i'll start off by saying that the past 2 months have been really rough for me and my focus, discipline, and practice has really suffered. i lost cucs, daddy's big little girl, and that really derailed me in all ways. he was the sweetiest ever ever. i miss him every day.
the songs themselves are not terribly difficult but there were some things that were tricky for me. for starters, they're way faster than what i'm used to playing. secondly, a lot of the songs use that common syncopated punk drum beat that i just loathe. i've never liked it. i don't like the sound of it and i've never understood it. by that i mean i've always had a hard time feeling the beat. i always locked on to the backbeat and felt that as the pulse and so i was always off by a beat. no matter what i did, 2 bars into it i'd be off. i decided i was going to get this thing sorted out, i mean, i'd have to before the show.
about half of the first song was of that beat so i had to face it immediately. i spent about 2 weeks with it dialed down to about 50% trying to feel it and it just wasn't happening. it's one of those beats that sound entirely different at different speeds so it's not just that beat just faster, it really just becomes a whole different thing at a certain tempo. well i struggled with it. then one day i had it up around 80% and it just popped into place. suddenly i just felt the downbeat. my entire perception of that beat shifted and i understood it in a new way that i had never been able to hear it before. granted, it was still fast and that was tricky for me, but i now had a sense of direction. i knew where the pulse was and could navigate the rhythm. if i learned nothing else from the songs i'd already have considered this a win.
the next thing that proved to be a little tricky, mostly because of the speed was most chord changes happen on the "a's" which gives everything a forward leaning anxious feel. i've put my time in on my subs but at that speed it was tricky to consistently nail the changes. i had 6 weeks to get it hammered out, though.
most of the songs were in the same key and used almost identical progressions so it was easy to get confused and forget which progression was for which song. in the 2.5 practices we had before the show even the other guys that have been listening to these songs for 20 years were getting confused so i didn't feel too bad about it.
i did my homework. every day for an hour or more first thing in the morning i was working on nothing but these songs. i was doing the work. i put the time in, learned the difficult rhythm, learned the changes, learned the riffs, and got everything up to the original recorded tempos. i felt really good about my work. and then i got to practice.
okay, so for this next part i do not mean any of this is any sort of disparaging way, to each their own. i fully understand that we're all on our own musical journeys and not everyone has the same focus, tastes, chops, or what have you. everyone is right where they are and that's totally fine. it's just to me it was an open-handed reality slap right in my mouf.
when i got to practice and we launched into the first song we must have been playing it at least 10% faster than how i had practiced it, so it was way fast. all the work i had put into feeling the downbeats, learning where to place the subs, how to nail the changes, went right out the window. it was follow the leader, hang on for dear life, and i felt like i was about to fall off the tightrope at any second, or whatever metaphor for having no control you'd like to use. the rest of the practice session was pretty much more of the same. when i left i actually felt terrible about my playing and was really bummed out for several days.
the next practice session came along and it was the same story with the second half of the set. just approximate the riffs, kinda hit the accents, and get to the end of the song was the best i could hope for. i left feeling as bummed out as the first day. i had done all this practicing and i felt like i did 20 years ago... just sort of muddling my way through the songs. i had no control over my playing and it felt like shit.
the day of the gig rolled around and i had a small amount of pre-gig jitters, as was to be expected. the band before us finished and we loaded onto the stage. when we kicked off the first song i'm positive the drummer was playing literally as fast as he could play the song. it was outrageously fast and caught me off guard. again, it was just hang on, make some noise and hope the accents were in about the right spots. the whole set was like that. i packed up and headed home. people loved the set and apparently we had gotten lots of compliments. the other guys certainly had fun too, so by all accounts it was a success.
i didn't feel good though. i drove home and digested the evening. i chalked it up as it is what it is. but what was it that bothered me? it was the drums. the drummer is good, he has chops, he's played in a lot of bands over the years and did some touring with some of them. but what i realized is i'm not used to playing with a live drummer. i've spend the past several years with a metronome or a drum track with perfect time and have been working on my own sense of time and rhythm. i am not used to playing with a drummer that has their own sense of time and rhythm and that's what really threw me. playing with other people is as much a skill as whatever fancy technique you have in your toolbox.
i mean, we had only a few short practices before the show, i had never played with them before, and i had not played with any other musicians in literally years, so honestly, what did i expect? all things considered, it probably went exactly the way it ever would have gone. the more i though about it the more it seemed fine to me.
however, the more i though about it the more it became clear that that is not fun for me. i've spent years learning all the things about music that i didn't know before. i've spent a lot of time with the metronome and drum tracks working on my rhythm and my internal sense of time. i've spent a lot of time learning how to feel the pulse and how all the subdivisions feel against it. i get so much physical pleasure out of laying into a groove and just feeling everything lock into place. it gives me a foundation to play on and a compass to navigate the rhythm. without it i lose my physical connection to the music and honestly am lost within the song. i never thought it would be such an integral part of the music experience for me, but here it is and i don't want to music without it.
so where does that leave me? i don't know. will i play with people again? yeah, for sure, but i will approach it with a large grain of salt. nobody i ever play with will play with a click track or have a really solid sense of time to the point where i can really get on board and lock it. i just know it and it is what it is. i think though, that my space will be behind the record button. i probably will be much happier in a controlled environment and that's just me. some people are the opposite and just want to rock as hard and fast as they can. to them i say "rock on". if there is one takeaway from this experience it is that i have a better understanding of myself and how i like to music and how i don't like to music. to each their own.
