Timing Problems - Live Rehearsal
varobinson
Sep 15 2014, 02:24 PM
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Hello,

First post here. Question: I have a problem where I play the solos I wrote for my band at home pretty well, to like 90% at least, if not 95%.
When I play try to play them live they can be quite bad, like at 70% quality.

Background: We've been rehearsing various tracks for about a year. I'm not new to playing metal rhthym, only lead guitar playing, and have been working on my chops for leads for a few years. My live experience is minimal except for the rehearsals. This is the first band I've been in since my teens.

I think what is happening is that when playing live at my bands rehearsal is that I've got too much going on in my head when I'm playing and my timing and fine muscle control becomes poor. I don't feel really nervous or anything. I'm vaguely conscious that I've got one take to do it right, that I don't want to mess up and the tempos can be quite fast.

The only partial solution I've had is to tap my foot which helps focus. I don't really know how to clear my head and not overthink.

I assume I just need to get used to playing live and practice more (I do at least an hour a day 7 days a week). Has anyone experienced the same? Any suggestions? It's been immensely frustrating because I feel totally undermined by what's going on in my head despite what I practice at home.

Cheers,
Quentin


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klasaine
Sep 15 2014, 03:05 PM
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Everybody experiences that at some point.

There many things that could be going on.
1) You don't know it as well you think you do. 'Home' is a very comfortable environment, rehearsal isn't necessarily.
2) 90% to 95% perfect isn't perfect. 100% is perfect - with a metronome. You can't expect the rehearsal (or gig) to be 95% until you can nail it 100% every time at (comfortable) home.
3) Do you stand at rehearsal? Do you sit at home?
4) Is the rest of the band playing in perfect time all the time?

*There are some things that maybe just don't work in the context of the live band that may need to be adjusted musically.

This is all 'normal' stuff that everybody deals with.

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varobinson
Sep 15 2014, 05:27 PM
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Thanks for your reply!

For comments 1, 2 -- point taken. I had not expected to be perfect at rehearsal but to use it as 'live practice' to get it to 100% but clearly more practice needed before I leap into it.

I always practice at home standing now, 100% of the time -- have been for 6 mos or so. Before it was both standing and sitting.

Definitely the rest are not perfect. The drummer is not perfect for sure but the backing beat is pretty basic for the solo sections.

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Gabriel Leopardi
Sep 16 2014, 12:18 AM
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Hi friend! Welcome to Guitarmasterclass!! smile.gif

This question is very cool and it's something that we discover once we start playing live with our bands. That's why I always say to my students that a band is like a second music school. There are lot s of things that you learn once you go to the practical moment of playing live with a band. A instructor can give you suggestions but you will really get into it once you start to experiment the real situation. You will discover secrets about guitar tone, technique, image, movements, attitude, things that work, things that not, groove, playing with other people, etc.

Here you are talking about one of the first problems we affront when we start playing with a band live. We are not as comfortable over the stage in front of lots of people than playing sitting down at our bedroom. This is real, this happens and there is nothing to do with it. Maybe you wonder, what's the reason, and the answer is simple, you have a lot of experience playing sitting down at your bedroom and you don't have any experience playing standing up over stage, with a very loud amp, rounded by a noisy drummer, another noisy bassist, a restless, screamy singer and a very judging audience.

The problem will dissapear with practice, with experience, the more you play live, the most comfortable you will feel but the question is what to do until that happens... ok, these are two tricks that can help:

- Over practice the guitar parts until you can play it 110% perfect. You should be able to play the songs even while watching tv. laugh.gif
- Practice in a situation similar to the live one: standing up, with a loud sounding amp, in front of your family or some friends, etc.
- Talking about timing, if tapping with your foot doesn't look cool, use your head to mark the tempo and to feel it while you play the guitar solos, it really helps and it looks cooler. wink.gif
- Finally, play live a lot, until you feel the stage as comfortable as your bedroom but funny as hell! biggrin.gif

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Todd Simpson
Sep 16 2014, 02:27 AM
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Great advice here smile.gif You really will benefit from overpracticing to 110 percent of being able to play. Don't injure your arm, but practice your parts until you could play them upside down, underwater with one hand behind your back.

Not having full command of your parts is begging for problems during rehearsal. Rehearsal isn't practice time. Practice time is practice time. Rehearsal is rehearsing for a live performance. It's the part where everyone gets to together to learn to play off and with each other. If anyone doens't have all their parts, the whole thing doesn't work right. In a gigging band, showing up not knowing your parts can get you kicked out. It's easier jamming with friends typically, but the stakes are the same. E.G. getting in front of an audience and being terrible.


So practice up!! Hit the rehearsal having all your bits backwards and forwards.

Todd



QUOTE (Gabriel Leopardi @ Sep 15 2014, 07:18 PM) *
Hi friend! Welcome to Guitarmasterclass!! smile.gif

This question is very cool and it's something that we discover once we start playing live with our bands. That's why I always say to my students that a band is like a second music school. There are lot s of things that you learn once you go to the practical moment of playing live with a band. A instructor can give you suggestions but you will really get into it once you start to experiment the real situation. You will discover secrets about guitar tone, technique, image, movements, attitude, things that work, things that not, groove, playing with other people, etc.

Here you are talking about one of the first problems we affront when we start playing with a band live. We are not as comfortable over the stage in front of lots of people than playing sitting down at our bedroom. This is real, this happens and there is nothing to do with it. Maybe you wonder, what's the reason, and the answer is simple, you have a lot of experience playing sitting down at your bedroom and you don't have any experience playing standing up over stage, with a very loud amp, rounded by a noisy drummer, another noisy bassist, a restless, screamy singer and a very judging audience.

The problem will dissapear with practice, with experience, the more you play live, the most comfortable you will feel but the question is what to do until that happens... ok, these are two tricks that can help:

- Over practice the guitar parts until you can play it 110% perfect. You should be able to play the songs even while watching tv. laugh.gif
- Practice in a situation similar to the live one: standing up, with a loud sounding amp, in front of your family or some friends, etc.
- Talking about timing, if tapping with your foot doesn't look cool, use your head to mark the tempo and to feel it while you play the guitar solos, it really helps and it looks cooler. wink.gif
- Finally, play live a lot, until you feel the stage as comfortable as your bedroom but funny as hell! biggrin.gif

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Bossie
Sep 16 2014, 08:48 AM
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Yep practice practice.....but!


Sometimes you have to let go the same solo's for a day or two and suddenly you'll hae more benefit then trying all day...

it's weird how sometimes you ty to nail something for days and still ya have trouble...giving it a rest sometimes
can do miracles also...that's what i have experienced in 30 years of playing.

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Cosmin Lupu
Sep 16 2014, 09:44 AM
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Well, the guys have already summed up a lot of important things, so I'll bring in my 2 cents, observed over the years. If at home you can get close to your full potential, at rehearsals you will be close to about 70% and onstage, at about 40% smile.gif These proportions will change in time IF, you gig A LOT and if you become conscious of HOW to prepare for a gig.

- make sure you know your parts with your eyes closed
- make sure you can play standing up and moving also
- make sure you can play as relaxed as possible
- make sure you can play while switching effects
- make sure you have your sound well set on stage - guitar monitoring and also the rest of the instruments - the best thing here, can be in-ear monitoring, but that can be expensive and some folks just don't get along with having them in their ears

Having these things in mind, please take the necessary time to prepare and ask us anything you'd like to know about guitar playing and music. What sort of music do you guys play? Do you have any recordings?

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varobinson
Sep 16 2014, 02:15 PM
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To everyone who replied -- thanks very much! It might have seemed commonsense to some, but honestly I found your replies to be some of the most useful information I've gotten while playing guitar. I feel like I've got a better plan on how to move forward. Cheers!

Cosmin -- we've got a few songs myself and the other guitarist wrote and have rough mixdowns of posted at our site below. Endure and Cold Heart have solos I'm working for live, I had just comped the stuff together and/or recorded them in chunks:

http://www.reverbnation.com/detchord

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klasaine
Sep 16 2014, 04:50 PM
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QUOTE (varobinson @ Sep 16 2014, 06:15 AM) *
To everyone who replied -- thanks very much! It might have seemed commonsense to some, but honestly I found your replies to be some of the most useful information I've gotten while playing guitar. I feel like I've got a better plan on how to move forward. Cheers!


The question(s) you have is the REAL question. How do you make it all work? Or, how come it isn't working?
Learning to 'play' the licks and lines and chords, etc. is the easy part. It's putting it together to make music where the mystery and fascination reside.

As Todd said specifically but the what the rest of us alluded to is that you gotta get those parts mondo perfect at home in your personal practice (and so does everyone else in the band) and then you come to rehearsal to practice how they're going to work together - the performance. *Sometimes stuff needs to get adjusted or even just discarded altogether. No crime in that. Sometimes $h1t don't work. That's apart of the process of writing music (finding what needs to be gotten rid of?).

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This post has been edited by klasaine: Sep 16 2014, 04:51 PM
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SirJamsalot
Sep 16 2014, 06:02 PM
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A few things that come to mind ~

I listened to the first track Beloved Empty and what youi're trying to pull off is not easy - first of all, the timing of your solo/riffs is on the heels of back-beats, and often times, you have entire bars with no drums that you have to meet up with in-time when the drummer comes back in.

On an album, it's easy to do this because the drummer is recorded and there for consistent *every time* you record a section. Live, however, you both are listening to each other, and where drummers sometimes fall is listening too much and trying to compensate for where they think you will be, as opposed to trusting you will actually be there even if you have to drop a note to do so! Playing live is a trust relationship for a drummer, and as a guitarist you have to earn that trust.

1. From what I can tell, you aren't soloing to simple rhythms, and sometimes the rhythm is completely at rest while you go on, waiting to meet you at the next bar, which means you both have to practice together *alot* to gain trust such that he doesn't pause or speed up to where he thinks you will be if he fears you are ahead or behind.

2. Instead of practicing the entire song end-to-end, I would pull out sections to work on and "loop them" live, if you know what I mean, then add time before and after that live practice "loop".

This stuff is not easy - it can be hours of practice together for every minute on stage, the more complex the rhythm, and fewer places in the song where things repeat.

Chris


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Cosmin Lupu
Sep 17 2014, 08:14 AM
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QUOTE (varobinson @ Sep 16 2014, 01:15 PM) *
To everyone who replied -- thanks very much! It might have seemed commonsense to some, but honestly I found your replies to be some of the most useful information I've gotten while playing guitar. I feel like I've got a better plan on how to move forward. Cheers!

Cosmin -- we've got a few songs myself and the other guitarist wrote and have rough mixdowns of posted at our site below. Endure and Cold Heart have solos I'm working for live, I had just comped the stuff together and/or recorded them in chunks:

http://www.reverbnation.com/detchord


Hey mate smile.gif I listened to a few songs - you guys sound tight! Good tones and playing and complex groovy rhythms. I am very curious to hear the solos recorded, so when you have the time, throw in a version my way - regardless of how rough it is smile.gif I'm curious to see how you think in terms of lead playing and how you fare with the playing itself. We can work on further developing your skills in this direction if you are interested, so lemme know what your thoughts are, ok?

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klasaine
Sep 17 2014, 03:06 PM
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More instructive would be to actually hear the 'live' (rehearsal) version of those tunes.

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Gabriel Leopardi
Sep 17 2014, 06:17 PM
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QUOTE (varobinson @ Sep 16 2014, 10:15 AM) *
To everyone who replied -- thanks very much! It might have seemed commonsense to some, but honestly I found your replies to be some of the most useful information I've gotten while playing guitar. I feel like I've got a better plan on how to move forward. Cheers!

Cosmin -- we've got a few songs myself and the other guitarist wrote and have rough mixdowns of posted at our site below. Endure and Cold Heart have solos I'm working for live, I had just comped the stuff together and/or recorded them in chunks:

http://www.reverbnation.com/detchord



yeah! as I said previously this is a normal thing that we have to deal with. I'm checking your tracks and let me say that it sounds very powerful and complex. You must need a lot of concentration to play this stuff live. Solos are also complex, fast and irregular. Riffing sounds adjusted, however guitar solos still have some room to sound cleaner based on the recordings that you shared. Have you noted it?


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Cosmin Lupu
Sep 18 2014, 07:46 AM
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QUOTE (klasaine @ Sep 17 2014, 02:06 PM) *
More instructive would be to actually hear the 'live' (rehearsal) version of those tunes.


Ken is right smile.gif You should record the solos over the backing tracks as at the rehearsal room, I guess it would be more difficult to record because of the high volume. Playing over the backing at the original speed will help us see what you need to work on, in order to improve them. What do you say, mate? smile.gif

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varobinson
Sep 20 2014, 10:11 PM
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@SirJamsalot -- thanks for listening! Right -- on that song (which I didn't write and not sure if it will have a solo) there's some tricky timing. I would never write odd rhythms for solos to go over. And yeah -- I always loop sections of solos as a practice routine at home but hadn't thought of looping them live at rehearsal if that's what you are suggesting. The drummer has offered to meet up with just me on the side to work on stuff so maybe that's something to do.

@Klasaine -- we've not recorded stuff lately at rehearsal. We plan to shortly, however. My solos are terrible live, at least the hard parts. I rush everything because I think I am not confident nor have them down as they should be at home. So much so I'm gonna let the other guitarist take all the leads for now heh.

@Cosmin -- thanks for your feedback and listening as well. Most of the solos I recorded are on that site (Endure, Cold Heart and Jackal Cave are examples). I most admire Marty Friedman. As far as thoughts for soloing: I find myself starting around phrygian dominant/tritone/diminished (like unfortunately too many other people in metal) and try to break out of that mode. Trying not to think of scales/modes too much -- whatever works over the riff.

@Gabriel -- thank you for listening! Yes I'm aware some parts of the solos are not as clean as they should be. Quite true. When recording the rough tracks sometime I just want to get the idea recorded or I run out of time to get it perfect as they are just demo tracks. My wife will yell at me to stop playing typically.

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Cosmin Lupu
Sep 21 2014, 09:00 PM
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Hey mate - usually, to break out of something, you can try a few things such as:

- try to play some other styles from which you can later on borrow elements
- learn different scales and modes which you can then implement in your songs
- learn some songs which are going in the direction you like and see what you can take from them as well smile.gif

Anyway, I am running a mentoring program which you can find more about, here:

https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...t=0&start=0

... if you are interested, please let me know and we can begin working together wink.gif

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