar with, how does that work? Will you get clues from your comrades?

 

Just a interested party.

 

Brocko

[jeremy c]

I've got a few friends who sub for me.

 

Generally they are expected to know all the tunes without charts.

 

The material is pretty standard for the kind of bands we play in.

 

When we have different people subbing in the band on voice or any other instrument, I am always the one giving cues, yelling out chord changes, saying "bridge" "watch out, here comes the ending" etc. I don't know what happens when I'm not there.

 

In the Jewish music bands in which I play, everything has a chart. The music is fast and often goes into the next tune before you really get to turn to the right page, but if you have your wits about you (and are familiar with the style) you can hang.

[Paul K]

The big band I used to be a member of (and now sub for) of course has charts. For the blues/rockabilly/swing band I am in, I have made a book of charts which I lend to the sub bass player. Many of the tunes you can easily hack through without a book, but the book does have the keys written in and comes in real handy for the bridges. The leader is good about cuing when the bridge will occur, but since he's singing there is nobody available to shout a few choice changes. The book is getting to be pretty thick and some of the tunes are called very infrequently. I don't know if the subs actually use the book or not, as I'm not there.....

[DavidMPires]

I've been called once to replace a friend of mine for an university gig. Luckly was all covers, the set was about 30 songs which I knew like 3 or 4. They gave me two days to learn them, plus the singer sent in another one during the soundcheck. The students were so drunk thta I don't have a clue if we did good or not. I got my £££, my friend was pleased, and that was all.

 

Don't fancy sit in for rushed gigs, last minute calls don't seem to work very well to me.

[Phil W]

I was looking for a sub/dep for a cover band I play in last summer when I broke my wrist and then spent time in the States. I tried hard to find a lowdowner. In the end, the band hired a guy they found on Gumtree and he did well, luckily not quite well enough to claim the gig from me - even though he sang too! He learned the set without charts but it depends on the style of music, sometimes it's cool to have charts.

I'm depping with a singer in a rock/funk group next week. I've been given the original tunes to learn on CD. I've played with the drummer before and been recommended by him so it'll probably work out fine. Because of the nature of the music, I wouldn't bring charts.

Good news is that I've found another Lowdowner (at least one) who can dep for me in the covers band when needs be. It's good to find your own dep a it slightly reduces the chance of the dep becoming the new permanent bassist.

When I had my own fusion/instrumental funk band, I had three different drummers on call who all knew the set. They were all in so much demand that I needed three possibilities.

Maybe I should have learned drums.

[DavidMPires]

I It's good to find your own dep a it slightly reduces the chance of the dep becoming the new permanent bassist.

 

Should be a Gentlemans agreement that the sub is only that a sub, unless the band wants to fire you, then they fire you and then get a new bass player.

 

I would never get the permanent role, after sub for someone, unless the guy quits the band.

 

 

[Phil W]

Yeah but the covers band I play in would never honour gentleman's agreements! If they found a better bassist I would be out on my ear, I can live with that!

 

I was slightly taken aback that there was even a question of losing the gig to the sub but then I was away unavailable for several months so you can understand their point of view.

[DavidMPires]

That's diferent.

 

We are not talking about long term.

When I went to the army I spent 6 months out plus one or two that I was sorting things out. But then they fired the bass player co's they wweren't getting very well with him and called me offering the place.

 

What I meant by gentlemans agreement is i.e. You need to call off a gig co's you go on holidays, so the sub goes in takes that one or two gigs, and when you back everything gets back to normal.

 

 

[Brocko777]

So there is "some" prep as far as set list and tunes that will be played. The 'hiring' band should have a disk with the tunes to get a feel and special hook lines as well as any key changes?

This makes it as little more understandable than a guy walking in with just a quick hum of the opening line and 1-2-3 go!

[DavidMPires]

As far as I'm concerned, I didn't had any of that.

I got a set list. I dowloaded the songs and work my a... through them.

In the end they called another one that wasn't on the set, and I found out a minute before the tune that the opening track was played one step lower.

 

Well but I guess that depends of the quality/way of working of the band.

 

If you are sitting in make sure that before you accept it you sort it out all bits and pieces.

[Phil W]

This makes it as little more understandable than a guy walking in with just a quick hum of the opening line and 1-2-3 go!

 

I have done that though, but only for the odd tune, it's always gone fairly well . . . needs must!

 

Actually there's a bassist in LA (Lynne Davis) who is famed for her ability to sub at the last minute. She uses her great ears, experince and knowledge of theory to pretty darn well guess what the next chord is and she's sone hundreds of last minute gigs with no chart, tapes or rehearsals without many of the audience being aware.

But Lynne is special. She's also a great teacher, I got to take a lesson from her.

http://www.lynnedavis.com/

http://www.bassgirls.com/images/bass_davislynne01.jpg

[jeremy c]

I lost a gig to a sub once. I was in the band for eight years and took a week off for my first vacation with my wife in that amount of time.

 

I have never spoken to anyone in that band again. I'm still gigging, the band doesn't exist, the sub guy quit shortly after and then disappeared under very unusual circumstances.

 

What goes around, comes around.

[DavidMPires]

I lost a gig to a sub once. I was in the band for eight years and took a week off for my first vacation with my wife in that amount of time.

 

That was what I mentioned above Jeremy. If they were people worth of respect they would have behaved diferently.

 

Luckly i've never been in such situation

 

[LizzyD]

I've subbed for Bumpcity in two of his bands, one is a cover band and the other an original band. In both cases, I was given the exact list of material I was expected to know and it was my responsibility to learn it and play it the way that Brian plays it so the band wouldn't miss a beat. He was available to give me some pointers on certain things and even charted a few lines for me. Also in both cases, we had the opportunity to rehearse before the gig(s), so that was a huge help.

 

In one band I jumped in on bass at a rehearsal when the bass player didn't show (I was playing keyboards in the band and already knew the tunes). He was later fired by the band leader, but not before she asked me if I would take his place which I was glad to do.

 

In another situation I was called in to temporarily fill in for a bassist who was given a 2 month "vacation" from the band to work on some personal and playing issues. It was made clear that I was just keeping the seat warm, but during that time things changed and the other bassist was let go. I was offered the position and accepted. Naturally I felt a little weird about it because this person was also my friend, but we are cool and now I am actually giving her some bass lessons.

 

I've never been asked to "sit in" for someone unplanned, where I don't already know any of the music or have time to prepare for the gig. If I were, I would expect that someone in the band could give me a rundown of the basic forms of tunes and could cue me on intros and such. I would jot down notes so I'd know what key things were in. If you play a lot of pop music, it's not that hard to anticipate song forms, like where the choruses, verses and bridges are going to be. Of course a good drummer will usually make that clear to the listener too.

[Gruuve]

Interesting thread. The worship band I play in is actually kind of like a singer/guitarist/leader with all subs. There are three of us playing bass (including me), two other guitarists, three keyboard players, and two of us doing drums (including me). Our worship leader started off by publishing the set list on Wed night (with rehearsal being Thurs night) and sometimes didn't get any chord charts or audio posted until quite late Wed night or even Thursday afternoon. Makes a long rehearsal when you come in not even knowing the songs. For a short while, he got a bit more organized and would actually publish the set list, audio, and charts on Sunday afternoon (which was great, plenty of time to let any new or unfamiliar songs sink in), but now he's back to his old bad habits.

 

Luckily, he doesn't expect everything to be exactly like the recording (usually). If I play the bass line a little differently or the drums a little differently, he's usually fine with that (as long as it works). He has his own arrangements of a few songs, and he can be a bit of a stickler about those usually. But, I have to say that our worship band is an unusually talented group of folks (IMO), and we can usually pull off something that we don't even get wind of until Thursday night at rehearsal. (We have two days until Sunday to work on our own, but sometimes the trick is really to take good enough notes that you can recall what you did in rehearsal!)

 

There have been a few times when I've had to learn 4-5 new songs in one night prior to rehearsal, but luckily that's been quite a while. I really have to give a new song some listening time just to get it in my head and remember the structure of the song.

 

Charts with lyrics and chord symbols really help a lot. There have been a couple cases where, due to some last minute change, I've had to play just from looking at the chord chart and not even having an inkling of what the original song sounded like. I usually adopt a pretty conservative posture with those.

 

Anyway, it's all do-able...definitely not as polished as I prefer, but it's all good.

 

Dave

 

[Phil W]

I think that those one-off situations where you do get called to play a song you've never heard with no charts often come off because everyone is really going for making it work.

My first gig playing standards was actually like that. I was playing in another band that same evening and the first band's bassist didn't show. They were the old timers from the jazz scene. I didn't know any of those tunes then. Thanks goodness they played some blues. There were no charts. They gave me instructions like "This one's a ballad in C but it starts on the IV chord".

Luckily it went OK enoug for me to get a call to join a great local band on the strength of that performance.

When I get someone to dep for me I try to get them a CD of all the material, even if it's only the standard rock and roll covers.

[Paul K]

They gave me instructions like "This one's a ballad in C but it starts on the IV chord".

 

I'm most thankful when I get important information like that. Bonus points if I also get the first chord of the bridge. Instead, it seems that whenever I'm in that situation, the piano player mumbles the chord change three beats into a measure that I've already figured out. Then, because he's telling me something (useless, it turns out....) I lose a little concentration because I'm trying to figure out what he just said instead of just doing my thing... Boy, I wish they'd either shout the change two beats early, take thirty seconds during the break to scribble on a napkin, or just shut the heck up!

 

Am I asking too much?

Thanks again for dealing with my rant....

 

Peace

Paul K

 

 

[Phil W]

:grin:

 

Ain't that the truth!

 

I don't know how many times that's happened! (mumbles the chord change three beats into a measure that I've already figured out).

 

Why can't they hear that we're already there?

 

I play with one bandleader who's always mumbling incoherent instructions and I have to guess what he said - half the time it involves some kind of 'vamp in F' so I just guess.

 

Shouted instructions and obscure facial gestures are just musical trainwrecks waiting to happen.

[DavidMPires]

I absolutly hate that.

 

Someone shouting stuff GRRR

 

I am actualy quite good at seing what a guitar player is doing, unless his shreding. So sometimes I just say "place yourself on a place where I can see your neck" - and usualy we are fine apart from the times when the guitar doesn't know the tune. :grin:

[...]

It's been a while since I did a sub gig as I've been really busy with my own bands to 'whore myself out' as it were. I love doing them when I get the opportunity. The last one I was going to do I memorized 100 songs in two weeks - then the gig wound up getting cancelled. Bummer. Why did I have to memorize them and not write cheat sheets? Because the band doesn't write set lists and flipping through tons of notes in 1/2 a second while the drummer is counting the tune off is not going to happen.

 

I've subbed for Bumpcity in two of his bands, one is a cover band and the other an original band.

 

And you do a right fine job of it! Both bands expressed much satisfaction after playing their first gig with LizzyD. Not like I was even remotely surprised because I've heard her play (and played with her) and know she's a fantastic player.

[Tom Capasso]

I sat in for a rehearsal with a classic rock band that I knew. It was last minute, but I knew most of the songs.

 

I've sat in with a band that 57pbass played with. If they ever needed me, it wouldn't take much work to be ready.

 

Which means that I haven't actually subbed. I also haven't missed a gig so I can't imagine what that would be like. I'd almost like to have a LowDowner play for me with Stonefly just to see what it would be like....

 

Dave - when you mentioned your group at church, I realized that I've been doing lots of subbing over the years - just walking on when there was no bassist around. Even my current church arrangement is somewhat like yours - not exactly subbing, but not rehearsing either. I just show up, and play from memory or follow the charts. Last night, I made sure I had the chart of a song I didn't know and it was a big help. Usually, I know the songs so it's not a big deal.

 

I'm going to my nephew's first communion next week, and wish I could sit in - they don't have a bass, but ....

 

Tom

[Phil W]

When I broke my wrist (snd was just recuperating) I actually saw one of my regular band's gigs with the dep on bass - that was strange.

I got to play one song (Black Magic Woman) with a short bass solo at the end as I tested out my wrist recovery.

I was pleased that my wife, in the audience was very compliemtary about my bassplaying as compared to the other guy as (if you know my wife) she doesn't give compliments easily. She hates my solo bass stuff for instance.