Embarassing Gig Moment

[Thunderbroom]

My rock band played at a backyard party this past Saturday. It was our first gig with some new band members. About two thirds of the way through the first set, we start on a song (basic chords are F/D#/C#/G#). I don't come in until after the first verse.

 

When we started, our singer got this weird look on her face. After a few lines, she actually stopped the song and apologized. We restarted (cringe) the song. The song sounds the same as before but they continue on. When it's my time to come in, I realize that they are playing in the "wrong" key. I look over at my guitarist and see that he's using a capo, and I have no idea if he's used it in the past with this song (it's our first time gigging this song). I'm unable to adjust to what he's doing without making some awful sounds trying to figure it out.

 

After a few uncomfortable moments, I just set my bass down and went to grab a beer. I'm assuming this is highly unprofessional though I didn't make any ugly faces at all during this...kept on smiling...grabbed my beer and started into the next song.

 

So...is there some trick to me adjusting when the key is wrong. I do understand that I just need to move my bass line down a fret or two (or is it "up"...towards the body) depending on where the guitarist places his capo. I just couldn't find the handle.

 

To my guitarist's credit, he took the hit at the end of the song as he apologized to the crowd for the mistake.

[burdizzos]

Just imagine that you have a capo on your bass.

 

Move the nut with your imagination and fret all of the notes.

 

Once you get more comfortable playing, this will be like second nature.

[Thunderbroom]

 

Originally posted by burdizzos Just imagine that you have a capo on your bass. Move the nut with your imagination and fret all of the notes. Once you get more comfortable playing, this will be like second nature.

 

 

I've done this before one songs in the past. I think my problem is that I wasn't sure if he used a capo or not on this song. He had the capo on the second fret (F#). Since I didn't know where he normally had it (or better still...if), I wasn't sure how to move it. I have taken your advice of not playing open strings when learning basslines. Doing this makes a situation like this easy (normally).

[Emprov]

 

Originally posted by Thunderbroom So...is there some trick to me adjusting when the key is wrong?

 

 

Practice, just practice. On the fly transposing is a really cool skill to develop, you never know when you're gonna need it. If you're not already doing so, think of songs in terms of progressions rather than notes, it really makes it a lot easier.

[The Insomniac]

Embarassing moments - yep stopping a song is one of them. It happened to our band last gig.

 

We played Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5 and right after we started Crossfire by Stevie Ray Vaughn. The songs both start with a snare roll but at two different speeds. Our drummer had a brain fart and couldn't adjust the tempo and then picked the wrong beat. When I came in, the bass line just didn't fit. ouch

 

I guess it's like dropping a pass when you are all alone in the end zone - but you pick yourself up and move on. Maybe out of 20 years of gigging, I've had to stop a song two or three times. That's the kind of stuff that nightmares are made of.

[Thunderbroom]

I guess the only saving grace for me personally is that I didn't start the song in the wrong key twice. I should have been able to adjust better though, and that is something that I will work on.

[howeclectic]

otherwise how did things go?

[L-1329]

Maybe you should bring the mighty T-40 to your gigs. Just knowing that such a deadly weapon is within your arms reach should keep the guitarists in line.

[bnyswonger]

You could have employed the "bad cable" gambit...

[Thunderbroom]

 

Originally posted by howeclectic otherwise how did things go?

 

 

The gig went fine. Nobody gave a rat's ass about the goof up ('cept us...isn't that how it almost always is though). We rocked the party, and they didn't want us to stop!

[The Insomniac]

Originally posted by bnyswonger You could have employed the "bad cable" gambit...

 

That's what we used.

We are having a few technical difficulties. We'll be back with you when we get things straightened out.

[J.]

Whenever that happens I usually can tell. I just look at the guitarist and tell him that he's playing the song two frets up or whatnot. Some guitarists tend to do the 'wrong key' thing a lot.

[vanlatte]

Thats a pretty tough spot to be in, T-broom and even the most talented/seasoned musicians will be challenged by it, so don't feel bad.

 

When something like that happens live the only way to recover is to:

 

Know what key the (offenders?) are in. Very few people will be able to hear this from on stage but if it's a guitar sometimes you can eyeball where they are on the neck to get an idea of where to start at least.

 

Then you have to be able to transpose on the spot...another difficult task unless you are accustomed to doing it.

 

I have been there before and I know how uncomfortable it can be. My response in a situation like that is to find the root note, in a hurry, and stumble around from there! Oh, and bring myself down in the mix so the entire place is not subjected to me poking around trying to find the right key.

 

All the while trying really hard not to make the dreaded "Mistake Face"

 

[scarecrowbob]

There asre two things that you might find helpful in future situations:

 

first, it is usually a no-no to get off the stage while everyone else is still playing; just turn your volume knob down and keep "playing" till the stuff gets sorted out;

 

second, it is a good idea to know how to play guitar, even just the basics. If you can scope out what fret the guitar player is fretting his lowest string, then you can get a little visual way of picking out the root of the chord. You can do this even if you don't know what song they are playing, and if they are playing bar chords it is easy to get the whole song.

 

If you know the song, looking at the roots played by the guitar player should clue you to where you are relative to where you usually are.

[vanlatte]

Originally posted by scarecrowbob If you know the song, looking at the roots played by the guitar player should clue you to where you are relative to where you usually are.

 

Yea this is where I usually start. Drop D tuning makes this a pain in the ARSE!

 

:mad:

[Thunderbroom]

Originally posted by scarecrowbob first, it is usually a no-no to get off the stage while everyone else is still playing; just turn your volume knob down and keep "playing" till the stuff gets sorted out;

 

If it had been a stage and not two sheets of plywood laying on the ground, I probably wouldn't have grabbed a beer. I would have never done this on a "real" stage. I would have either done the "bad cable" thing or turned down the volume as you suggested.

 

I had the crowd cracking up during the last song of our second set though. Near the end of the song, the guitarist is soloing, and I can get away with riding the "E". I used this time to ride the "E", reach down and pick up my beer, and have a few chugs. The audience was all smiles and giving me the thumbs-up!

[bnyswonger]

Originally posted by scarecrowbob second, it is a good idea to know how to play guitar, even just the basics. If you can scope out what fret the guitar player is fretting his lowest string, then you can get a little visual way of picking out the root of the chord. You can do this even if you don't know what song they are playing, and if they are playing bar chords it is easy to get the whole song.

 

This works wonderfully until the guy you're playing with decides to start playing tenor guitar (4 strings tune in in 5ths, low string C ) exclusively...as happened to me on the last Graveblankets gig...

[hammer744]

T-Broom, don't sweat it too much. Embarrassing, yes, but we're not pro's, we're in this for the fun, right?

 

I've had 2 instances in the past year similar to this. At one of our gigs with the current band, Gel was the next song to be played, but our guitarist had a brain fart and started Li'l Devil instead - the drummer and I caught it, but the singer didn't - she started singing the verse to Gel over the wrong music - I had to go over and let her know what was up.

 

Second one was in church - I played guitar to add some depth over the piano and organ - a lot of the church music is in Bb or Eb, so I capo A LOT. One song I forgot to put the capo on and hit the first chord - absolute horror on my part. I just turned the volume off for the rest of that piece - didn't have time to mess with the capo at that point.

[scarecrowbob]

Originally posted by Thunderbroom If it had been a stage and not two sheets of plywood laying on the ground, I probably wouldn't have grabbed a beer. I would have never done this on a "real" stage. I would have either done the "bad cable" thing or turned down the volume as you suggested. I had the crowd cracking up during the last song of our second set though. Near the end of the song, the guitarist is soloing, and I can get away with riding the "E". I used this time to ride the "E", reach down and pick up my beer, and have a few chugs. The audience was all smiles and giving me the thumbs-up!

 

yeah beer bottle trick!

 

Of course, as stage is as real as you make it -- isn't that in the Diamond sutra somewhere? ah, here it is:

 

No, World-honored One, the Tathagata cannot be perceived by His perfectly-formed plywood stage, because the Tathagata teaches that a perfectly-formed plywood stage is not really such; it is merely called "a perfectly-formed plywood stage."

 

PS, stay away from tenor guitar players.

[sludgebass69]

The old stop and restart....we had that last gig too. The drummer (it's the drummer alot of times isn't it?) miss read the song list and missed "Sex Type Thing" and went straight to "Comfortably Numb" and starts counting in way to slow! I look at him like what the f*ck and our guitarist starts playing "Sex Type thing", needless to say they made it about 2 measures while I had a laugh.

[Moody Johnny]

I don't get the whole existence of capos. They're just useless devices and the world would be better off without them... just like, for example, Ewoks.

[vanlatte]

Originally posted by Moody Johnny I don't get the whole existence of capos. They're just useless devices and the world would be better off without them... just like, for example, Ewoks.

 

For fancy finger style guitar playing, sometimes they make sense.

 

But for the most part they are really just over used crutches by people who can't be bothered to learn anything other than open chords.

 

[james on bass]

I thought you played a bit of guitar T-Broom? Knowing some basic guitar chords can definitely help you trying to find what key the guitarist is in. With a capo, just transpose a bit. Very handy if you ever do some fill-in work.

I did a 3 nighter last year playing country with a guy whose bass player couldn't make it to town. Basically it was a hand shake, then on stage and start playing all night. He often forgot to yell the key out to me at the beginning of the songs, but was at least nice enough to face me so I could read his hands.

 

Another funny one, is my current guitarist sometimes looking at my hands to see what key I'm in if we're just jamming. He never remembers I have a b-string.

[Zamfir]

Originally posted by Moody Johnny I don't get the whole existence of capos. They're just useless devices and the world would be better off without them... just like, for example, Ewoks.

 

There are some songs you cannot play correctly on guitar without them. Especially if open strings are involved.

 

I don't doubt they're overused by people who need to learn more than four chord shapes, however. And all Ewoks should be made into rugs.

 

Anyway, assuming standard ("Spanish") tuning (no drop tunings!), fretting at and above the capo is still going to be the same scale distance it always was. You can sight on that, if you have to. Forget the guitarist's general hand shape, and pay attention to the lowest root, as scarecrowbob said.

 

But improving your ear is the best solution of all. Quickest way to to do that: tune your bass, turn on your radio, pick out almost any old song or piece of music you don't know in any style, and work on finding the correct key signature(s) as the song goes along.

 

The faster you get at this, the faster you can say the hell with looking at sloppy guitarists' fingers.

 

Later, for kicks, you can play a half-step off and then bitch at the guitarist for not being in tune.

[megadan]

Man. Yeah.

 

Last night we played a real short gig, only 4 songs, which we'd played many many times before.

The last song was a really, really simple punk song, just two chords, back and forth, straight up beat. Somehow I come out of the chorus completely off time, in the middle of the verse, and everything sounds completly off to me, it was the weirdest thing. I kept playing quietly, trying to figure out what the hell was going on... it just confused me so much... I just couldn't get back on time, I had to hit on the 2nd chorus (which I messed up the change to of course), and then get back on from there... it was so weird