Icing the guitarist

[Stone]

I have definitely had my share of clams in a live setting. It never feels good to faceplant when people are listening (especially during a lead). My experience also suggests that most of the audience is clueless and hardly notices even egregious mistakes. It seems to happen that I get more compliments on my playing on those days where I know I blew it.

The flip side of that is also true. A few weeks back I had a good set. Afterwards I asked my wife how it sounded and she said that it was fine. She then proceeded to tell me that there was only one song where she thought she heard electric guitar in a prominent role (wasn't even certain) and that it sounded good. There were prominent electric guitar parts in almost every song of that set.

IF not a musician or music/guitar aficionado, the audience listens but they dont hear anything

 

[la szum]

Never leave The Pit!

My wife was telling me the same thing that it probably seemed a lot worse to me than it did to the audience. It feels so shitty when you’re the one up there though!

I need to keep it in perspective too, it’s not like this was a major cultural moment viewed by millions around the globe. Probably more like 20 elderly people in a nursing home who don’t know what social media is and were just proud of me for doing my best

Thanks everyone!

Never leave The Pit!!

 

[fetishfrog]

Guitar solo feature moment?

It’s not always appropriate, but sometimes it is.

 

[maguchi]

I had a show last weekend and they threw in a guitar feature song as a solo moment for me. They put it at the start of the second half of the show after a 15 min intermission…

So I was already feeling some nerves because they threw this song at me last minute and I didn’t have enough time to work on it, and this was a new group I’ve never played with before, and they were recording this show; then I had to sit for 15 min waiting and thinking and I felt the nerves coming on.

So I’m sitting there battling nerves and then as the show starts I’m on edge waiting for my cue…….. and I don’t get it… I look over and see no drummer! The guy is gone and I’m sitting there awkwardly on stage while people go try to find him. After what felt like hours he comes running on stage and in his stress he kicks off my song WAY too fast!

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough as I start to play I look up and see the MD pull out his phone and start to record me for his social media accounts.

That was the last straw for my nerves.

I felt my muscles start to tense and my chest get fluttery and it was all over. I totally ate it right in the middle, and had to awkwardly fumble my way to the end as nerves just got worse and worse after the first mistake.

To add insult to injury, I found out later they were not only recording, they were live-streaming the whole thing…

So now there is at least one Instagram video, an audio recording, and a professional video with multiple camera angles of me during one of the low points of my musical career.

If you need me I will be hiding under my bed in shame, and if you see any viral videos this week of “Epic Guitar Fail” it’s probably me.

Sorry that happened to you man. Hopefully there'll be several good shows to follow so that memory can be forgotten. I think most of us have been in a similar situation at one time or another. I've talked to some consummate pros and they tell me about a gig from hell they had. I can sympathize about that drummer going too fast thing too. Did a gig a few months ago and the one tune I was soloing on was supposed to be at around 140 bpm. The drummer starts it off way too fast and I am supposed to solo over that! I tried to keep up, but my solo din't come off well at all. I took out my little pocket metronome after the song just to check out how fast the tempo was and it was frickin 180 bpm! Freakin' drummers, mostly I appreciate them, but sometimes they make life hard for the rest of us.

 

[metropolis_4]

Never leave The Pit!


Never leave The Pit!!

Lesson learned

 

[metropolis_4]

I have definitely had my share of clams in a live setting. It never feels good to faceplant when people are listening (especially during a lead). My experience also suggests that most of the audience is clueless and hardly notices even egregious mistakes. It seems to happen that I get more compliments on my playing on those days where I know I blew it.

The flip side of that is also true. A few weeks back I had a good set. Afterwards I asked my wife how it sounded and she said that it was fine. She then proceeded to tell me that there was only one song where she thought she heard electric guitar in a prominent role (wasn't even certain) and that it sounded good. There were prominent electric guitar parts in almost every song of that set.

This made me laugh because in theater we always joke that the harder a part is to play the more buried in the mix it will be. So the things you have to work the hardest on playing are the things nobody hears