You're the reason I reevaluated my whole approach to drumming. Thanks to you I went on a fruitful journey of self-examination which opened me the pathway to self-improvement. Thank you for your wisdom, Stephen.
Thanks - Some good advice there. "Don't be so hard on yourself" a friend said to me "it wasn't a big deal". He was right. Nobody in the audience would remember a screw up, so why should I
Great video/advice! It's always good to admit your mistakes and work to fix them. Like you said, you can't get so discouraged that you stop playing or stay down too long.
Dude, I needed this. Had a pretty sloppy show for a sub yesterday after a lot of prep. Felt, and still feel somewhat awful. But, there is a lot I know I can learn from it. Thank you again
Thanks dude! Great lesson! The worst screw up I've had is I ended the section thinking it was the end of the song. I think It was a combo of being exhausted and not listening (probably one of the worst things you can do as a musician) haha. I've been also trying to laugh it off even in practice/rehearsals when I screw up.
It's awesome that you would actually talk about this! Nobody talks about this, drummers will go on tirades about gear and techniques and drum intros and anything, but I can't easily recall instances of drummers admitting to failure and mistakes and just plain having a bad day, in interviews or articles or wherever. And it's weird because if you follow any one drummer's career for some amount of time you start noticing all sort of inconsistencies and mistakes and variation in their live shows. But as a listener I hardly ever find mistakes ruin my enjoyment of music. When it's live it's live and anything could happen, and that's still to me the most exciting part of watching a performance. Even more so, I'd rather have the musicians play at the edge of their ability where mistakes are more probable than just playing fearfully and conservatively. You can tell when a performance is only so much of what someone could deliver, and I think it's more aggravating than any one screw up. Some advice I got when I used to play in bands was - don't worry about the mistake in the moment, work with it and around it. In the practice room we would rehearse by avoiding stopping in the middle of a song to call out any error, but when someone screwed up we would be in this mindset where we just had to incorporate it into the song. And once the entire band looked at some mistake as a chance to improvise, we definitely started playing more confidently. Now, I know that a band of high school friends where the stakes are not all that high is a lot different than a paid gig; but I can't see how any other attitude other than to roll with it could be a better way to deal with mistakes. And if you asked any one individual in a crowd at a concert what they thought about an error in a song, they are a lot more likely to tell you that it didn't bother them as long as it didn't affect the rest of the show, or they might have not even noticed it. So, definitely in the moment take any mistake lightly, it must not affect the remaining of your performance, else the mistake truly wins! So this type of attitude and band rehearsals where mistakes had to be dealt with on the spot allowed me to go through my gigs with bands of non professionals and actually enjoy these gigs, 'cause at the level we were, playing a clean set was just not ever gonna happen. And I doubt that it's ever in the cards actually, for most musicians, but the professionals probably just get better at rolling with the punches, more creative with mistakes. Hmm, I wonder if Stephen has a list of common mistakes at gigs and how he dealt with them over the years, I think that would be a cool video! :)
Strelock That would be a great video. I'll see what I can do. I've dedicated a lot of my energies this next year to taking the lid off of what actually happens in a music career. So lots more mistakes of my own coming ;^) And yes...as we progress we still make mistakes. We just get better at covering them. So they don't sound like "mistakes". That's the key. The cover up. The recovery. Cause we're all gonna screw up.
As someone who has been performing for years, I've been beating myself up for my screwups. Thanks for this. What I have been doing though is focus on the mistake and rehearse like hell to address the problem. I never did the listing of the awesome things you recommended. This vid is a blessing.
Thanks Stephen, that is just what I needed. I played bad, all confidence has gone, I don`t want to go out. At least now I feel that I could look at it, work on it and get it right next time. Cheers
Gotta listen to those slow Celine Dion songs every now and then. Great to see this man. I'm sure I will be needing this advice soon, just starting to play paid gigs. Looking forward to new videos as always!
Michael Dallara You'll have many of them...that's a lot of learnin'! I wouldn't trade my mistakes and screw ups for anything in the world. Proud of you for steppin' up and beginning to gig out!
Lol....Yeah, screwing up a gig is a horrible feeling. Knowing I screwed up a set in a Chili "Pecker" tribute gig (I dwelled on an early mistake), I had the bassist/vox chew me out between sets, making me feel/overthink the rest of the gig. Confidence is critical for me. I've studied with some monster drummers, and they were great teachers. You seem to always get your point across to me when I need to hear something. I wish I could have made it to N. Carolina this past Fri. Idk where the vid is?, but the vid when you pull out stick control at the end was probably the best vid I could have seen at that time. I never miss your vids, and one of the few TH-cam instructors I almost always have to comment on.
Well said, man. I’ve learned that what I thought was a gig-ending mistake, only to find out the audience never knew. Recovery is a skill in itself. One that can be as fluid and smooth as the song itself. Chad Smith of Chili Peppers said if you mess up, do it again the next round. Then the audience will think you meant to do it and now you have a cool, new part! 😂
Just had a bad gig a couple days ago. My first gig in front of people. The restaurant was THE place for music in the city. Well known masters play there; Taylor Swift’s pianist has played there. I kept dropping beats and playing sloppy every now and then. After the gig our band and I got some compliments, we even got an encore. However, looking back at the video our buddy took, you can hear people criticizing me, like real hard. Hearing compliments but your playing was bad and people hated your drumming for good reasons, that mixed feedback gets to your head. I love the drums, I’m not quitting, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who would feel crushed after that. I’m 2, almost 3 years into my drumming journey, so I know I haven’t been playing long but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of quitting now. I know there’s a good chance no one will read this, I just needed to vent somewhere. Stephen, if you’re reading this, thanks for your solid advice. I’ll work on it
I think we easily forget sometimes when there's pressure, after all it's suppose to be fun, enjoyment and creativity. Audience feels that, mostly never notice some "minor mistakes" (even major). Music lives in the moment. Why we started in the first place. And not compare yourself to others =)
Stephen, great advice! I have many war stories too from all the years I've been playing. Lol! We are all human and mistakes are going to happen. You have to be resilient and keep pushing forward. Thanks for sharing.
You are welcome! This is such an important topic that I have never seen done on video before. When I screw up now what I do instead of beating myself up. First I started recording almost every time played . I found two things. One is that it wasn't as bad as I thought. Also that all though the band loves to blame the drummer for a variety of things especially time . It is very often just not true! But if I stepped on a tune especially a song that I didn't know or thought I knew. I will find them on the net and learn them . Sometimes more than one version. Or if it is a style I am not real familiar with I shed that style. A quick true story. One time the band called a tune I didn't know and said that the tune is just straight ahead. Well it wasn't and I was embarrassed. The next week they called that same tune. The guitar player looked at me smugly and said "do you think you can handle it" in a condescending tone. A tone I heard so many times from him. I thought to myself ok bucko here we go. I just started to count, the drums kicked in the tune. That smug look disappeared. I was told by the band that what I played was so righteous they were blown away. What they did not know was I went home and learned two versions of that tune. I had maybe not my 15 minutes but felt good!
Just arrived at the 1st Corps Army band after getting an OJT slot from my Engineer unit. Got put in concert band, could barely read music, they say "go play bass drum!" I can't remember the piece (classical of some type) and I screwed up so bad, the entire concert band stopped and looked at me. It was mortifying...
Thanks for doing this video mate! I been playing for nearly 3 years and decided to put myself forward for drumming at church. Just had my second gig at church. The first one went well because I had a bit more time to go through the songs. But today I only got giving the list few days before and wasn’t familiar with them. Today a few people came up after and said that it was sounding good but I know that I messed up quite a lot and wasn’t happy with how I played kind of feel they just saying it to be polite. I find it hard knowing where I am in the songs that’s something I need to work on and being able to play more intuitive, it’s annoying because I know I can play them better maybe I just tried to play it to safe. Anyway appreciate your advise 👍
Man it took me almost 10 years to get over being fired from one band I was playing in. It sucks but he’s right it’s just psychological I needed a sports psychologist but I got over it.
Raul Duke I've been there. I didn't show my face in the percussion department for over a month after I screwed that departmental piece. Learning to deal with the failures is the key to really moving forward.
Jon G81 Yea...I reversed the kick pattern. Instead of boom chick boom boom like a typical pop samba would be, it was chick boom boom. Make sense? I started with the hats. It was a hot mess.
Stephen Taylor ah yes I get what your saying, I had similar recently where for some reason I just couldn’t find the usual style I play for a particular song, we got through it but afterwards the band were all confused as to what I’d been playing!
Stephen Taylor oh and thank you for the reply, you do great videos on practical topics that I’m always interested in rather than the same old that I see elsewhere, keep it up dude!
Did a reunion gig last Saturday ...some good musicians there ...session guys London etc ...I had three songs to physical ..the first song that I actually recorded I screwed up the fill...these days it's like shit ...straight on TH-cam .
Just did a gig today that I was forced to do for college and it went horrendous. Literally 10 seconds into the song my IEM's (In ear monitors) Literally the beat was doubling as I could hear the verse and chorus at the same time, the beat kept playing, stopping and skipping. Literally somehow kept getting feedback from the IEM's so basically everything went wrong as I didn't know where I was in the song so I just ended up repeating 4 words over and over.
I know this is a super old video but I just messed up a song in worship tonight pretty bad, it was a song I’ve never played before and the band said they wanted to play it so I just went with it, and sure enough, I screwed up.
Luckily most screw ups (not all) aren't noticed by the general listening audience, but you do still own them and they do play on your mind for the rest of the gig, and that can result in even more screw ups. When your having a bad night.......it just seems to get worse sometimes. One thing I avoid is any major practicing before the gig, seems to make things worse rather than better.
Graham, I used to think a bad night was more or less random. I did notice, however, that I *seemed* to have them more so after a heavy practice session. You know how everybody says, "the best way to a great gig is to be well prepared." Well, maybe so - but don't overdo it just prior to the gig. Give yourself some relax time. I believe that can apply to warming up for a gig as well.
My band had a pretty bad screw up at our first gig together about a month ago. We use a drum machine/groovestation for our drummer in this band(shut up, dont wanna hear it) with a footswitch. One of our songs is programmed with a bridge that has a totally different tempo, so I have to start the song myself on the drum kacheck ine. If we use the footswitch then it will force the song to play at the same tempo. Well my bandmate got excited, started the song with the footseit ch and halfway through the song of course, the tempo speeds up like crazy. We have to stop because He doesnt know anything about the drum kachine and just kept yelling to ke "can you fix it? Can you fix it?" I had to stop the song, return the drum machine back to the start position and do the entire thing over. Before I restarted the song I just said " Sing along if youve heard this one before" and that was that. We should have been way more embarrassed seeing the irony of a drum machine that cant make mistakes getting screwed up by the humans it works with.
Oh dear, yesterday was one of those, not that bad really, but still not good. Then theres some person/musiscian in the audience friend of the band and we talk after gig. They dont say i,t but your mind starts wonder what did they think. "So you been studying and teaching music..blaah blaa". And wanna kinda say, "Im better than what happened today...". Weirdly if things start bit off in the beginning of the gig you start play safe, which can make it even worse, and question everything, like whats going on here. Aaah the selfdoubt. Sometimes you need to bit down play and see whats happening and sometimes to break out of the selfdoubt just go for it.
Mr Taylor, I’m actually taking a break from this video to comment. I’m trying to get over trainwrecking the click last night in a packed club . It was ( to me ) a complete disaster. First time live with this band ( no rehearsal other than soundcheck) and on my own at home rehearsing. Three songs first one great, second one trainwrecked ( singer killed the click track ) finished song fine and third song played fine but completely frozen from major screwup! I’m to take over full drumming responsibilities in a month and I can’t have that happen again! Although I was crushed I did receive positive feedback from bandmates and a few patrons. Nightmare
Stephen is right! And here is one advice, don't be pussies guys. Man up! You will always have great gigs and bad gigs. It's perfectly normal. What happened, happened. Move on. Learn something from your mistakes and move on. It's over, that gig is in the past. Concentrate on next gig and practice more. And remember that even if you practice, bad gigs can happen. Something can be wrong with pedal. Something can be wrong with hi-hat stand. Energy of place where you have gig can be strange and uncomfortable. Yo can have a bad day. A lot of things can happen that trow you out from the gig. But move on and try your best. And always remind yourself why have you started playing drums in the first place.
Mistakes happen, but what do you do with a band member that makes massive mistakes but then acts like it doesn't matter? My guitarist went on stage with a tuner he'd never used before, tuned his guitar totally wrong, panicked when he started playing and it sounded awful, kept stopping, re-tuning and starting again but kept tuning wrong so he was just stuck in a sort of doom loop. Then the panic tuning resulted in him breaking his bottom string and being unable to play any of the songs properly. He walked off stage and said "I think that went pretty well". Personally I thought it was the single worst individual performance I'd ever seen. I can take it happening, even though it's really dumb. But the person needs to acknowledge what caused it and take steps to ensure it doesn't keep happening.
My life as a musician in 8 minutes and 47 seconds... Thank you for the inspiration mr.Taylor.
Stelios Gl We've all been there. Just don't stay there. Glad this was inspiring in any way
You're the reason I reevaluated my whole approach to drumming. Thanks to you I went on a fruitful journey of self-examination which opened me the pathway to self-improvement. Thank you for your wisdom, Stephen.
Chadfleanthony You just made my year. Extremely humbling to know that. Thanks for sharing
Thanks - Some good advice there. "Don't be so hard on yourself" a friend said to me "it wasn't a big deal". He was right. Nobody in the audience would remember a screw up, so why should I
Great video/advice! It's always good to admit your mistakes and work to fix them. Like you said, you can't get so discouraged that you stop playing or stay down too long.
AR Drummer The sooner you admit them, the sooner they get fixed!
very true!
Always great to be able to put things in perspective. Thanks for this, very helpful for sure!
Ryan Satnik Perspective is so much of life. Glad it helped brotha
Dude, I needed this. Had a pretty sloppy show for a sub yesterday after a lot of prep. Felt, and still feel somewhat awful. But, there is a lot I know I can learn from it. Thank you again
Thank you for being so vulnerable to help us see how universal bad performances are and giving practical advice to overcome it
Benjamin I. Swisher You bet Benjamin
Really a very helpful video, thanks to share yoir experiences with us.
yoan marti Hopefully my mistakes are your gain ;^)
Love your honesty, we all have been there!
Jason Campbell Indeed we have...such a great learning experience
Thanks dude! Great lesson! The worst screw up I've had is I ended the section thinking it was the end of the song. I think It was a combo of being exhausted and not listening (probably one of the worst things you can do as a musician) haha.
I've been also trying to laugh it off even in practice/rehearsals when I screw up.
Jason Walker It's best to laugh it off and learn from it. I wish the worst thing I had done was screwed an ending! Love it!
I'll get like that too, especially with a tribute act. I've played to tunes so much I go on auto pilot, and lose my focus
Great vids. Real pro advice. Many thanks!
It's awesome that you would actually talk about this! Nobody talks about this, drummers will go on tirades about gear and techniques and drum intros and anything, but I can't easily recall instances of drummers admitting to failure and mistakes and just plain having a bad day, in interviews or articles or wherever.
And it's weird because if you follow any one drummer's career for some amount of time you start noticing all sort of inconsistencies and mistakes and variation in their live shows. But as a listener I hardly ever find mistakes ruin my enjoyment of music. When it's live it's live and anything could happen, and that's still to me the most exciting part of watching a performance.
Even more so, I'd rather have the musicians play at the edge of their ability where mistakes are more probable than just playing fearfully and conservatively. You can tell when a performance is only so much of what someone could deliver, and I think it's more aggravating than any one screw up.
Some advice I got when I used to play in bands was - don't worry about the mistake in the moment, work with it and around it. In the practice room we would rehearse by avoiding stopping in the middle of a song to call out any error, but when someone screwed up we would be in this mindset where we just had to incorporate it into the song. And once the entire band looked at some mistake as a chance to improvise, we definitely started playing more confidently.
Now, I know that a band of high school friends where the stakes are not all that high is a lot different than a paid gig; but I can't see how any other attitude other than to roll with it could be a better way to deal with mistakes.
And if you asked any one individual in a crowd at a concert what they thought about an error in a song, they are a lot more likely to tell you that it didn't bother them as long as it didn't affect the rest of the show, or they might have not even noticed it. So, definitely in the moment take any mistake lightly, it must not affect the remaining of your performance, else the mistake truly wins!
So this type of attitude and band rehearsals where mistakes had to be dealt with on the spot allowed me to go through my gigs with bands of non professionals and actually enjoy these gigs, 'cause at the level we were, playing a clean set was just not ever gonna happen. And I doubt that it's ever in the cards actually, for most musicians, but the professionals probably just get better at rolling with the punches, more creative with mistakes.
Hmm, I wonder if Stephen has a list of common mistakes at gigs and how he dealt with them over the years, I think that would be a cool video! :)
Strelock That would be a great video. I'll see what I can do. I've dedicated a lot of my energies this next year to taking the lid off of what actually happens in a music career. So lots more mistakes of my own coming ;^)
And yes...as we progress we still make mistakes. We just get better at covering them. So they don't sound like "mistakes". That's the key. The cover up. The recovery. Cause we're all gonna screw up.
Right on, thank you!
Good vid Stephen! Thanks!
As someone who has been performing for years, I've been beating myself up for my screwups. Thanks for this.
What I have been doing though is focus on the mistake and rehearse like hell to address the problem. I never did the listing of the awesome things you recommended. This vid is a blessing.
Thanks Stephen, that is just what I needed. I played bad, all confidence has gone, I don`t want to go out. At least now I feel that I could look at it, work on it and get it right next time. Cheers
Gotta listen to those slow Celine Dion songs every now and then. Great to see this man. I'm sure I will be needing this advice soon, just starting to play paid gigs. Looking forward to new videos as always!
Michael Dallara You'll have many of them...that's a lot of learnin'! I wouldn't trade my mistakes and screw ups for anything in the world. Proud of you for steppin' up and beginning to gig out!
Lol....Yeah, screwing up a gig is a horrible feeling. Knowing I screwed up a set in a Chili "Pecker" tribute gig (I dwelled on an early mistake), I had the bassist/vox chew me out between sets, making me feel/overthink the rest of the gig. Confidence is critical for me. I've studied with some monster drummers, and they were great teachers. You seem to always get your point across to me when I need to hear something. I wish I could have made it to N. Carolina this past Fri. Idk where the vid is?, but the vid when you pull out stick control at the end was probably the best vid I could have seen at that time. I never miss your vids, and one of the few TH-cam instructors I almost always have to comment on.
Well said, man. I’ve learned that what I thought was a gig-ending mistake, only to find out the audience never knew.
Recovery is a skill in itself. One that can be as fluid and smooth as the song itself.
Chad Smith of Chili Peppers said if you mess up, do it again the next round. Then the audience will think you meant to do it and now you have a cool, new part! 😂
Just had a bad gig a couple days ago. My first gig in front of people. The restaurant was THE place for music in the city. Well known masters play there; Taylor Swift’s pianist has played there. I kept dropping beats and playing sloppy every now and then. After the gig our band and I got some compliments, we even got an encore. However, looking back at the video our buddy took, you can hear people criticizing me, like real hard. Hearing compliments but your playing was bad and people hated your drumming for good reasons, that mixed feedback gets to your head. I love the drums, I’m not quitting, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who would feel crushed after that. I’m 2, almost 3 years into my drumming journey, so I know I haven’t been playing long but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of quitting now. I know there’s a good chance no one will read this, I just needed to vent somewhere. Stephen, if you’re reading this, thanks for your solid advice. I’ll work on it
I read, just keep going.
@@aleksik4028
Thank you, it’s gotten a lot better.
! u are a humble person keep doing it!
I think we easily forget sometimes when there's pressure, after all it's suppose to be fun, enjoyment and creativity. Audience feels that, mostly never notice some "minor mistakes" (even major). Music lives in the moment. Why we started in the first place. And not compare yourself to others =)
@@carmenip6924 @Aleksi K
Y’all are awesome. Thank you both 🙏
Stephen, great advice! I have many war stories too from all the years I've been playing. Lol! We are all human and mistakes are going to happen. You have to be resilient and keep pushing forward. Thanks for sharing.
If you're in it long enough, you'll have some stories lol. Great to hear from you Joseph!
Good advice my man! A valuable video! I
David Gallagher Jr. Thanks David!
You are welcome! This is such an important topic that I have never seen done on video before. When I screw up now what I do instead of beating myself up. First I started recording almost every time played . I found two things. One is that it wasn't as bad as I thought. Also that all though the band loves to blame the drummer for a variety of things especially time . It is very often just not true! But if I stepped on a tune especially a song that I didn't know or thought I knew. I will find them on the net and learn them . Sometimes more than one version. Or if it is a style I am not real familiar with I shed that style. A quick true story. One time the band called a tune I didn't know and said that the tune is just straight ahead. Well it wasn't and I was embarrassed. The next week they called that same tune. The guitar player looked at me smugly and said "do you think you can handle it" in a condescending tone. A tone I heard so many times from him. I thought to myself ok bucko here we go. I just started to count, the drums kicked in the tune. That smug look disappeared. I was told by the band that what I played was so righteous they were blown away. What they did not know was I went home and learned two versions of that tune. I had maybe not my 15 minutes but felt good!
Just arrived at the 1st Corps Army band after getting an OJT slot from my Engineer unit. Got put in concert band, could barely read music, they say "go play bass drum!" I can't remember the piece (classical of some type) and I screwed up so bad, the entire concert band stopped and looked at me. It was mortifying...
Well...good news is, I've been there ;^)
Never comfortable...but at least it's over lol!
Good vid man! I messed up drum parts at gigs as well, my problem was not being able to hear the band in live settings
Jeffery Darnell Yea, been there. That's a recipe for complete disaster lol
thankfully, most small mistakes won't get noticed
but this are biggies he's talking about....love this guy, great advice.
So true...so many mistakes go unnoticed by most
Thanks for doing this video mate! I been playing for nearly 3 years and decided to put myself forward for drumming at church. Just had my second gig at church. The first one went well because I had a bit more time to go through the songs. But today I only got giving the list few days before and wasn’t familiar with them. Today a few people came up after and said that it was sounding good but I know that I messed up quite a lot and wasn’t happy with how I played kind of feel they just saying it to be polite. I find it hard knowing where I am in the songs that’s something I need to work on and being able to play more intuitive, it’s annoying because I know I can play them better maybe I just tried to play it to safe. Anyway appreciate your advise 👍
Man it took me almost 10 years to get over being fired from one band I was playing in. It sucks but he’s right it’s just psychological I needed a sports psychologist but I got over it.
Raul Duke I've been there. I didn't show my face in the percussion department for over a month after I screwed that departmental piece. Learning to deal with the failures is the key to really moving forward.
Can I ask what you meant by ‘turned the samba around’ ? Did you mean added it to the wrong section?
Jon G81 Yea...I reversed the kick pattern. Instead of boom chick boom boom like a typical pop samba would be, it was chick boom boom. Make sense? I started with the hats. It was a hot mess.
Stephen Taylor ah yes I get what your saying, I had similar recently where for some reason I just couldn’t find the usual style I play for a particular song, we got through it but afterwards the band were all confused as to what I’d been playing!
Stephen Taylor oh and thank you for the reply, you do great videos on practical topics that I’m always interested in rather than the same old that I see elsewhere, keep it up dude!
Jon G81 I'll keep it up as long as you guys keep stopping by. So glad the vids are helpful.
Did a reunion gig last Saturday ...some good musicians there ...session guys London etc ...I had three songs to physical ..the first song that I actually recorded I screwed up the fill...these days it's like shit ...straight on TH-cam .
kennyRumbles lol, believe me, I know the exact feeling
Just did a gig today that I was forced to do for college and it went horrendous. Literally 10 seconds into the song my IEM's (In ear monitors) Literally the beat was doubling as I could hear the verse and chorus at the same time, the beat kept playing, stopping and skipping. Literally somehow kept getting feedback from the IEM's so basically everything went wrong as I didn't know where I was in the song so I just ended up repeating 4 words over and over.
Stephen..... Thank you - Just thank you :)
You bet my friend
Yeah man...you definitely win.
I know this is a super old video but I just messed up a song in worship tonight pretty bad, it was a song I’ve never played before and the band said they wanted to play it so I just went with it, and sure enough, I screwed up.
I f*cked it up today and it stings but then I watched this video (again) and you are so right ... success is failure turned inside out, right ?
Luckily most screw ups (not all) aren't noticed by the general listening audience, but you do still own them and they do play on your mind for the rest of the gig, and that can result in even more screw ups. When your having a bad night.......it just seems to get worse sometimes. One thing I avoid is any major practicing before the gig, seems to make things worse rather than better.
Graham, I used to think a bad night was more or less random. I did notice, however, that I *seemed* to have them more so after a heavy practice session. You know how everybody says, "the best way to a great gig is to be well prepared." Well, maybe so - but don't overdo it just prior to the gig. Give yourself some relax time. I believe that can apply to warming up for a gig as well.
My band had a pretty bad screw up at our first gig together about a month ago. We use a drum machine/groovestation for our drummer in this band(shut up, dont wanna hear it) with a footswitch. One of our songs is programmed with a bridge that has a totally different tempo, so I have to start the song myself on the drum kacheck ine. If we use the footswitch then it will force the song to play at the same tempo. Well my bandmate got excited, started the song with the footseit ch and halfway through the song of course, the tempo speeds up like crazy. We have to stop because He doesnt know anything about the drum kachine and just kept yelling to ke "can you fix it? Can you fix it?" I had to stop the song, return the drum machine back to the start position and do the entire thing over. Before I restarted the song I just said " Sing along if youve heard this one before" and that was that. We should have been way more embarrassed seeing the irony of a drum machine that cant make mistakes getting screwed up by the humans it works with.
Man...it's crazy how many times I've screwed up triggering songs on stage lol
Oh dear, yesterday was one of those, not that bad really, but still not good. Then theres some person/musiscian in the audience friend of the band and we talk after gig. They dont say i,t but your mind starts wonder what did they think. "So you been studying and teaching music..blaah blaa". And wanna kinda say, "Im better than what happened today...". Weirdly if things start bit off in the beginning of the gig you start play safe, which can make it even worse, and question everything, like whats going on here. Aaah the selfdoubt. Sometimes you need to bit down play and see whats happening and sometimes to break out of the selfdoubt just go for it.
Mr Taylor, I’m actually taking a break from this video to comment. I’m trying to get over trainwrecking the click last night in a packed club . It was ( to me ) a complete disaster. First time live with this band ( no rehearsal other than soundcheck) and on my own at home rehearsing. Three songs first one great, second one trainwrecked ( singer killed the click track ) finished song fine and third song played fine but completely frozen from major screwup! I’m to take over full drumming responsibilities in a month and I can’t have that happen again! Although I was crushed I did receive positive feedback from bandmates and a few patrons. Nightmare
A couple of days ago I had one of those gigs. But I'm taking two days to beat myself up. Yep, it was that bad...
Do these steps apply to bad auditions as well? I'm haunted by more than couple of those.
ZooStation42 Absolutely. I actually used to try and find open auditions just to practice the process of auditioning. They can be rough
LMAO!!!!! Thanks bro. Good vid.
First? Loved the video btw!
PinkPancakes 420 Thanks!
Stephen is right! And here is one advice, don't be pussies guys. Man up! You will always have great gigs and bad gigs. It's perfectly normal. What happened, happened. Move on. Learn something from your mistakes and move on. It's over, that gig is in the past. Concentrate on next gig and practice more. And remember that even if you practice, bad gigs can happen. Something can be wrong with pedal. Something can be wrong with hi-hat stand. Energy of place where you have gig can be strange and uncomfortable. Yo can have a bad day. A lot of things can happen that trow you out from the gig. But move on and try your best. And always remind yourself why have you started playing drums in the first place.
Mistakes happen, but what do you do with a band member that makes massive mistakes but then acts like it doesn't matter?
My guitarist went on stage with a tuner he'd never used before, tuned his guitar totally wrong, panicked when he started playing and it sounded awful, kept stopping, re-tuning and starting again but kept tuning wrong so he was just stuck in a sort of doom loop. Then the panic tuning resulted in him breaking his bottom string and being unable to play any of the songs properly.
He walked off stage and said "I think that went pretty well".
Personally I thought it was the single worst individual performance I'd ever seen.
I can take it happening, even though it's really dumb. But the person needs to acknowledge what caused it and take steps to ensure it doesn't keep happening.
You gotta make a video on your gig screw ups
Ha Ha…Great!
But what if the gig actually WAS slow sappy Celine Dion songs? LOL
Lol...well, there's always that...