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Auditions, Revisited


Bluewine

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1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

Has this one ever happened to anyone.

You arrive at the audition and you realize your in the most dangerous " hood" in the city and your car is surrounded by crack heads.

Happened to me, I left and bailed on the audition. I was driving 90 miles per hour in 25 mile per hour zone until I saw the sign directing me back to the freeway. I was very frightened.

Conjure up an image of me making my getaway. Lol

Blue

Don't really get that sort of thing around Witney, to be honest. One good reason for living here! 

(though someone was attacked by a bloke with a sword last week!)

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1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I would avoid playing 6/8 songs unless you are auditioning for a prog band...

We do 7/4 and 10/4 in the Dudes, and we definitely ain't prog! More like psychedelic country.

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3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I would avoid playing 6/8 songs unless you are auditioning for a prog band...

6/8 is more of a half time shuffle - more a band playing a slow blues shuffle or an AOR ballad... 

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5 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Er, I think you’ve missed the point there blue.

6/8 as in the time signature.

I'm always missing the point these days.

 

Really? He was talking about time signature and not number of songs for an an audition?

Blue

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6 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I'm always missing the point these days.

 

Really? He was talking about time signature and not number of songs for an an audition?

Blue

It's just a British thing, Blue, the love of puns and so on. The first 6-8 post referred to the number of songs, then someone twisted it to mean time sigs and most of us went with it, it's in our nature. British humour can be hard to explain to non-Brits!

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On the very few auditions ive been to the band have been a bit disorganised. Meh, not a problem, thats why I’m here lol. Its difficult for a band to be spot on if they are missing an important instrument. 

An originals band once asked me to learn 4 of their songs for the audition, I learnt  7. They liked that and i got asked to join. I know i wasn't the best, but seemed to be the one (out of 4) that had the motivation and enthusiasm rather than just going through the motions to join a band for the money. Sometimes the attitude can win out of the skill IME.

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20 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Er, I think you’ve missed the point there blue.

6/8 as in the time signature.

 

20 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

LOL! I meant 6/8 as against 4/4 🙂

Yeah, Stub was taking the **** out of me saying "6/8" meaning 6 or 8. I almost posted to point that out, but thought, "nahh... he knows".

Blue also knew what I meant. 
Enjoy the rest of your day, guys.

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First audition for a covers band I learnt 5 songs. As in learnt, ie turned up, 1,2,3,4, we played the 5 songs.. Got the job.  We met again a week later, ran through the same five, tried some others from their set list and decided on the next five,  next week played ten songs and decided on the next five..... you get the picture. Week 6 we've got 20+ songs, I ask about putting them in order and polishing the arrangements and get "Well the thing is we've been playing some of these songs for a long time and are getting a bit fed up with them - we need to swap them for some others...." " Yeah, but you asked me to learn these 20+ songs quickly so we could start booking gigs?" "Yeah, well we need to change some of them before we do that....." It didn't end well. They still don't gig (well they have played three gigs in the last 18 months to be strictly truthful).

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50 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

A bit fed up? So they're playing the songs for the bands enjoyment rather than their prospective audiences. Twonks.

Care to explain why a band cant enjoy the songs they play as well as the audience, and why they are ‘Twonks’?

 

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3 hours ago, phil.c60 said:

First audition for a covers band I learnt 5 songs. As in learnt, ie turned up, 1,2,3,4, we played the 5 songs.. Got the job.  We met again a week later, ran through the same five, tried some others from their set list and decided on the next five,  next week played ten songs and decided on the next five..... you get the picture. Week 6 we've got 20+ songs, I ask about putting them in order and polishing the arrangements and get "Well the thing is we've been playing some of these songs for a long time and are getting a bit fed up with them - we need to swap them for some others...." " Yeah, but you asked me to learn these 20+ songs quickly so we could start booking gigs?" "Yeah, well we need to change some of them before we do that....." It didn't end well. They still don't gig (well they have played three gigs in the last 18 months to be strictly truthful).

I hate to say this. My advice to anyone joining a band to gig consistently and earn money, only audition for bands that already have 6 months of gigs booked.

 I know, hard to find.

Blue

Edited by Bluewine
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Here's another scenario to watch out for.

" Yeah, we plan on rehearsing and learning songs and will start giging in 3 months"

Really, where, what's your booking process and what type of gigs? Do you own sound and lighting? Both are legit questions.

Blue

Edited by Bluewine
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13 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

On the very few auditions ive been to the band have been a bit disorganised. Meh, not a problem, thats why I’m here lol. Its difficult for a band to be spot on if they are missing an important instrument. 

An originals band once asked me to learn 4 of their songs for the audition, I learnt  7. They liked that and i got asked to join. I know i wasn't the best, but seemed to be the one (out of 4) that had the motivation and enthusiasm rather than just going through the motions to join a band for the money. Sometimes the attitude can win out of the skill IME.

There's nothing wrong with joining a band for money.

Like I say, I always have fun playing, but I don't play for for fun. I play for a commission.

Blue

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1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

A band can enjoy the songs they play, but I don’t think sacrificing a chunk of the set because they’re merely fed up with them is the right call in the circumstances described. Do you? Once that process is allowed to manifest itself then it tends to repeat and ends  up in very few gigs being performed, as evidenced in the final line by @phil.c60

To my mind, and I accept it might just be me, if you perform your songs to a high enough standard, that’s where the enjoyment of playing live comes from, not from putting five new songs in the set every other gig. If I had a penny for every time I’ve played Ashes to Ashes I would be very rich indeed.

 

It's one thing to replace songs you are fed up playing to an audience. Dropping ones you are fed up practising but haven't got round to playing in front of an audience does suggest a lack of seriousness about gigging...

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2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I hate to say this. My advice to anyone joining a band to gig consistently and earn money, only audition for bands that already have 6 months of gigs booked.

 I know, hard to find.

Blue

The trouble is why would such a band be looking for a bass player? And if they were, they would be ringing up someone they already know who they can get up to speed quickly, rather than auditioning and then rehearsing up someone they don’t know and risking having to cancel the next six months of gigs!

The trick is to be the guy that they ring when they need a bass player. The only way you get to be that guy is by having lots of contacts and being known for having played with lots of different decent musicians. You can’t limit your opportunities by just waiting around for a chance to audition for your ‘perfect’ band that ticks every one of your boxes… 

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2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

There's nothing wrong with joining a band for money.

Like I say, I always have fun playing, but I don't play for for fun. I play for a commission.

Blue

There is also nothing wrong with joining a band that increases your profile and reputation as a player. That may well lead to offers from bands that make decent money...! 

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1 hour ago, peteb said:

There is also nothing wrong with joining a band that increases your profile and reputation as a player. That may well lead to offers from bands that make decent money...! 

Agreed, I'd do that especially if I was a younger local player.

Blue

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1 hour ago, peteb said:

The trouble is why would such a band be looking for a bass player? And if they were, they would be ringing up someone they already know who they can get up to speed quickly, rather than auditioning and then rehearsing up someone they don’t know and risking having to cancel the next six months of gigs!

The trick is to be the guy that they ring when they need a bass player. The only way you get to be that guy is by having lots of contacts and being known for having played with lots of different decent musicians. You can’t limit your opportunities by just waiting around for a chance to audition for your ‘perfect’ band that ticks every one of your boxes… 

Agreed, your exactly right Pete.

And in most cases and for most of us that " perfect" band doesn't exist.

Blue

Edited by Bluewine
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3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

It's one thing to replace songs you are fed up playing to an audience. Dropping ones you are fed up practising but haven't got round to playing in front of an audience does suggest a lack of seriousness about gigging...

We're learning new songs. We have to , we need new material to play for our fans before they get sick of our old set lists.

Blue

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Exactly. My issue was really about the fact that (like most of us here) if you give me a set list and ask me to learn it I will. If you don't want to play those songs any more, don't ask me to learn them - let's agree on some others! Putting that much effort in over a relatively short space of time and then being told it was wasted is very frustrating. My protestations about this did not go down well (I felt we should gig the set we now had at least a few times and make changes from there) and it was clear to me that they were not going to make it out of the rehearsal room any time soon and rarely. It meant it was clearly not the band for me. It was a side project for me alongside my main band (which they new - that was not an issue) and they had specifically told me when I auditioned that they were looking for someone to learn the songs quickly so they could start booking gigs. 

Edited by phil.c60
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