"Are we not men?" We are...
Devo? No, we are jukeboxes, apparently.
I do not expect people wholly unconnected with music to understand what goes in to learning and performing songs. But I DO expect people who think they can make a living at singing to understand that musicians are not jukeboxes or karaoke machines, ready to spit out whatever harebrained song you feel like singing, and NO, not everyone WANTS to hear Workin' for the Weekend.
Musicians work very hard to learn a body of music. We practice, we study, we rehearse with other musicians. (Last evening, for example, we had a vocal rehearsal for our own band to begin learning some new material - we worked for 4 hours picking apart, arranging, and rehearsing vocal parts for 3 songs. Hard songs, but 3 songs.) If we are any good, we have a sense of what will work with a crowd, and if we're really good we can build a successful set list.
My dear hubby is one of the best rock guitar players alive. Damn, he's better than most of the dead ones, too. :-) And no, I'm not saying that just because I have love-goggles on; he really is that good. Consequently, he gets called a lot to do sessions and recordings. Today was such a day.
He goes to record for a woman he's actually worked with before. The previous time they worked together, this "singer" had to be schooled for not preparing, for not being able to tell the band what she wanted, and for deciding right before she went on that she wanted to sing something else and "what do you mean you don't know it?" Did she learn? LOL! You know the answer to that...
Back to today... hubby is there and is trying to find a sound that will fit the bill. The singer says, "No, that's a little to "rock" for me. Why don't you just scroll through the sounds and I'll pick one." He looks at the guitar, the cord, and the amp (no effects, and certainly nothing digital to "scroll" through) and wiggles his fingers at her.
She didn't get it. *headdesk*
And people wonder why I don't work more...
I do not expect people wholly unconnected with music to understand what goes in to learning and performing songs. But I DO expect people who think they can make a living at singing to understand that musicians are not jukeboxes or karaoke machines, ready to spit out whatever harebrained song you feel like singing, and NO, not everyone WANTS to hear Workin' for the Weekend.
Musicians work very hard to learn a body of music. We practice, we study, we rehearse with other musicians. (Last evening, for example, we had a vocal rehearsal for our own band to begin learning some new material - we worked for 4 hours picking apart, arranging, and rehearsing vocal parts for 3 songs. Hard songs, but 3 songs.) If we are any good, we have a sense of what will work with a crowd, and if we're really good we can build a successful set list.
My dear hubby is one of the best rock guitar players alive. Damn, he's better than most of the dead ones, too. :-) And no, I'm not saying that just because I have love-goggles on; he really is that good. Consequently, he gets called a lot to do sessions and recordings. Today was such a day.
He goes to record for a woman he's actually worked with before. The previous time they worked together, this "singer" had to be schooled for not preparing, for not being able to tell the band what she wanted, and for deciding right before she went on that she wanted to sing something else and "what do you mean you don't know it?" Did she learn? LOL! You know the answer to that...
Back to today... hubby is there and is trying to find a sound that will fit the bill. The singer says, "No, that's a little to "rock" for me. Why don't you just scroll through the sounds and I'll pick one." He looks at the guitar, the cord, and the amp (no effects, and certainly nothing digital to "scroll" through) and wiggles his fingers at her.
She didn't get it. *headdesk*
And people wonder why I don't work more...