Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I performed at a local hotel in a Beatles' Extravaganza a couple of weeks ago. It was anything but a sterling performance, however, I thought the evening went rather well, at least to my ears and based on feedback from the participants.

It would seem that both of these indicators are unreliable though, as I got back a CD of the evening performance today. I hardly recognized it. Flubs and glitches galore and some of the "sterling" harmonies were as green as a copper roof.

I am not sure I will be able to muster up the courage to post an mp3 here, as first I need to get over it. I am interested, however, in knowing if there are others out there who felt they put in a respectable performance only to find out otherwise from the recorder.

Perhaps I could blame an inferior recorder, I wish.

This is a good example of why live work & recording should go hand in hand. If you use both to learn from each other (if that makes sense!), then you will move forward in leaps & bounds. They are different disciplines, but to a pro artiste, if viewed objectively, they are both absolutely essential for producing the 'finished' & polished article.

I record rehearsals with my band to reveal problems that can easily be missed during the 'heat of battle'!

Thanks Tony. I appreciate the metaphor. As I reflect on the battle, there are a few scars from which I need to recover. Excellent point, without feedback we are lost. Practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

The best rehearsal is a gig! If you make a mistake at a gig, you remember it, but if you make a mistake at a rehearsal....so what! This is why I have always said that a gig is worth a hundred rehearsals. Rehearsals shouldn't be for learning the songs, you can do that at home. Rehearsals should be for honing the rythm section (making sure the kick drum & bass aren't playing different rythms!....how many times have I heard that in a local band!!), sorting out the intros & endings & working on your inter song chat!

To accomplish this succesfully though, you need to record it...it's ONLY then that you can tell if you're on the right track!

As you say Peter, perfect practise is the key & in my opinion, perfect practise is a combination of disciplines, designed to make the very most of the talent that we have.

Good points guys. I just miss gigging so much. I haven't been in a regular band in 10 years now, which is depressing to say. We got the guys together this weekend, though, for a party, and rocked pretty good, despite all that rust. I'm glad we didn't record it, though. Our guitar player is wonderful, he played my Ric 12-string on about 6 songs. I was jealous of the audience, because they got to hear it, while I was stuck behind the drum set.

Peter, I would say that, usually, the recorder loses the live feeling of the actual performance. Don't discount the feedback from people, or your own ears, because the recorder can accentuate the mistakes or off-key parts. The best way to judge your performance is to listen to how much applause there is after each song ends !!

Tony said:

... if you make a mistake at a rehearsal....so what ...

That doesn't hold for perfectionists like myself - I hear every mistake (mine or another's) and then decide whether it merits redoing the song. I think one night we redid one song six times before we got it right! Then again, we are hobbyists, not true musicians, so that may make a difference.

My favourite cd of the bands I've been in was recorded sort of live. We would record a full track like we played live, and if we didn't like it, we would start right back at the beginning. My guitar parts were just like the live versions: rhythm & lead on one track. The only thing that was overdubbed was backing vocals. It ended up capturing the band really well, whereas previous recordings sounded weak even with multiple guitars etc. We did a full album in a weekend, and had practiced the **** out of it beforehand.

Gary raises an interesting point when he says "Then again, we are hobbyists, not true musicians, so that may make a difference."

I'm sure that hobbyists are very much true musicians, but putting that aside, I suppose that the approach to rehearsals could be different between pro musicians & hobbyists. A hobbyist probably lives to play, with rehearsal being an important part of that, whilst a pro lives to play 'live'. I worked out the other day that I have performed over 3500 live performances in my time & it could be that rehearsals don't figure quite as highly in the excitement list. As a result, I admit, my mind can sometimes wander, especially in the 'bulk' of a song that you know! As a band, we are much more likely to make individual errors at rehearsal than we are at a gig, but this doesn't bother me (errors at gigs do!), as we are rehearsing for a particular reason & full focus happens on those occasions, whilst at a gig I expect full focus at ALL times.

Like I said, rehearsals are not about learning songs, but honing all the details that make your band a little more polished than the average.

It would be interesting to hear how others approach rehearsals.....

Interesting comments Gary and Tony.

As a hobbyist, I play until I get it right. My observation is that most professionals play until they can't get it wrong.

I think you have to take live gig recordings as a tool to help perfect your art, and not let your self confidence be traumatized too much by what you hear afterward.

We are more of the "hobbyist" category but do gig frequently. We record every gig and every practice. I find we have become very tight instrumentally, and then we open our mouths...

Confidence wise, this could be quite a blow, but we forge on and through all the good an bad, continue to really enjoy ourselves and even enjoy trying to perfect what we are doing.

Keep your confidence (because we are definitely our own worst critics) and above all else, have fun! Most crowds will love a band that has so much fun on stage, it rubs off. They will quickly forget any off key moments. Smile, dance, and have a gas.

...Dean

Peter said:

As a hobbyist, I play until I get it right.

Yep, I adhere to the same philosophy (although in some cases 'right' may be more like 'sounds all right', meaning that it may not be note-by-note exactly the same, but pretty darn close). I still don't do the middle-song lead break in I Don't Want To Spoil The Party because I can't quite get all of it right ... yet; it's a work in progress as far as I am concerned.

Tony, that's an impressive number of performances! Also, when I was reading your post, I thought that you were going to say, "A hobbyist probably lives to play, whilst a pro plays to live."

This is an excellent thread, folks!

"A hobbyist probably lives to play, whilst a pro plays to live."

Good one Gary. That is of course true, but although a pro has to live, it doesn't dilute the depth of feeling that he has for the music...after all, that is everything, regardless of your professional status!

I did a 10 year period of averaging 220 gigs a year....five years either side I probably average 150ish & that doesnt count my early days, so I've probably chalked up a lot more than 3500. The upside is that I never get nervous, not even in the slightest. I have played to thousands & I've played to four....& probably will do again! Being a pro musician can be a great leveller sometimes....

Yes, I think the more you play the more comfortable you become, forget the recorder and just play and have fun, that's usually when any situation I'm in sounds best. Don't worry about mistakes, they'll detract from the feeling and spontaneity which is really the most important thing in music at least to me and usually the audience. If you can play to 4 people or a thousand and make them have a good time and have a good time doing that you are a pro.
Playing, playing, and more playing live is what will make a band sound good in any situation, I haven't played full time in a few years but when I did the bands would get to the point where you knew what each other was thinking and feeling and where the band as a whole was going to go next, it's a great feeling being part of a whole that works a a unit but it takes a lot of work and gradually the work becomes fun and pride in a job done well. I can also remember live recordings that I wanted to throw in the trash.
I also agree that a recorder can lose something that you get live, the set up of the recorder itself can have a lot to do with how the recording sounds.

In 2002 I did an LD collaboration with our current second guitar(he's in Ottawa, I'm in Montreal) and another friend (drummer) doing a tour of duty in Nagano, Japan, while the bass player was in Philly. Just a simple blues jam, but we did it each using either Sonar (Cakewalk) or Cubase and an FTP server located in Ottawa. It was very rewarding. It was double the fun listening to everyone's version of the final mix (all being amateurs and hobbyists). We had four very different sounding final mixes, all quite interesting. Oh and it was great fun.

...Dean