Mistakes playing gigs?

I played in a classic-rock cover band for a number of years. The lead guitar/singer, drummer, and bassist were all semi-pros (I was the weak link but I worked and practiced hard to get up to their level, till I could hang with them).

Their rule was: Start the song together. Hit the breaks together. Follow the chord progression, play tight, then end the song together.

In between, the audience of partyers won't notice your small fluffs.

That actually worked out fine.

=K
 
FatFingerBlues said:
My guitar teacher believes in getting his students on stage with his band as soon as they are ready
He tells us we will make mistakes
but its normal Just dont ever stop playing
He teaches us how to watch him and pick back up if we get lost

It happens, Just dont stop!
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True.
Although, if the band is big enough (ours regularly has lead guitar, acoustic, piano, keyboard, bass, drums, tracks when the leader sees fit, and four singers), dropping out until the nest phrase or section often just sounds like an artistic pause. I see our lead guitarists do it often.
 
Moondog Wily said:
When I make mistakes playing (in studio or my limited live performances) I try to ensure a "professional recovery". We all make mistakes, even the greats, but how you recover from it is what separates the wheat from the chaff IMO! My most recent album "Real Notes" is titled that in part because it is me, in real time, playing real notes, without any corrections, no punch-ins, overdubs, no auto tuning, etc. So essentially a live performance with minimal studio effects. I did 83 takes of the album before I got one that I deemed to be "good enough IMO" for release. Of course there are still mistakes, but nothing that I found glaring and the mistakes made were recovered from in what I would say was a professional manner. That said, the whole album is nothing but cowboy chords so not difficult material, but when you are playing guitar, and singing, and playing the percussion, and switching the effects for both guitar and vocals, and monitoring the recording, there is a lot going on where mistakes can be made. If I would have played the album for a year straight, it would have been better and had less mistakes, but I need to move on rather than obsess with the flawless performance, which likely will NEVER materialize. In the live performances I have done, I have been able to not fall apart when mistakes are made as well, so I am not worried about myself in that environment either largely due to the fact that I am comfortable with making mistakes and ensuring that I move on without drama or pause ;~))

I will also note that, most of my mistakes on already learned material, happen when my mind wanders. When songs become ingrained, my mind will start thinking about general life stuff while I am in a song (because the song is so easy to play now), and that is 99% of the time when I make mistakes, because I am thinking about something that has nothing to do with what I am playing ;~(( Point is, stay in the moment, in the song and if other thoughts creep in while playing, get your mind out of that gutter and back into the moment!!!
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Very good!
 
Lola said:
Can’t think about it. I know me better. I have to forget it because I will have a serious a$$ kicking with myself later and I can’t afford to dwell on things. I tell myself so what no biggie and move on. I don’t recall screwing up royally.
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To me (and I’m often wrong), a royal screw up either causes a crash, or pulls yourself or someone else off the chosen path far enough to be blatantly obvious. Yup, I make my share of stink tones, but only on very very rare occasions does anybody but me notice.
 
When I make mistakes playing at church, I hope I'm forgiven!

Keep in mind I'm not playing 4 sets as some of you are. We're talking 4 to 5 songs in 3 services. But yes, I make mistakes. Sometimes I'll totally forget what chord I'm suppose to go to, other times my fingers will go to the correct chord shape but maybe one finger isn't quite resting on the string as it should be, sometimes I'll go to pick a note and my pick doesn't quite hit the string and of course, sometimes I'll hit a wrong note.

All in all I do pretty good but of course there are those moments.

Here's the biggest mistake I made at church. We played the first song, onto the 2nd. I called up the correct preset on my Pod Go for song 2 and for some reason I was thinking of the 3rd song. I didn't come in on this one right away and you'd think I would have caught myself, but nooooo!
I'm standing there looking like a confused idiot thinking "whats wrong here? Nothings making sense." Then I start with my part in song 3, paniced and stopped. Took me another few seconds to come to my senses are realize what I did! I felt like such and idiot.

If that was a senior moment, it was a bad one!

Afterwards our worship leader said "that was some interesting jazz you were playing there!"
 
After all the crap we do and have to put up with being in a band. God bless each and everyone us. When you really think about how much goes into putting yourself in a band. The work, the practice, the travel, the bs from other bandmates etc

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! You are and so am I!!!
 
Mike J. said:
When I make mistakes playing at church, I hope I'm forgiven!

Keep in mind I'm not playing 4 sets as some of you are. We're talking 4 to 5 songs in 3 services. But yes, I make mistakes. Sometimes I'll totally forget what chord I'm suppose to go to, other times my fingers will go to the correct chord shape but maybe one finger isn't quite resting on the string as it should be, sometimes I'll go to pick a note and my pick doesn't quite hit the string and of course, sometimes I'll hit a wrong note.

All in all I do pretty good but of course there are those moments.

Here's the biggest mistake I made at church. We played the first song, onto the 2nd. I called up the correct preset on my Pod Go for song 2 and for some reason I was thinking of the 3rd song. I didn't come in on this one right away and you'd think I would have caught myself, but nooooo!
I'm standing there looking like a confused idiot thinking "whats wrong here? Nothings making sense." Then I start with my part in song 3, paniced and stopped. Took me another few seconds to come to my senses are realize what I did! I felt like such and idiot.

If that was a senior moment, it was a bad one!

Afterwards our worship leader said "that was some interesting jazz you were playing there!"
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The thing with church songs; they all sound more or less the same, eapecially with contemporary stuff. Always in a form of 1, 4, 5 and 6 chords (a 2 sprinkled in once or twice), mostly the same key when playing live and all smoothly played one after the other. Licks and tempo are the same, or variations of the same, sounds are the same and feel is the same. Has nothing to do with senior moments, just with unimaginative producers in contemporary church music. With all due respect of course.

Am a church guitar player as well, love to do it, but I often find myself vulnerable, even though I really practice well and am a decent guitar player. The sameness, with often slow licks, with little room for mistakes (or recovery) and long ambient trails, asks for very "on cue" playing. I would love to have some more P and some less W in the current church music. Would make for a lot more "fun" in church. (In-crowd joke, sorry)
 
Apologies in advance for having told both of these stories before, but they are on topic for this thread so…

1- I had a friend I played with at church years ago (he’s been in multiple stories here. LOL) who was a “if you miss something, go back and get it” player. So, if you were playing say in 4/4 and he missed the first chord, he’d go back on the 2 count and hit the first chord, then proceed from there. So, he added a beat. One time he missed, missed again, totally panicked and went back on the 3 count to the first chord and played on through. SO needless to say, you really hoped he didn’t miss anything, because he had a bad habit of missing one chord, and instead of going on to the next one, he’d throw the whole timing off by proceeding to play 4 more beats after that and all 5 in what should have been count. Several times, while playing lead fills during a verse, I’d immediately jump to rhythm and hit the correct chords just to keep him on count.

2- Once while playing with a ladies group I was playing some fill melodies during the singing and notice some plucky higher notes coming out. I was wearing a dress shirt and always rolled my right sleeve up when I’d play. I forgot to this ONE time. The noise was that my cuff button had gotten lodged between two strings! So every time I moved my hand to pick, it was pulling on those to strings and making noise. I literally had to reach down with my left hand and roll the volume all the way down, pull my sleeve away (I didn’t want a loud noise when I popped the button out!) then pull my sleeve up some and resume playing, and I got it done about 2 seconds before my solo started.
 
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Oh, one more. This is one of the mistakes nobody really “hears” but again, when you’re standing in front of 1000 people with 3,000 more watching online it’s embarrassing IF the camera is on you. This time (just a few months ago) we were playing an instrumental, and during verse one I just do a combination of background rhythm and a few fills, while the mandolin played lead on the whole first verse and chorus. Then on verse 2, I’d play take the lead for the whole verse and chorus. Well, halfway through the first verse, things are going really smoothly and I’m playing along while watching the mandolin player. I turn maybe 6 inches further to the side and poof, I’ve yanked the chord out of my guitar. I didn’t realize I was standing on it and it wasn’t tight, but apparently had no slack because I barely turned and unplugged it. I reached down, turned the AA3 down to 0, plugged back in, and turned it back up and it was well before the end of the chorus.

So, no big bad notes, no big loud pops through the sound system, etc. BUT, reaching down frantically and plugging back in in front of 1000 people. :rolleyes:
 
DreamTheaterRules said:
Oh, one more. This is one of the mistakes nobody really “hears” but again, when you’re standing in front of 1000 people with 3,000 more watching online it’s embarrassing IF the camera is on you. This time (just a few months ago) we were playing an instrumental, and during verse one I just do a combination of background rhythm and a few fills, while the mandolin played lead on the whole first verse and chorus. Then on verse 2, I’d play take the lead for the whole verse and chorus. Well, halfway through the first verse, things are going really smoothly and I’m playing along while watching the mandolin player. I turn maybe 6 inches further to the side and poof, I’ve yanked the chord out of my guitar. I didn’t realize I was standing on it and it wasn’t tight, but apparently had no slack because I barely turned and unplugged it. I reached down, turned the AA3 down to 0, plugged back in, and turned it back up and it was well before the end of the chorus.

So, no big bad notes, no big loud pops through the sound system, etc. BUT, reaching down frantically and plugging back in in front of 1000 people. :rolleyes:
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This was the weird covid thing at our church. Our auditorium is about 1500 seats, during covid it was empty while making live streams. At one point we had about 12k active streams. Mainly households behind a television. That makes for a small stadium viewers.

Très awkward with a camera on you if you have a moment and am aware of the great many people seeing this. Live streams are horrible in that regard: everyting is revealed and magnified because of the studio quality mix that is buried in the live setting.
 
Mike J. said:
When I make mistakes playing at church, I hope I'm forgiven!

Keep in mind I'm not playing 4 sets as some of you are. We're talking 4 to 5 songs in 3 services. But yes, I make mistakes. Sometimes I'll totally forget what chord I'm suppose to go to, other times my fingers will go to the correct chord shape but maybe one finger isn't quite resting on the string as it should be, sometimes I'll go to pick a note and my pick doesn't quite hit the string and of course, sometimes I'll hit a wrong note.

All in all I do pretty good but of course there are those moments.

Here's the biggest mistake I made at church. We played the first song, onto the 2nd. I called up the correct preset on my Pod Go for song 2 and for some reason I was thinking of the 3rd song. I didn't come in on this one right away and you'd think I would have caught myself, but nooooo!
I'm standing there looking like a confused idiot thinking "whats wrong here? Nothings making sense." Then I start with my part in song 3, paniced and stopped. Took me another few seconds to come to my senses are realize what I did! I felt like such and idiot.

If that was a senior moment, it was a bad one!

Afterwards our worship leader said "that was some interesting jazz you were playing there!"
Click to expand...
I’m a church player also.
Try to remember Who your primary audience is. He’s heard you practicing and looked forward to your offering of praise. And like any Father, He loved your effort to please.
 
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I’ve only been playing guitar since April but it’s a lot like golf which I have played for 50 years. You are going to make mistakes, the key is to get it “back in the fairway” and not compound the error. Tough songs are like tough golf holes … sometimes a bogey is not a bad score. Another similarity is short but very focused practice sessions is the best way to improve.
 
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