In over your head ?

aydee

Platinum Member
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I'd like to hear your stories, if you have any, of playing or sitting in on gigs/musical situations in which you were out of your depth, in over your head or felt that the other musicians were in some other league and what you were playing wasn't doing justice to the music being created on stage.

How did you handle that? cope with it? prepare for it? deal with it while it was happening?

Thanks.

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I went to Boston for work. One week I stopped by a jazz club and to sit in on their weekend jam sessions. This guitar player sitting in, who wasn't even that good, called the most obscure song in the Real Book. I had no idea what to expect, and of course everybody else was so pro they just sight read it perfectly. This song was really fast and I literally got drug behind the bus on that song.

How did i deal with it..

hung on for dear life. Then went home and woodshed for two hours.
 
hey!

i had to do a drum battle with a "human computer", and i knew i was going to be properly sliced & diced...so i took the gadd approach of laying low and doing what i could...trying to win favor with the audience. it couldn't completely save me of course, but it kept me from any sort of spontaneous combustion or sliding thru the floor. well, ok, i also set up one of the crash cymbal stand's tripods really tiny and accidentally knocked it over during my last round. i shiver about it as i think of it now...
 
I have a few doozies ... not being called to play gigs with legends (like some) but tough for me :)

The Audition: I used to see this prog band regularly. The keys player used to live a couple of doors down from me and we'd been friends for years. He'd been trained since he was very young and a fantastic musician. I was shocked when he invited me to go to an audition because I knew they were much better players than me.

So I played it and I knew most of the songs from being a fan so that was cool, although I knew where the weak link was in each tune, just not as precise. The bassist was an eye opener - another classically trained guy - and he had the most fabulous sense of time that I never appreciated when in the audience. I felt like I was riding this big fat wave of silk - best bassist I've played with by a country mile.

They said thanks and that they'd had fun (and probably strangled my keys playing friend afterwards :)


The jam: Another time was more iffy. I'd been playing fill-ins for this multi-instrumentalist guy (mostly guitar) who was developing a stable of musos to work with. There was a bassist with that Jaco influence every fusion bassist had at the time. My friend was keen to impress him and bring him into the fold. We had this trio jam, running through various fusion standards (I was a much better player then than I am now) and it was going okay.

We had a break and I decided to have a doobie. The others passed it up. So we come back to play Cobham's Red Baron, and I knew it well from playing along with the record heaps. All's going fine until the second unison riff after which I decided to ape BC's hero fill. Stuffed it up and it took a moment to get back together again.

Well! ... at the end of the jam after the bassist had gone home the guitarist tore strips off me. He shouted, "I can't believe that you dropped that beat!" grumble yadda yadda. I did a suitably guilty blah blah ... "Ahh ... well ... oops ... sorry, it's a hard fill" (shoulda burst into tears in hindsight :) ... he never called me again. Bastard lol


The fill-in: The bassist from my first band called and asked if I could come and fill in. We'd been out of touch for years. He was playing guitar now and in serious company - a number of his mates played with a couple of major (ie. gold records on the wall) groups.

This time it was 80s rock and they were workshopping this one song. The bassist had a sound like - you guessed it - Jaco :) I'm miles out of my league again. So ... traumatised after my previous experience I made the decision to play it dead straight - no jiggery pokery.

So I patiently lay down the pavement, rendition after rendition. The bassist is doing all sorts of flash stuff and, instead of trying to stay with him (big temptation) I just stayed boring and solid. Meanwhile the main songwriters had screaming matches about whether the B flat minor was wimpy or whatever *rolls eyes*.

At the end of the session the bassist told me how much he liked the way I played and that we ought to get together and play again sometime. I saw this as akin to being told you're a great conversationalist by someone who's talked my ears off for an hour while I smiled and nodded.

I said "Uh yeah" and escaped. I MUCH prefer playing with peers - it's less traumatic :)

// end trip down memory lane //
 
I went to Boston for work. One week I stopped by a jazz club and to sit in on their weekend jam sessions. This guitar player sitting in, who wasn't even that good, called the most obscure song in the Real Book. I had no idea what to expect, and of course everybody else was so pro they just sight read it perfectly. This song was really fast and I literally got drug behind the bus on that song.

How did i deal with it..

hung on for dear life. Then went home and woodshed for two hours.

I know the feeling, being surrounded by good sight readers? Naked! : )
 
hey!

i had to do a drum battle with a "human computer", and i knew i was going to be properly sliced & diced...so i took the gadd approach of laying low and doing what i could...trying to win favor with the audience. it couldn't completely save me of course, but it kept me from any sort of spontaneous combustion or sliding thru the floor. well, ok, i also set up one of the crash cymbal stand's tripods really tiny and accidentally knocked it over during my last round. i shiver about it as i think of it now...

ooh, drum battles - Always a frightening prospect, regardless of the players. I dont think I've ever been in one. Anpther human computer I know, also keeps telling me. " Hey, lets lock bass drums and play together someday"... and I keep going " yea, yea, sure, we'll do that.. some day"..

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I have a few doozies ... trip down memory lane //

Great stories, Pol, and you're a great storyteller.

Bassists with good time are to die for. Charlie Hayden's time for instance, it frighteningly good. You can feel his time more powerfully than the drummers he plays with, at least in the gigs I've seen him play.

Yours is pretty darn good too.

Did you feel that you underplayed? Because there is such a thing, in some kinds of music. To keep a nice groove going which is not responding to the nuances and the dynamic changes in the music can keep things dull and lifeless sometimes.

Red Baron is a tune I've played many times over with many bands over the years and we did it differently every time. The fills at the end of the head were the tricky part of this tune for me, and for someone who hates solos, it was always fun to play over the 7/4 vamp at the end.

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I've actually not been in a situation like that, come to think of it...strange! I must just pick my friends and gigs wisely...!


EDIT: Unless they're all like that really, and I'm so used to it I don't notice...
 
A couple off the top of my head, nothing too exciting.

I think the worst was a solo (vocal) for choir when I was around 12, it was a youth thing comprised of choirs from about a dozen schools.

Long story short, twelve year old standing in front of a thousand people with three hundred peers behind you in Festival Hall in Adelaide.

I never want to hear the People Get Ready cover by Human Nature ever again.
 
+1 on that for sure! You have a knack for it, Polly. Very entertaining.

I second (or is it third) this.

I love reading Polly's stories on these forums, one of the best things about them.
 
I don't have any fill ins or auditions or anything, but the second gig I ever played was in front of over 1000 people! Pretty scary!

Stage fright can freeze you up. I remember the feeling my first few times. The muscles get really tight and fatigued and its difficult to breathe, lol.

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I've found that the best thing to combat stage-fright is to not think about the drumming or the audience, just think about the music and listen to the other musicians. Then I forget all about the anxiety.
 
A couple off the top of my head, nothing too exciting.

I think the worst was a solo (vocal) for choir when I was around 12, it was a youth thing comprised of choirs from about a dozen schools.

Long story short, twelve year old standing in front of a thousand people with three hundred peers behind you in Festival Hall in Adelaide.

I never want to hear the People Get Ready cover by Human Nature ever again.

Yet another 'naked' moment etched in memory, forever!! : )
 
Thaardy, I can believe that. : )Do you feel you need to be in more challenging situations? Coping is no fun.

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Well, yes and no. On the one hand, I'd like some more challenging music aka difficult Dave Weckl type of tunes, but on the other hand, I need to challenge myself to play simpler and more groovy. I can't make any money on Dave Weckl tunes, but I can with pop/rock bands with 4/4. It's a part of becoming a musician I think, but I sometimes feel that I'm better at the mindbending stuff than the rock/pop/ballad types of music.
 
Always been in over my head. Any time I thought I was doing something great, or on the path to being great - I would hear a new music - a new drummer - and realize I was nothing.

I was getting regional and national recognition in the classical percussion world. Thought everything was going splendidly, with my speed and touch - and then I visited a friend in Boston (after she moved away from our little town) and her award-winning marching group played crazy speeds with crazy accuracy, in unison. I was 13.

Started getting heavily into jazz in my early teens. My mom bought me all kinds of Gene Krupa, and Louie Bellson, and Buddy Rich - and I would play along. I wouldn't try and mimic their solos - I'd do my own...lesser version - but the playing-with-the-band stuff - I could do. I started getting into Max Roach - even won a scholarship playing a tribute to him - using his "Blues For Big Sid", his solo in "St Thomas", and "The Drum Also Waltzes" in a piece I wrote/rewrote/edited- with solos interspersed throughout - all in the language of Max. I'd met him when I was 10, and I loved his playing - but it was with his percussion group M'Boom, so it took a while for me to get around to his "jazz" playing for some reason... - I thought I was really getting this jazz thing down... I'd heard about a few other drummers - but shut them out - just as I had latched onto Sonny Rollins as a young buck, and thought "He destroyed Coltrane" on that Sonny/Coltrane album ('56 I believe - with Sonny at the height of his powers) so why would I bother with Coltrane?

Fast forward to 16 years old. I'm at Berklee's summer music program. I audition. I get put in the top class with 4 others. The only one I can remember name-wise is Kendrick Scott. He was 18 at the time, from Texas (I think Austin...?) and he was going to be enrolling in the fall. I remember thinking on the first or second day: "He's pretty good. I wonder why it's taking him so long to get this exercise...?" We would hang in the dorms - I remember watching some hip-hop act on Letterman in the lounge with him - having never really thought anything about hip-hop at the time - especially the drumming (that I'd heard on the albums) and the drummer pulls out the craziest fill I'd ever heard and Kendrick howls "WHOOOOOOO!!!!" and I think "Okay, I know *nothing* about *ANYTHING*!" because *that* was amazing - and I need to rethink what I think is "good" and "bad".

Kendrick and I hit the practice room. And he asks me how I got this exercise so quickly. I'm thinking "this guy is better than me. Why is this so hard for him?" I show him several times - slowing it down for him. I didn't know it at the time - but I was simply playing what I was shown. I didn't *OWN* it...

Well, that exercise he was getting horribly wrong in class a few days ago? Now he's got it *so* much under wraps that he's incorporating its language into his playing - and riffing on it like it was breathing. I was immediately jealous. The other drummers - one from Italy (about 50-60 yrs old), one from Matt Wilson's hometown - who had studied with Matt), one already studying at Berklee (who introduced me to Clarence Penn's "Penn's Landing" - still one of my top top TOP "straight-ahead" jazz albums - ALL OF US were like "holy crap - who is this guy? He's ridiculous!!!"

Kendrick and I would practice together and I would think "okay - I can hang with him" - because I was suddenly introduced to ELVIN JONES (with Coltrane) and Clarence Penn, and Tony Williams - and all these guys - and stupid me thinks I can assimilate all these guys in a few weeks. Kendrick was just being nice...At the end recital - he and the Spanish guy were chosen to perform for the concert - he was playing stuff I had no idea he could do - with such authority - he sounded like someone I wanted to buy a CD of. The teacher - Robert Kaufman - looked so proud of his new protige. I was immediately glad that I hadn't been chosen (after being pissed about it for a few days!). Those guys played beautifully and it was my pleasure to hear them up close (the Italian was a badass too!)

If you don't know him - look up Kendrick Scott. Dude is ridiculous and I had no business being in that class with him, but I'm so happy I was.


Fast forward a few years. I'm in England with my buddy Nat Catchpole - brilliant tenor player. Really really brilliant - love that man. Well he's back from the states and getting deep into the European avant-garde scene and has invited me along for the ride. I get to play with Evan Parker. I get to play with Simon H Fell. I'm studying with Eddie Prevost. Prevost says "You have to know that you belong - playing with so-and-so. You have to know that you belong in the same room - on the same stage - as anyone. If you don't, then the music will suffer." I told him I had an opportunity to play with my idol - Joe McPhee - and he said "You're every bit as great as Joe McPhee" and he meant it. That's Eddie's philosophy. That's his approach to everything - and it's very liberating. He has this great ability to get you to rise up to the occasion.

So when Nat and I recorded a trio with Fell - I was still thinking "OMG, Simon Fell is ridiculous - what am I doing here?" but somehow - listening back to the music - it sounds like I belonged. The music was actually *really* great. Some of my best playing - still don't know how or what I did at points of it. (at one point Simon is playing furiously on the bass with both hands moving faster than you've ever seen, while changing the strings' pitch with his ears and head - and it's amazing. He looks so unassuming...!)

Fast forward a few month. Joe McPhee is in my living room. We're talking about life, a few hours before our gig. It's the first time we'll have ever played together. I'm as nervous as can be. Oh, the conversation is fine - and we get along just fine - I'm just thinking about the guy I've paid a bunch of money (for me at the time) to record this show - and how bad I'm going to sound - and how obvious it is to anyone at the show or who might hear the tracks - that this legend is playing with this kid and it's awful. I don't think I've ever been such a combination of hugely ambitious and happy while depressed and terrified at the same time...! I didn't eat anything that day (ask anyone who knows me personally about my appetite - I will out-eat dudes twice my size).

At the gig, before anyone has shown up - I set up my boom box with some Otomo Yoshihide - his ONJQ (Otomo's New Jazz Quintet) - the live album, still one of my all-time favorite records. "Have you heard this guy, Joe?" "No - lemme check it out."
I go about setting up - and I see Joe just listening - eyes closed - taking everything in. He brings his soprano to his lips and in the middle of all this sonic chaos - he jumps in on the exact note one of the horns plays at the exact same time. I get goosebumps - and I think "This guy is waaaaaaaay better than me - what am I doing?!" Joe plays along for the next 5 minutes - making me wish I had some way of recording what he was doing and splice it permanently into the CD so I could listen to it every day. The man is just on another level - Eddie's little pep-talk be damned!

The whole time we were playing the show - all I could think was "be interesting - go for it - don't back down!" Every time I listen to the concert - I cringe at parts and smile at others. A dumb 21 year old kid playing with a legend - and sounding at times like he could hang and other times sounding like "okay - let's hear you again in 20 years"! Deep down, I wanted him to think "That's the sound I've been looking for! Can you replace my other regular drummers?" Right? Who needs Hamid Drake, huh?!

One of the worst parts about moving out to Los Angeles was not getting to play with Joe again on a semi-regular basis. Last time I talked to him he said "what in the HELL are you doing out there, man? Our music isn't happening over there!" (and it's not) I miss him - even if I sound like a fish out of water at times. I learn more playing with Joe than I do in two years of practicing on my own.

That's in over my head.
Sorry for the length....
 
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