Beautiful. Knowing how to and being willing to use dynamics like that is a true gift to your audience. Those guys deserve awards. I was lucky to be part of a band around Dallas in the late 90's that had the same values. My go to then was mid 60's Princeton tremolo model.
Jolene and I used Champs for a while, and recorded a CD with them. We swear by appropriate volume as we play small to medium rooms when we play amped. Our go to amps are matching Silvertone 1482's these days. 12 watts of heaven. ---------- Music and travel destroy prejudice.
Nice post--Yr right "pay attention to band volume" I also noticed after first 12 bar, everyone was into it an got a little louder. So i guess the key is start as low volume as possible-cuz it always gets louder. On 2nd song they came down again. Really cool.
Some of our best stuff never gets heard, bands too loud. I would bet that for most if us, the times that we have received the most "volunteered compliments" from audience and or musicians, is when band volume came down. FINALLY AN OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY WITH FINESSE.
On one Blues cruise jam, I got to call the song and was familiar with the players. The guitar player was really good. I asked the band to come down on 2nd verse they did, I was able to sing with little dynamics. I asked for the first lead and asked them to slowly, quietly build into my 2nd go around, then I'd pass to guitar on third. it all worked.
Afterword's the guitar player, that I greatly respected, said "man where did that come from, that was great"?? I replied First, I could here myself. Second I could play with dynamics and finesse because of lower volume. Then I said; I've heard a bunch of great harp playing and players tonight, but I had to strain to hear it. Turn down and give these harp players a chance, many of them will surprise u
Snowy, I think it's just the fate of the harp player to be drowned most of the time. Totally agree with your statements about not being heard on our best moments. Ironically, when I had a great Bassman rig, many times it was not allowed on stage! Or if I was gigging with it I was asked to turn down a lot even though I was no louder than the guitars. That's part of why I pretty much let go of amped 3 and 4 piece band work. I know my acoustic street playing is mostly okay but I do so love plugging Jo and me into our little tube amps and playing in a medium room. So much more nuance is there and it's much easier to use dynamics to grab the audience. We played in a place in Wyoming one night about 4 years ago and you'd have thought we were superstars. Because our dynamics outshone the volume we were at. People would actually stop talking over us sometimes to hear what we were doing! Heaven on earth. One of my top 10 experiences over 45 years' playing at the time. I'm looking forward to getting a better camera so I can record us song by song out live. I think it will be a learning experience as well and some validation for what we do right. ---------- Music and travel destroy prejudice.
Steve Guyger is such a monster harp player. No frills, no BS-- just great music. I feel that he is one of the most underrated players on the scene today. --99
Tasty blues. My kind of blues. Thank you, tmf714. Anyone who hasn't heard it, listen to Steve Guyger's "Snake Oil". Atmospheric blues, tone to die for. Cheers, wolf kristiansen
