I don't post a lot here because I don't consider myself as a "modern" blues player or a kind of innovative guy but I love to read some topics here. I'm a guy who plays about 10 gigs per year so every time I go on stage is great time to learn something.
I just want to share with you a video. It comes from "Sierre Blues Festival 2012" and we where invited to play the very last set in order to close the festival. In the video we are playing "Mojo working" and the singer wanted me to play in a "Chicago style". I listened to one version of Muddy Waters with James Cotton and I learned his solo. I forced myself to play this solo note for note and the result was... what you can hear and see. I lost the groove and fortunately, James Cotton will never see what I did.
I played the entire set without any trouble and the cameraman recorded me exactly in the worse moment...
Sounded good to me. Good groove, good tone, timing was right on. Good use of space to create tension, intended or not. You kept on with it even through the stumble. Good approach & Well done.
Oh boy. I see why you posted this. You're going "Why the HELL did they use THAT five seconds of the performance??!" There's great video quality, a great groove, and great tone on the harp. And yes, you did exactly what you say you did. You knew it, and you gave that.....look. I've given that look more than once. You were basically stepping out of the frame at that moment, even as you were in it, to say all sorts of things with your eyes that your eyes couldn't really communicate. It's embarrassment, professional cringing, a defensive, "Hey, I'm better than THAT!"
Of course, most people in attendance probably wouldn't have noticed anything wrong UNLESS you show through your eyes and posture that you've made a mistake. This is the strange thing about show business. If you do nothing to call attention to your mistakes, even ones that you consider flagrant and humiliating, most people won't notice them. There's something to be said for completely ignoring them when you're onstage and simply moving on.
Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure that I'd have had the nerve to.
I had a moment like that in a video I just posted of my new duo, the Blues Doctors. We were doing a performance of "Take You Downtown," and in the first line of the first verse, for no clear reason, I was woefully flat. I knew while on the bandstand that something was wrong; I actually looked at my harp to make sure that I'd picked up a Db--i.e., that the guitarist and I weren't half a step apart. In the second verse, I came up to pitch and was fine. What happened, I think, is that because I sometimes sing the song in Ab and sometimes lower the pitch and sing (and play) it in G, my voice "remembers" two different notch points. In this case, I somehow stumbled into the lower notch-point before hoisting myself up half a step. In any case, I cut the clam out of the video:
Actually, in the service of a teaching moment, here's the part that I cut out. I've uploaded it as an unlisted video; it's solely for the members of this forum. You'll notice that by :16 or so I'd figured out the disaster-in-progress and come up to speed. I just....re-pitched myself. Welcome to live performance! Stuff happens:
we are usually our own worst critic. 99% of the public "ears" don't hear the bad that makes us cringe inside.
if you hadn't put out your insecurity and just posted the video, I never would have noticed anything bad. as it was, I had to strain to listen for the "bad", and even then it didn't sound bad to me.
sounded good to me. congrats ---------- The Iceman
Best advice has already been given. Just keep trucking like nothing happened. 95+% of the audience will never know it was a "mistake" as Adam mentioned. Of course that is also the hardest thing in the world to do sometimes. I know I am only partially successful at it. Sometimes I can move on from a mistake as if nothing went wrong. Other times I get a total WTF WAS THAT look on my face :)
You are right, I asked everybody around me and nobody (even though the band) noticed my mistake. My brother told me : " You shouldn't have nod your head like a stupid guy".
What I learned from all of this is:
- I'm a perfectionist. I should use this ability to do better work in the woodshed.
- I have a lack of self-confident and I need the advice of everybody => I should listen to the "crazy little boy" in my head and let him kick my ass...
Special thank to Adam who has taken time to watch the video and share his last experience. Adam, I wanted to talk with you in Crissier in Switzerland but I was a little bit shy. I think your skills as a singer become better and better. I admire that because I 'd like to sing but I think my voice doesn't sound bluesy. In June, I sang one of your songs in front of my family (60 persons). It was "Poor Man Blues". I changed the lyrics in purpose because it was the 30th birthday of my brother. I did the rehearses 2 weeks before this event in my car with all the :" Ouuha Whoo" and everything and I was able to do it quite well. But the day I did it on front of the people I sounded like a wolf with asthma...
Thanks everybody, good news, I 've got 3 more gigs in October and November. I'm going to work on my mojo!
---------- Youtube
Last Edited by on Sep 09, 2012 11:21 AM
Nice recovery. That's an important skill. I do the 'oops I screwed up face' all the time. Like everyone said, that was the only way the audience would know you screwed up. :) Nice playing.
Adam, thanks for posting your video too. The bass player I work with has a habit of calling major when he means minor, or just switching without telling me. He also has a tendency to spring jazz progressions on me. If I had War & Peace inscribed on my harmonica I'd have a doctorate in Russian Lit by now. :)
I once got the chance to open for Stan Webb's Chicken Shack at a truly great venue in S. Wales. What made it particularly important for me was that my best friend and musical mentor was playing bass with Stan at the time. To be on the same bill as my mate was a long held dream. But of course as Sod's Law would have it there was a major upheaval in my band shortly before the gig. I ended up with three guys who were all seriously world class players who had all played with me before but never in this particular line up and we had no chance to rehearse.
The gig was in the ballroom of a fancy hotel and the musicians were given rooms. After our set I went up to my mates room to get the verdict. I was nervous as hell wondering what he would say. I walked in the door and received the best compliment ever. "Steve, that was the best job of professional busking it I've ever seen."
It's all about not reacting and just carrying on as if nothing happened. Or, as I've seen loads of great players do, you just repeat the mistake over and over as if it was an avant garde riff and was intentional. ---------- LSC
