I’ve already mentioned that I spend quite a lot of my time participating in ‘thrown together bands’ where a group of guys that may or may not play together – and indeed may or may not even know one another – get onstage and perform for a gig with no rehearsals… and occasionally without ever having met the person or people beforehand.
I’ve been thinking about the best way to prepare for gigs like this for a while, and I stumbled upon a practice routine that seems to get me the most bang for my buck in the last couple of weeks. It involves breaking down my practice into four distinct phases, with each phase being a little more intense than the last – at least until the last one, anyway. Let me go through a typical practice routine to get ready for a ‘cold’ gig.
First Practice – the Completely Unknowns
In order to make it to the first practice, there is only one qualification a song has to have – I have to have never heard of this tune in my life. The first practice is always pretty intense, consisting of first listening to the songs without playing, and then following that up with a playalong session. It goes without saying that – musically, anyway – the first practice is generally horrible. A good, solid session of trying to work though tunes that you don’t know from Adam? Sign me up!
As horrible as these sessions can be, I have gotten to the point that I actually kind of enjoy them. It’s pretty satisfying to know that you’re going to go from THIS – a struggling, dissonant mess – to something that’s going to be at least presentable in just a few short days of focus and work.
Hey – I’ve Heard this Before!
Once the first session is over, I’ll generally go through YouTube and add songs from the set list that I’ve heard before but haven’t yet played. I’m still a relative new Jack on the bass, so this list is still quite long. It’s somewhat comforting to know that as time goes by these sessions will no doubt become shorter and shorter as I get familiar with the repertoires of various groups in the area.
A really cool thing that I’ve found is that if I can get a tune to accurately play in my brain – in my ‘mind’s ear’ – then I can pretty much do a passable rendition of it on the bass. This is a great asset when it comes to this session, which consists of playing all of the songs from the first practice session as well as the ‘heard but never played list.’
Once I’ve played through all of these tunes, I get on YouTube yet again and add the songs for the next phase of practice…
Do ‘Em All!
The third practice session involves every song in the set list, but keep in mind we’ve already done two before this day arrived. In the third session I add the songs that I’ve played at previous gigs or that I already know inside and out from playing at home… the ones that should be the ‘gimmes.’
While this is the longest practice session, it’s also incredibly useful in sorting out the next step of the practice regimen, because as we have gone through the routine thus far we have naturally played the most difficult material three sessions in a row, and have played the unfamiliar but ‘known’ tunes twice by the end of this session… AND I’ve added the songs that should present no problem here at the end just in case I’m not quite as good at them as I might have thought.
Once I’ve finished this third session I should have a really good idea of what tunes are giving me fits and what tunes I can safely say will go well at the event, and that makes it easy to plan the last (and most times final) practice session.
Eh… Better look at these one more time.
By the time the third session is done, it should be pretty obvious which tunes I’m stumbling over and which ones I’m not. The selection process for this one is pretty strict. If I have the SLIGHTEST doubt about whether or not I’m going to nail what I need to nail down then the song makes it to session four. One, maybe two plays through these and I’m generally pretty confident about how the gig is going to go.
Does it always work?
No! Sometimes the numbers are too overwhelming. In fact, between the time I started writing this article and publishing it I got a gig demanding 39 (!) new tunes in the space of three days. I’d done maybe ten of them… MAYBE. I was given charts and wished good luck, then turned up to the gig and… well it was what it was. I went through the practices as outlined above, but on the day of I knew I was still on shaky ground. I lucked out, though, in that the group that hired me didn’t stick to the charts themselves, and played several (many) tunes that were not on the set they sent me. That’s kind of where my comfort zone is musically, and I was able to “fake it ’till I made it’ that time.
Where do I go from here?
I spoke to a buddy of mine – KILLER musician and all ’round good guy Juan Rollan – about the episode with the 39 tunes and three days, and unfortunately for me he let me know that being a musician on a professional level (which I’m not claiming!) means that if charts were provided I was expected to show up and nail the gig even if I’d never seen the charts before. So it looks like that’s room for improvement. While this system will get me through bar gigs, relaxed weddings and the like it’s looking more and more like my next venture in music is going to be (shudder) reading the black dots!
Wish a New Jack some luck!