# Question about first time playing live



## Mechanix11 (Mar 28, 2012)

Hi, well during spring break im gonna do my first gig with my band, and well the guy who let us to play give us 30 mins to play (seems good to us) and well we made our setlist about 2 songs by us and 5 covers of Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica. Well i have some questions about learning the solos of the songs, and its, it is OK to improvise the solos instead of learning them note by note?
And also i would appreciate some advices for the first gig

Thanks In Advance


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## 7Mic7 (Mar 28, 2012)

It depends on your standards man. If you saw a cover band playing songs you knew , would it be ok for you to hear that they are not 100% accurate ?
Hell even kirk hammet can't play his shit anymore haha!

Give your self a chance anyway, juste have fun and dont pretend to be somebody you're not and everythings is gonna be all right!


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## Mechanix11 (Mar 28, 2012)

yeah thanks, unless the show was posponed to another moth so i would have chances to practice the solos and other stuff


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## guy in latvia (Mar 28, 2012)

its pretty simple, play the most memorable parts of the solos as are, and improvise in between. Most people will never know the difference. Ive done this on many occasions when I just don't think the original solo is interesting enough or parts of it are too difficult/awkward to play.

Keep in mind, this is your first time live, you're going to be very nervous, so don't expect to nail anything too crazy, and be easy on yourself when you screw up, just keep playing and forget it ever happened!


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## Nyx Erebos (Mar 28, 2012)

I wasn't nervous at all for my first live so don't get shaky and enjoy the moment.

Concerning the band you mentioned, most of their solos aren't very good imo so improvising could give better results.


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## Kwirk (Mar 28, 2012)

Loop your guitar cable through your strap before you plug it in to your guitar.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Mar 28, 2012)

guy in latvia said:


> its pretty simple, play the most memorable parts of the solos as are, and improvise in between.



^^ this - its what i do for the harder/longer solos. You don't want to give up on a song just because you haven't taken the 4 months to work on a lick that 12 people in the world can play note for note.


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## Mechanix11 (Mar 28, 2012)

> ts pretty simple, play the most memorable parts of the solos as are, and improvise in between.


sounds a very good way to do the solos, im gonna try to learn it note by note, and if something seems to me very difficult i think im gonna improvise a bit


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## Mechanix11 (Mar 31, 2012)

well our bassist told us about a little gig (about 3 songs we gonna play) on next friday so we gonna practice a lot, the only problem is that not to many of band mates can go to some places and its the drummer which has the problem, so its there anyway to practice or in which one house to practice? also we decided to go to a studio to rehearsal and everyone gonna practice his part in his house.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Mar 31, 2012)

have everyone get their parts down on their own time. Then when you get together it should just be a case of syncing up. You dont wanna be wasting everyone's time teaching one member a part.

Just use the drummers house for practice - that's in the drummer job description!!


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## Mechanix11 (Mar 31, 2012)

vbshredder said:


> have everyone get their parts down on their own time. Then when you get together it should just be a case of syncing up. You dont wanna be wasting everyone's time teaching one member a part.
> 
> Just use the drummers house for practice - that's in the drummer job description!!


sounds to be a good idea
thanks


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## KingAenarion (Apr 1, 2012)

I've been running this theme of "Top 10 tips" recently, so here I go.

KingAenarion's Top 10 Tips for playing live.

1) Know your songs! The better you know them, the easier it will be to deal with stuff ups.

2) Don't stop or pull faces if you make a mistake. It draws attention to the mistake. Keep playing, keep going. The show must go on.

3) Bring spare cables, strings, picks, drumsticks. Maybe a spare guitar or two if you like. 

4) Make sure you have everything before you leave to go to the gig. Make a checklist. Go over each instrument and think of EVERY LITTLE THING YOU WILL NEED. Write it down, make sure you bring it. The amount of times I've played with musicians who've forgotten a power supply or a whammy bar or whatever is ridiculous.

5) Be nice to the sound guy and listen to him unless he come across as an absolute idiot. Even then, be nice to him. He can make you sound good or terrible.

6) Things don't need to be ear-piercingly loud. Turn your guitar amps down. Nobody in the audience really cares about your boutique guitar amp's tone when the power amp valves are pushed hard. Use common sense and decency when setting your amps levels. Let the sound guy control how loud the amp is rather than having to turn the drums up to match your amps volume.

7) Don't drink lots of alcohol. Anyone who tells you they play better drunk is an idiot. A drink or two can relax you, but a lot just makes you THINK you play better. Smack your singer around the head if he drinks alcohol at all. While he's on stage he should be drinking room temperature water and that's probably it unless it's like Tea. He doesn't want to damage his vocal chords and a great way to do that is to drink and then sing with dehydrated and numbed vocal chords.

8) Have a tuner on stage. Do not tune by ear (particularly with distortion), it is obnoxious and unprofessional. It also allows you to tune in the middle of a song if you go out.

9) Shit will go wrong and nothing will be perfect. Learn to accept that. It might be bad foldback, scratchy guitar cables, a sick vocalist, a dickhead soundguy, a noisy PA, a band before you who takes forever to get their shit offstage. Take it graciously and don't panic. Stay calm and deal with the issue as best you can and move on.

10) Turn up when the venue asks you to turn up, bring as many people as you can. Being seen as reliable and someone who brings people will get you more gigs.


Final piece of advice - have fun! Enjoy the experience!


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 1, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> I've been running this theme of "Top 10 tips" recently, so here I go.
> 
> KingAenarion's Top 10 Tips for playing live.
> 
> ...


thats the best replie i got in this post
yeah seriously i got VERY nervous before the show and i would drink some drink to chill out, also i would keep in mind that, wrong things can happen and well i can learn from errors.


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## Ryan-ZenGtr- (Apr 1, 2012)

Promotion is the lifeblood of music... But onto practical advice, KingAenarion did a good job, as always!

All I'd like to add is, be realistic in your expectations, prepare for every eventuality and remember, fold back mixes always suck! 

What you hear onstage is definitely not what the audience hears out front.

There's lots of tabs online for learning popular music, so perhaps you could try learning the solo's from that. It's great for learning covers quickly and with minimal effort. GuitarPro and PowerTab are good examples.


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 1, 2012)

yeah and i practice at the moment the songs, and yeah i would be prepared for anything that happens, i know the firsts gigs are not perfects but well, my band and i we are starting to play live


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## JStraitiff (Apr 1, 2012)

On the solos since this is your first gig, i second playing the most memorable parts and improvising in between. I dont know where you are playing but i doubt people know the solos that well. even if they do they are going to be more impressed if you play something fluid pretty well rather than if you totally fall on your face playing it the recorded way. Malmsteen never plays the same solo twice and i know a lot of other artists personally who do the same thing. If executed correctly the crowd will find it interesting to hear a new spin on their favorite song.

When you do mess up just keep following the tune in your head and pick up as fast as you can and just keep playing. Try to ignore the terror you are feeling, just keep playing. lol


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 2, 2012)

JStraitiff said:


> On the solos since this is your first gig, i second playing the most memorable parts and improvising in between. I dont know where you are playing but i doubt people know the solos that well. even if they do they are going to be more impressed if you play something fluid pretty well rather than if you totally fall on your face playing it the recorded way. Malmsteen never plays the same solo twice and i know a lot of other artists personally who do the same thing. If executed correctly the crowd will find it interesting to hear a new spin on their favorite song.
> 
> When you do mess up just keep following the tune in your head and pick up as fast as you can and just keep playing. Try to ignore the terror you are feeling, just keep playing. lol


alright im gonna keep in mind that, and im gonna play in the house of my bassist friend, and well i think not too much people gonna be there, also we are going to play 3 songs only (2 covers and one of our songs) so this would be a little gig


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## CTID (Apr 4, 2012)

You'll always start off with shorter sets when you're just starting to play shows. That's how both of my bands started off, we were playing 15-20 minute sets at first but a few shows down the road where we got better and had a better following we were given 25-30, etc. The better you get the more people are going to want to see/hear you play, the more time you're going to be given on stage.


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 5, 2012)

yeah also we practice all the band (but except the vocalist, he cant came up) so we played very well seriously, but out rhythm guitarist is like he always is fooling around and that stuff and we are out of tempo but well its the first time we play one of our songs with drums and the other things (guitar and bass), also we have like some shows next month and in july so this is gonna be a good year


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## WarMachine (Apr 5, 2012)

Everything that has been said is 100% right dude. Take all this in and roll with it. And if you start to get nervous, dazzle the crowd with some playing and as SOON as you hear the roar, your fear or nervousness turns into a controlled PURE ADRENALINE RUSH!!! Have fun with it man, if you dont have fun with it, the people in the crowd wont either! Play like you're opening for Megadeth! Give it hell!!!


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 5, 2012)

thats is pure motivation man


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## bob123 (Apr 5, 2012)

Word of advice, minus the die hard fans of their respective bands, no one really cares about anything in the audience.


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## WarMachine (Apr 9, 2012)

bob123 said:


> Word of advice, minus the die hard fans of their respective bands, no one really cares about anything in the audience.


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## fassaction (Apr 10, 2012)

Nyx Erebos said:


> I wasn't nervous at all for my first live so don't get shaky and enjoy the moment.
> 
> Concerning the band you mentioned, most of their solos aren't very good imo so improvising could give better results.



lol, I threw up before my first show.

I was new vocalist for a group of veterans that had been in the music scene for a while. Place was packed and I was nervous as shit...as soon as that first note hit on the intro track it all went away though!


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## Painhawg (Apr 10, 2012)

You are about to do what a butt-ton of people want to do, but never do. Enjoy it! Have a good time! Good luck to you, and I hope it's all that you want to be.


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 10, 2012)

yeah but i think it gonna be i dont know, well the thing is that when we play instead it listens the song it sounds like a 9 year old is trying to play some metalcore stuff, and the think is that the rhythm guitarist dont play very well, all he do is like sounds..... not good and i dont know what to do seriously. Also is my friend and i dont wanna let him leave the band, he is good but i dont know why he play somekind bad


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## Nyx Erebos (Apr 10, 2012)

fassaction said:


> lol, I threw up before my first show.
> 
> I was new vocalist for a group of veterans that had been in the music scene for a while. Place was packed and I was nervous as shit...as soon as that first note hit on the intro track it all went away though!



I guess we're all different. Nobody in my group was nervous but it was just for fun, it's not really a "serious" band. And the hardest song we had to play was van halen's pretty woman, though the drummer went crazy and sped it up, I was focused on my fretboard the whole song . The best advice I could give is master the song. If you can play them perfectly you'll have all the fun you could have .


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 11, 2012)

mhh i got some bad news
Thanks that the guys which organized the gig changed the rules of the festival, we cannot play there, so everyone thanks for your advices and well i think i gonna use this time to keep practicing my guitar playing.


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## asher (Apr 13, 2012)

Mechanix11 said:


> mhh i got some bad news
> Thanks that the guys which organized the gig changed the rules of the festival, we cannot play there, so everyone thanks for your advices and well i think i gonna use this time to keep practicing my guitar playing.



How's that work out? What happened?


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## Brohoodofsteel75 (Apr 13, 2012)

<object width="400" height="300" ><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.facebook.com/v/2470326448573" /><embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/2470326448573" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="300"></embed></object>

My first show, we messed up badly as you can tell. Just don't think about it. The people of the stage are just normal people and even if you mess up nobody cares.

http://www.facebook.com/BorneVisions 
First video.


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## Force (Apr 14, 2012)

KingAenarion said:


> 6) Things don't need to be ear-piercingly loud. Turn your guitar amps down. Nobody in the audience really cares about your boutique guitar amp's tone when the power amp valves are pushed hard. Use common sense and decency when setting your amps levels. Let the sound guy control how loud the amp is rather than having to turn the drums up to match your amps volume.



This is true........sadly. It all depends on the venue.

Never have I gigged & heard a single note I played. With a place full of drunks it's not crucial, but I still like to put in my best performance, hard to do when you don't exist in the mix.

As stated, the most important thing is enjoy yourself coz it is great fun.


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## Mechanix11 (Apr 17, 2012)

asher said:


> How's that work out? What happened?


Well, my bassist told me like 2 days before that the some new organizers put some new "rules" and changed the place of the festival.
So in the "rules" said that prohibited metal and "core" bands, only some kind pop and rock bands(like that kind of Foo Fighters and that stuff that is not to heavy) are admitted, so we decided to continue practicing to play better and star ready for a next gig that i think is gonna be in May .

And also i think at the moment we need to play better our instruments and get better amps, because we only have like 15-30W amps lol


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