Hi All,

I just was thinking about one thing I heard once ago and wanted to share it here with you guys who surely have
live playing experience. I think Steve Vai said it in one of his interviews. Or was it Satriani? Well doesn't matter, because each one of them certainly must know.

When asked about readiness to play live in front of a huge audience, the statement was as follows:
If you decide to play a particular song, you for sure have to know it but that is not enough. You should
have assimilated it and if not wanting to experience a complete desaster on stage, you should of course
be able to play it completely drunk. I mean, I understand that, because it's not sufficient to have 'balls' to
get out on stage only. For instance, I would never get on stage with a song I just learnt the day before and out of ten trials managed to play it maybe three times correct, five times so-so, and two times with obvious mistakes. Would that be
odds you would take to go out on stage?

Now Vai (or Satriani) said, you need to be at least five times more skillful player than the audience is watching on stage.
Well I've seen Vai a couple of times ... and now I try to imagine there actually stands a five times more skillful player then I get to see.

What do you think of yourselves? Do you show everything on stage you have, or are there songs/licks/solos you just learnt two weeks ago and maybe they work really good, but, agh, you just don't feel ready to perform it yet. But you know deep inside - you are better than you on stage.

Stay tuned!

I am still a relatively novice player, and I wouldn't play anything on-stage yet. Unless I was just strumming chords maybe.

But yes I completely I agree with the quote. I believe some other great guitarist once said (not sure who, maybe Satch or Vai ) once said something like

"Don't play it until you get it right, play it until you can't get it wrong"

I am still very limited in the stuff I can't get wrong. When I am, erm, intoxicated, and I pick up my guitar, the only thing that I can do well strum chords, and the few warm-up licks that I play all the time.


I am hesitant to agree with the last part of this, because you may be able to push your limits, and play that solo you just learned 1 week ago, but you probably can't put all the feeling into it that you should be able to while playing live. So I would not count these "abilities" among the stuff that I can do as a guitarist.... YET

This post has been edited by Ctodd: Feb 26 2009, 06:03 PM

it´s true!!!

well, in my case, I practice with my band twice a week for many hours each day, and every day (always I can offcourse) I practice the songs I will play live.
I never practice songs I wont play live because it´s a waste of time.
that´s what I ask to do to the members of my band too.

This post has been edited by Lian Gerbino: Feb 26 2009, 07:52 PM

Whilst knowing a piece so well that you don't have to think about it because it is engrained in to your muscle memory is good this isn't such a good idea. You are more likely to develop bad muscle routines if you are inebriated yet not be aware of the mistakes.

I don't think anyone is advocating drinking to excess but from the forum posting guidelines as a gentle reminder:

7. Keep it Legal. Posts should not refer to illegal activities such as drug use, illegal file sharing, pirating of software etc. For a discussion of why GMC disallows some of these activities see this thread.

Whilst not illegal, GMC also does not condone excessive alcohol consumption and will edit or remove posts that encourage or glorify it.

Tony - on behalf of and for the moderating team

Stevie Ray Vaughan was a raging alcoholic - something tells me his 'muscle memory' was fine.

Perhaps you missed the 'more likely' part of my comment Fatb0t?

Regardless of his being a 'raging alcoholic' it still is not a good enough reason to advocate alcohol abuse. See the forum posting guidelines I inserted and that you have quoted above.

Are you accusing me of advocating alcohol abuse?

No Alen - as I said:

'I don't think anyone is advocating drinking to excess but from the forum posting guidelines as a gentle reminder...'.

I am reminding all of the forum guidelines because the thread, due to the quote, has a potential to transgress them. That is part of my role as a member of the moderating team.
Tony

mmmm, more than practice the proper order is 1st understand the song (structure, discursive etc), then decide what you want to say , then figure out propper fingeings, techniques and most important PROPPER MOVEMENTS, as soon you figure it out playing slow then you go inmediatelly to tempo, with phrasing and all other stuff you want to say on stage, there is no magic, on stage wont happen anything different than at home, o we can admit certain error posiblilities for about 2% for profesionals (if you got a passage that doesnt got that porcentage of acuraccy playing on time, you have to go back and cheack what you are doing wrong). Have fun.

This is the first and last time I will talk about this in an open forum section, the rules are pretty clear althoug Im no moderator.
About the alcohol isuee, I thing it is an expresion about how good you must know your stuff, genius abusing on alcohol still are alcoholic genius and mediocre abusing alcohol are still alcoholic mediocre players. You can try seaching on google about Frank Zappas opinion on this topic.....Peace.

Moderator comments are NOT up for public disputing or funny remarks! They are there to keep things in order and anyone trying to undermine a moderator's authority while doing his or her work will have to be prepared to take it all the way to the finishline!!
Don't take moderator matters in public. PM a moderator if there are any questions!

This post has been edited by MickeM: Mar 2 2009, 05:42 PM

It is a very good point this, if a player plays all his passages perfect you just think "wow hes great!" but if you found out that that player was just going through the motions would you feel cheated? On the other hand if a player is really pushing the envelope and then drops a few bum notes the audience might think "wow, hes lost it!" without realising the guy was really going for it and right at the limit of physical possibilities. Personally I dont know what would be worse as a guitarist, i suppose stage shows are ultimately about the spectacle and the expectation, look what happened to Hendrix, as soon as he wanted to move his music on from the famous stuff he got jeered at by the crowd, and this was Hendrix!!
At the end of the day music is a commodity that we pay to see, if that commodity is sub-standard or even perceived as being sub-standard then nobody would buy it, simple as that, and i think thats the point that this piece was trying to get across, that even super human players still stay within safe limits in the name of professionalism.

As for being drunk, I can barely find my backside with both hands after a few beers, let alone play a guitar!

That's an exagerated thing to say in my point of view, people practise until they get it right and can't possibly make mistakes, atleast, that's what they think...People always makes mistakes, so if I make a mistake that would mean I suck? No it means I didn't practise enough or maybe It just happened...If I play everything good that means I rock or am even better than what you think? Of Course not, who says I won't screw up the next time or who says I wasn't struggling just because I made funny faces?

I hope you understand what I mean

Direct statement like "player needs to be 5 times better off stage then on stage" is a very subjective opinion. In general player must be confident in what he is playing on stage, and that comes through experience. Experienced professional players can and sometimes have to come on the stage with little preparations, sometimes just reading straight out of the sheet of music. Of course, serious preparation is very important, specially for serious performances, and usually the biggest amount of work that a guitar player does is before, not on a gig.

Using alcohol to determine if you are capable of playing something on stage is something that is very untrue, and not recommended, cause you simply can't prepare yourself or do serious work like that.