Music Stands on Stage

[LateGreats]

I see pictures of people performing and often see singers using music stands on stage. Personally, I think they make it look like you don't know the songs, and it's hard to be showy when you're reading the lyrics or your notes or whatever. However, now that I'm older and years of "abuse" have eaten away at my memory, having a reference seems like a good idea sometimes.

 

What do you think?

[GCDEF]

Every singer I've played with has had lyrics in plain view somewhere on stage. Even pros have prompters in concert. Having access to lyrics is better than standing there forgetting the words.

[caveman]

I've been keeping a "Fake Book" since the mid sixties. The words and changes to nearly every song that I've ever learned over the last fifty years are in that book. Thats well over 300 songs and every one of them are ready for a request.

[daddymack]

I dislike music stands on stage for bands.

 

Either you know your material, or you shouldn't be there.

If you need a cheat sheet for song lyrics, print them big, and put it on the floor by your mic stand.

[Scafeets]

 

Originally posted by daddymack I dislike music stands on stage for bands. Either you know your material, or you shouldn't be there. If you need a cheat sheet for song lyrics, print them big, and put it on the floor by your mic stand.

 

 

I don't sing, but I make my own set lists in big-ass type and put it next to my pedal board. One page per set. Each song indicates key (Gimme a break, I play in three bands) and has prompts like "V-V-C-GS-V-SS-V" which tells me it's verse, another verse, chorus, guitar solo, verse, sax solo, verse.

I'll also make notes like "Lick starts on D" or "Lick three times @ End"

 

I do think it's lame for singers to use a music stand.

[Tedster]

I've seen several big name performers use music stands or lyric books, among them Michael Stipe and Gloria Estefan. I remember seeing the late Robert Palmer on TV doing "Addicted to Love" like 10 years after it was a hit...and he had a big sheet taped to the floor. He laughingly explained afterwards that he had a hard time remembering lyrics...and that's why he was looking at the floor during the song.

 

I have a hard time with lyrics, but since my gigs are solo acoustic, I use a music stand, and {censored} em if they can't take a joke.

[Terry Allan Hall]

I don't use one myself (so far, my memory works well enough...knock on wood! ), but I alway carry one in my truck, along with two "fake books" of all my tunes (about 500), for when I use a "bassist du jour" (when my regular bassist, Wendy, is playing with her other band)...can't expect a pick-up musician to know my entire repertoire, and I like to do as many requests as possible!

 

Really don't see anything wrong with 'em...ever see an orchestra or swingband w/o everyone using stands?

[madjack]

In my ute I thought "Music stands in a rock band? That's really lame!"

As I've aged, I find that it takes me longer and longer to memorize new lyrics, so about 8 years ago I started putting cheat sheets in unobtrusive places to aid me with the lyrics to songs I'd recently learned.

Now I am playing in a house band situation. The bar owner is the bass player, and it is not a resort place with a high audience turnover. Consequently, I now have a music stand set up with a fake book I'm in the ongoing process of making for each song I pick up. We have somewhere around 500 songs in the current repertoire. Some of them are only played by request; some of them we only get around to playing once every month or so; many of them are songs that are new to me. The music stand has become a definite necessity. All of us use them, and while they are visible, I don't think they are very distracting.

Music stands for all three front performers are visible in this shot.

[Preacher Will]

i'd rather have a stand with music on it available if i need it rather than not have one and screw something up. Maybe Daddymack is right and i shouldn't be there but the people i play with disagree and, apparently, so do our the audiences. Folks still show up every week even with our lame old music stands.

[doubleR]

 

 

When I was in my 20's, my ski buddies and I would take an annual ski vacation in Salt Lake City. We would ski hard all day. Then, we'd go out to the local rock club and party until the club closed. THEN, we'd invite the girls we met back to our motel room and continue the party. By this time, it would be around three in the morning. We'd sleep for a couple of hours, then we'd hit the slopes again.

 

Now that I'm in my late 40's, could I do that today? Hell no!

 

Same goes with music. As you get older, you can't do the same things you did when you were a kid. Hence the need for helpers like music stands and fake books.

 

Daddymack shouldn't be so critical. I remember seeing an IMAX movie filmed at a Rolling Stones concert. There were several scenes where you could see teleprompters with the song lyrics scrolling.

[Rekel]

I think for cover bands with a huge repertoire it's almost unavoidable. Same for people playing requests from i.e. the Real (fake) book. I don't have a problem with bands using them if they need to back up a guest singer either or some musician who subs for a night.(although that should be made clear to the audience, imo). The stands/ notes should be placed discreetly and as much out of public view as possible. (preferably on the floor or i.e. on a keyboard using small notes writing in Nashville number system)

 

I really dislike seeing stands in front of rock/pop bands playing (mostly) their own original material. That's a no-no in my book. Not so much for the music stand itself but as for musicians constantly staring at the notes and not paying attention to other bandmembers and/or the audience. It also prevents them from moving around on stage and be visually entertaining. I also think that aging (close to 50 myself ) shouldn't be an excuse to use them, btw.

[THB]

Just a quick reality check here kids: cheat sheets and teleprompters are not music stands!

 

 

I get really irked on this topic, because I've seen too many people ruin their performance by looking, sometimes staring (!), at their music stand. Most often it's a crutch that detracts from what you are trying to do. Age is no excuse either. I'm in my 40s and songs I can't remember don't get played. If I have a brand new song I might have it written down somewhere, or a song with lyrics I can't quite recall every time. But I'll put it on a cheat sheet and you'll never see it from the audience.

 

Music stands are an admission of unpreparedness in my view and no one uses them on my stage.

 

[doubleR]

Originally posted by THB Just a quick reality check here kids: cheat sheets and teleprompters are not music stands! ....and songs I can't remember don't get played.

 

 

So you've never had the experience of completely blanking out on a song you've played a hundred times?

[Dave Martin]

Use 'em if you need 'em, I always say. Ive had a music stand next to me while playing in front of 10,000 festival goers; no one complained to me, at least. More often in situations like that, though, I can put charts on the drum riser (with is usually right next to me).

[zendog54]

Originally posted by THB Music stands are an admission of unpreparedness in my view and no one uses them on my stage.

 

 

I don't need one. I play by ear.

 

 

 

 

 

[THB]

Originally posted by doubleR So you've never had the experience of completely blanking out on a song you've played a hundred times?

 

It's happened to me countless times! (You don't drink like I've been known to and not expect to draw a blank a few times.) But I'd rather bluff my way through it; use it to my advantage, than exhibit a lack of professionalism by using a stand. Not long ago we were doing a song and I completely spaced out the second verse. Now, this is a song I've been doing since I was a teenager. I sang the third verse in place of the second, then told the band to "ride that D" while I explained, to musical accompaniment, that I had just done the third verse in the spot in the song where one would normally find the second verse. I continued to describe what goes on inside the mind of a singer when this happens which gave me the time I needed to remember the second verse, which I then did in place of the third verse. I used the situation to my advantage, made some people laugh and probably did a more memorable rendition of the old song to boot. You just gotta learn to land on your feet, kids.

 

[THB]

 

Originally posted by Dave Martin Ive had a music stand next to me while playing in front of 10,000 festival goers; no one complained to me, at least.

 

 

No one complained? Of course they didn't. Do you think people are going to seek you out after your set at some festival to tell you that you look like an idiot with your music stand?

 

Look, if you can sell it to yourself, buy anything you want. I own a music stand and it never leaves the house.

[srsfallriver]

If I'm doing a bar or a club gig, I don't use a music stand. I don't think it looks right and most of the tunes are three chords anyway. However, when I do a wedding a music stand is a must. We probably have over 400 songs in our repetoir advertised on our website. If someone requests a song that we haven't done in two years, we're still expected to do it.

[Lee Flier]

It really depends whether you both know the material well enough AND can have some form of cheat sheet available without it detracting from the performance. Mick Jagger uses a teleprompter on stage these days... but can you imagine him doing his show with a music stand? 'Nuff said.

 

My band knows most of our material well enough not to need any form of cheat sheet... but if we have a new song or two that we don't know super well yet, a lyric sheet or chord chart on the floor under the mic stand suffices. Our drummer has occasionally taped lyrics to his hi hat stand where they aren't visible. But we don't ever need them for long, and maybe one or two songs out of the set will be one that we need the sheet for. We rehearse enough and sing along with recordings in the car enough to know our lyrics and changes.

[MrKnobs]

Music stand = completely uncool

 

Unless you're in an orchestra, of course.

 

C'mon folks, it's pop, it's not Debussey's "Omens of Spring." It's mostly three chords and the chorus gets repeated ad infinitum. Second verse, same as the first. How freakin' tough can that be?

 

The worst is seeing an original band, 45 minute set, with the SINGER using a music stand to remember his or her own lyrics. Cripes, with a memory that bad you need to quit the weed and get a cranial CT scan.

 

Our own bassist (who admittedly is a mercenary playing in several bands) brought a music stand onstage at a gig recently. We'd been playing for a year together and that amazed me. I asked him, "What's that for? You getting Alzheimers?"

 

He replied it was for just one song, "Black Velvet," the only cover we do and one we just recently learned. I said, "Sh*t, you can't remember to pedal an E for half an hour, WTF? He told me he couldn't remember the bridge changes yet, so told him we just wouldn't play the song until he had time to memorize it, but in the meantime no music stands on stage.

 

Cripes.

 

But don't think I don't sympathize with you cover guys, though. A while back I did sound for THESE FOLKS and they have flat screen monitors mounted on the light trusses with chords and words for hundreds of songs, as well as recorded sweetening tracks too, I think. Then again, they make thousands per show and almost never say "no" to a request.

 

No music stands on stage, though.

 

Terry D.

[unichord]

If I think there is a chance I'll forget a chord progression (new songs etc) I'll put the basic chords on a 3 x 5 index card using a marker.

 

There are small attachments for mic stands that are about the size of these cards - virtually invisible on stage. About $15 at Guitar Center.

 

If you work from fake books, you have to have a stand. No way around it. I'm not smart enough to memorize the progressions for several hundred songs.

 

srsfallriver nailed it.

[Cortfan]

All of my band members work at least a 40+ hour per week day job, and we only rehearse on Thursday nights when schedules permits. We use the little clamp- on mini music stand that attaches to the mic stand. It has a spiral flip binder that has the set list in order, with the key of the song, and maybe the first key lyric words. We use a beverage holder to balance the stand, and they are barely noticeable to the crowd. Being the non vocal bass player, I keep a chart book on the wireless rack behind me. I do have a "Black Velvet" cheat sheet on my bass. Its imperative that I don't miss any notes on that song, because it would throw our female singers rhythm off. I wouldn't use a full size music stand for a gig.

[unichord]

 

Raxxess - ACMS Small Attachable Music Stand

 

A handy little device that is perfect for holding song lists, charts, notes, etc. Mounts easily to any microphone stand. Steel and aluminum construction; black baked enamel finish. Dimensions: 7.25" W x 5" H

[Cortfan]

Yep, thats it.

[sventvkg]

I always had my songbook on a stand off to the side on stage with me....Never had a problem..When you have 1000 tunes, it help to have lyrics because there can be tunes that come up that you have not played in a long time and stuff with LOTS of lyrics that if not performed often, you might start to flub.