The "Suck Test"

[The Real MC]

Coined twenty years ago by a BL when a musician asks to sit in with our R&B/funk/blues band... I overheard BL telling them they had to pass a "suck test" before they could sit in.

 

I don't remember any measure of the "suck test" other than a mutual friend who knew the musician's ability, or whether he was well known in the community. Not many did sit in.

 

What was YOUR "suck test"?

[Docbop]

Thanks to our bass player we had the Stungz test for testing gullibility of waitress working the graveyard shift when we'd come in after gigs. Basically it was the crazy story having a terrible disease called the Stungz. Whole idea was see how long before the waitress called BS on us, usually because we'd be laughing so hard. Some would get really mad cuss us out and refuse to finish serving us, some just mildly upset, and some would laugh as hard as we were. Sadly there was a couple waitresses that never caught on and we started to feel bad for them, they were being so sympathetic.

 

Try the Stungz test and you don't even need a gig just his a late night diner and some (crazy) friends.

[KuruPrionz]

Who Do You Love by Bo Diddley.

 

Three things can happen.

 

The musician gets the groove and the complex simplicity of a one chord song.

 

The musician does not get the groove (had a drummer completely fail the Bo Diddley test that Who Do You Love implies).

 

The musician gets the groove but does not get the complex simplicity and starts to fill in every nook and cranny with blatherspew.

 

Only one of these three things is good.

 

Great thread by the way!!!

[stoken6]

My suck test for drummers - all musos actually - is "Easy Like Sunday Morning". Can you find beat One after the rhythmic figure in the fourth bar of the verse?

 

It's a relatively low bar, but a useful filter for timewasters.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Spider76]

I play quieter and quieter (until in extreme cases I stop playing at all) and see if the other musicians (usual suspect, the guitarist) follow me, or just keep on shredding at full blast. If I'm feeling snarky, I tell them "did you notice I stopped playing? Are you even listening to what the other band members are doing?"

[mcgoo]

I've always felt like people who ask to sit in aren't really legit players. Really... I NEVER ask. Do you?

[Adan]

I've always felt like people who ask to sit in aren't really legit players. Really... I NEVER ask. Do you?

 

Yes, that's the real point here. Letting a musician of unknown quality sit in is usually a losing proposition. If they suck, you've damaged the gig just to make one person in the audience happy. If they're better than you, that just makes the audience more aware of your relative mediocrity. The chances of a Goldilocks fit are too small to take the risk.

 

The exception is function gigs. Letting a wedding guest perform is high reward/low risk. Even if they're terrible it's still a novelty the audience will probably enjoy, and no one will blame you for letting it happen -- people will assume you got squeezed.

[BbAltered]

This is cruel!! OP tells us there is a "suck test" for musicians, but he doesn't tell us what it is!!

 

I have a couple of "suck indicators": 1) playing louder than others; 2) makes and then break more than two scheduled meetings; 3) can't count in a song properly or reliably; 4) unwillingness to play or learn someone else's song suggestions.

[CowboyNQ]

Have never allowed anyone to sit in if we didn"t know them already but there have been a few audition-based 'suck tests' which mainly revolve around whether homework was done or not.

[Threadslayer]

"did you notice I stopped playing? Are you even listening to what the other band members are doing?"

And they respond with a blank stare and/or a shrug.

[Coker]

The great Donn Trennor once told me that he didn"t ask to sit in and refused to sit in if asked. He also wouldn"t allow others to sit in. The audience was there to hear the hired players, not random people who wanted to show off. They can go to open jams to sit in.

[TyPie]

We generally never allow sit-ins unless we know them.

 

For one memorable exception during a wedding reception, a guy walks up to me at the end of the gig and says, "I'll give you a hundred bucks to let me borrow your guitar for one song."

Now, I'm REALLY protective of all my babies, but I asked him a couple questions, made sure he wasn't completely toasted, thought about it for, maybe 5 seconds (acting really reluctant), and said, "SURE! DEAL!".

The gig was over anyway, and I was about to pack up.

 

The crowd loved it, I loved it (for the 5-minute short-term 'rental' and the guy's impressive GUTS), and the guy's girlfriend was duly impressed, as the love song he played and sang solo was dedicated to her. Win-Win-Win!

Love is a beautiful thing, no?

[Docbop]

Suck indicator #1 someone goes to sit in and say "lets play a blues". It says I don't a dam thing about the band or what you play, doesn't matter I don't know any tunes so lets just jam dude!

[Tom Williams]

Back in Richmond, we were interviewing a potential pastor who mentioned he would be happy to play drums in the worship band. I arranged a suck test while he was in town, in part because I didn't want a crappy musician to take charge of music. (I had seen too many pastors -- and their wives -- kill worship music at other churches.) So, I picked a simple 6/8 to start with. The guitarist -- a seasoned pro -- asked me why I picked that one. My justification was (1) it gives plenty of opportunities to see how the drummer fills at obvious points, and (2) if he was no good, the embarrassment could come and go quickly. He turned out to be an excellent drummer.

 

Regarding Easy, I can confirm from all-too-recent experience that that is a good suck test. Another one seems to be whether a drummer can listen to the 16th-note opening to 6/8 Lucky Man and correctly start and play the song.

 

I'll stop typing now, before I get more depressed.

[David R]

I went to a jam at Maison in New Orleans and the host drummer asked for a drummer to sit in so he could walk around and pass the tip jar. His phrasing: "Are there any drummers in here that know how to play a second line? There are only two answers â 'yes,' and 'what's that?'"

 

Some kid from Omaha got up ... I'll put it this way: I'm not a drummer and I'd be willing to bet I could play a better second line than whatever was happening there. So, even though it was a jam session, they got shy about putting up any musicians they didn't know.

 

It's apocryphal but I think Monk's "Epistrophy" was conceived explicitly to be a suck test at Minton's.

[Tom Williams]

I went to a jam at Maison in New Orleans and the host drummer asked for a drummer to sit in so he could walk around and pass the tip jar. His phrasing: "Are there any drummers in here that know how to play a second line? There are only two answers â 'yes,' and 'what's that?'"

Um, what's a second line? I've been an amateur musician (including drummer) for 45 years, and I don't know the phrase. Or I am senile and have forgotten it....

[The Real MC]

It's apocryphal but I think Monk's "Epistrophy" was conceived explicitly to be a suck test at Minton's.

 

Hammerstein/Kern's "All The Things You Are" certainly is a "suck test", especially at breakneck bebop tempo. And it's a twelve tone song, not the usual I-II-V or I-IV-V form either.

[Docbop]

I went to a jam at Maison in New Orleans and the host drummer asked for a drummer to sit in so he could walk around and pass the tip jar. His phrasing: "Are there any drummers in here that know how to play a second line? There are only two answers â 'yes,' and 'what's that?'"

Um, what's a second line? I've been an amateur musician (including drummer) for 45 years, and I don't know the phrase. Or I am senile and have forgotten it....

 

 

Surprised a drummer wouldn't know of Second Line, it's a beat from New Orleans. In the brass bands and great groups like the Meters. Some say Second Line refers to the positions of the drummers when the bands march. I've mainly heard of it referred to the beat/feel. It an addicting groove and especially when bands like the Meters and The Neville Brothers play it.

 

I got introduced to the Meters and Second Line back in the early 70's when I went to the Whiskey one night and the Meters were playing their new album Cabbage Alley. I've been hooked on Meters and Second Line every since.

 

[video:youtube]

 

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[The Real MC]

Wow... love that stuff

[allan_evett]

It's apocryphal but I think Monk's "Epistrophy" was conceived explicitly to be a suck test at Minton's.

 

Hammerstein/Kern's "All The Things You Are" certainly is a "suck test", especially at breakneck bebop tempo. And it's a twelve tone song, not the usual I-II-V or I-IV-V form either.

 

Yikes, that's one suck test that would kick my arse! That song is in my solo repertoire, and follows much of the classic ii-V-I shifts - with some tritone subs and a few other tricks. But breakneck bebop in twelve tone format? I'd need a book or I'd be booted

[El Lobo]

"The second line is a type of parade historically associated with jazz funerals; the term "second line" is often thought originally to have referred to the secondary group of participants in such a parade, behind the band and the family. "Second line" is also used to refer to the distinctive dance moves that can be glimpsed during New Orleans street parades of all sorts."

 

[analogika]

I play quieter and quieter (until in extreme cases I stop playing at all) and see if the other musicians (usual suspect, the guitarist) follow me, or just keep on shredding at full blast. If I'm feeling snarky, I tell them "did you notice I stopped playing? Are you even listening to what the other band members are doing?"

Gawd, that reminds me of the last open-stage jam session I ever participated in.

 

We had a pretty nice jam going â nothing special, but pleasant enough â when this guitar player came up, set up his amp, and started playing. Way too loud. And just never stopped. I played less and less. Eventually just stopped. Then I picked up my drink and walked off stage. I don't think he even noticed.

 

My friend, a (super attentive) guitar player who had brought me along, still tells me how much he loved that I just wordlessly walked off.

[allan_evett]

I always insist they improvise on 'Giant Steps' up a tritone and at 320 bpm.

 

 

 

If hiring a second keyboardist, I'd insist on a precise rendition of 'Rosanna' - all parts, live. Oh, but do it in Gb...

[hookie]

I play quieter and quieter (until in extreme cases I stop playing at all) and see if the other musicians (usual suspect, the guitarist) follow me, or just keep on shredding at full blast. If I'm feeling snarky, I tell them "did you notice I stopped playing? Are you even listening to what the other band members are doing?"

Gawd, that reminds me of the last open-stage jam session I ever participated in.

 

We had a pretty nice jam going â nothing special, but pleasant enough â when this guitar player came up, set up his amp, and started playing. Way too loud. And just never stopped. I played less and less. Eventually just stopped. Then I picked up my drink and walked off stage. I don't think he even noticed.

 

My friend, a (super attentive) guitar player who had brought me along, still tells me how much he loved that I just wordlessly walked off.

 

WHOA...wait...hold on...the GUITARIST was playing way too LOUD?!?!?!?

 

ð¤£ððð¤ª

 

One big reason I"m not too hip on open jams. I"m just so past that now. Love the way you handled itðð»

 

Back on topic, that Neville Bros tune was the dope!!

[mcgoo]

Letting a wedding guest perform is high reward/low risk. Even if they're terrible it's still a novelty the audience will probably enjoy, and no one will blame you for letting it happen -- people will assume you got squeezed.

 

This exact thing happened to us this past weekend. A couple's 40th wedding anniversary private party. Their son showed up during soundcheck with a 1/2 stack Marshall & Les Paul. He played 4 or 5 tunes with us. Every one of them he widdly wee-ed his way throughout the entire song, playing a zillion notes, really loudly, complete with Pete Townshend windmills & aerial splits. Even during "Wagon Wheel". The band knew he was having his dreams come true & his family & friends were loving it, so we were all good sports & let him have his way with us.

[David Emm]

Anyone who asks if you play "Free Bird" and triple it if they ask to sit in. I've only met one person who would and COULD manage an amusing dollop of Charles Ives's "America Variations" as a transition in a piece. It wasn't a band, just a fun moment for a larger event, but people sure laughed and took up the beat when we followed it with some more accessible rockin'.

 

I'm on the side of it being offensive to just stride into a band and ask for a seat. Known players only, please. It took too much work to get there. Dilettantes please use kitchen exit.

[BbAltered]

So the Soul Band is doing a wedding this weekend. The groom has asked us to back him while he sings Billy Joel's You're My Home to his new wife at the reception. He is paying, so yeah: we're doing it. He has come to two rehearsals to try it out. He is not the sort of singer I would ever wish to have sit in. He looked so nervous in practice, I'm thinking this might be one of the few times alcohol could improve a musical performance.

 

And yes, he fully intends to use Billy Joel's lyric to loudly describe his new wife as "my perfect pleasure dome" to this assemblage of his family and friends, all capturing the moment on their cell-phones and video-recorders.

[Adan]

So the Soul Band is doing a wedding this weekend. The groom has asked us to back him while he sings Billy Joel's You're My Home to his new wife at the reception. He is paying, so yeah: we're doing it. He has come to two rehearsals to try it out. He is not the sort of singer I would ever wish to have sit in. He looked so nervous in practice, I'm thinking this might be one of the few times alcohol could improve a musical performance.

 

And yes, he fully intends to use Billy Joel's lyric to loudly describe his new wife as "my perfect pleasure dome" to this assemblage of his family and friends, all capturing the moment on their cell-phones and video-recorders.

 

In all honesty, if there's anything about function gigs that make me not want to slit my wrists on the way home, it's moments like this. Cheesy, terrible, cringe-inducing moments, but at the same time there's something real going on between the guest "performer" and the audience, and you as musicians are an essential part of it. I don't do function gigs anymore, basically because my gig decisions are no longer money-driven, but most of the few good memories I have of function gigs are all like this. The other good memories usually involve flirting with the bridesmaids, but that's a different topic for a different thread . . . and probably a different forum all together. Is there a Wedding Crashers Network?

[Tom Williams]

Sending out a laurel, and hearty thank-you to those who reduced my ignorance about "Second line." I think I've actually played that beat before without knowing the term. I usually referred to it as "slow Diddley."

[BbAltered]

"Cheesy, terrible, cringe-inducing moments, but at the same time there's something real going on between the guest "performer" and the audience, and you as musicians are an essential part of it."

 

The Soul Band has a rather impressive ability to make a real hash of these kinds of requests. At the last rehearsal, the guitarist forgot he plays this number with a capo, so we did the first two verses playing in two different keys before we figured out that something was wrong. Coupled with the guest singer not really knowing where he comes in, doesn't really have a good feel for the pauses between lines of the verse, and this is the very first song we play that night, there is a strong possibility we will be pegging the meters with "cheesy, terrible, cringe-inducing" music-making. The saving grace - if there is one - will be whatever bond exists between the guest performer and his audience.