Grateful Dead Music Forum

did this ever happen to you?

I was listening to a recording of a gig my band did last month. We were all hot and heavy into a jam and I played an incredible lick. I dont know how I did it or that I ever played that lick before. You know how it is when you are just improvising.

Maybe it was some fluke but it was a lick I would think was beyond my level of expertise. That being said, it came from me so I KNOW I can play it!

Now I want to be able to play it again so I have to put the recording on and learn it! I have to get the recording from another band member. I dont even have it and I am dying to learn it!

ya know it's funny jack - I read your post and when I got to the part about wanting to learn the lick I had to laugh. I'd gone through the same thing a while back - listened back and really thought I nailed something and said to myself "I gotta learn that to do it again". What I've found for me is that it's difficult for me to plop a "rehearsed" lick in the middle of an otherwise wholly improvised line and have it sound right. I've tried it a few times until I've kinda come to the conclusion that since I came up with it in the first place I outta just trust myself to come up with something new and interesting again - and I think that approach has paid off. For me.

That being said I do keep in mind, how do I say this, 'structural ideas' that I will work from that seem to reap dividends. Now I do at times play the same or similar licks in songs at times, but because I occasionally lean on patterns or lines that are kinda ingrained in my head (and fingers!) - this I'd like to get away from.

So what I'm getting at I suppose is trust - you did it - trust that you can do it again. That being said there's nothing wrong with learning that lick to be played again. I don't mean to infer that.

It's funny - we have a bit of a running joke in our band - once we listen back to something that we thought was lousy, we find it's never as bad as we had thought in the moment. Not to say we don't have some serious screw ups from time to time - structurally, missing changes etc. - but the general quality of our jamming almost always sounds better to me when I listen back than when it's happening in the moment.

We're learning to trust ourselves, individually and collectively.

Billbbill wrote:It's funny - we have a bit of a running joke in our band - once we listen back to something that we thought was lousy, we find it's never as bad as we had thought in the moment. Not to say we don't have some serious screw ups from time to time - structurally, missing changes etc. - but the general quality of our jamming almost always sounds better to me when I listen back than when it's happening in the moment.

In sports, they say "You're almost never as bad as they say you are when they say you stink, and you are almost never as good as they say you are when they say you are great." This is probably somewhat applicable to bands too, if for no other reason than the average audience member doesn't know as much about the intricacies of a song as those playing it do. What you think sounds bad, most of the audience won't even notice, and sadly, when you really nail a lick perfectly and it sounds great, probably most of the average audience will miss that too. I think it is also human nature when trying hard to play great to focus more on what you could have done better than on what came easily and fit well, so there will always be a "hey, that stunk" bias.

Billbbill wrote:
It's funny - we have a bit of a running joke in our band - once we listen back to something that we thought was lousy, we find it's never as bad as we had thought in the moment.

+1
it always sucks after the jam ; after a week or two I love it...
Right Fretful Dave ?

Tennessee Jedi wrote:

Billbbill wrote:
It's funny - we have a bit of a running joke in our band - once we listen back to something that we thought was lousy, we find it's never as bad as we had thought in the moment.

+1
it always sucks after the jam ; after a week or two I love it...
Right Fretful Dave ?

Yup, TJ. Always the case... guilty until proven innocent. I always listen immediately after the jam, which can be difficult cause I just finished playing a couple hours earlier. And I usually listen a few times before I break out the songs on the recording. each time you listen it seems to get better.

Regarding the licks, yeah I've heard stuff that it seems like I couldn't have played but still it managed to emerge somehow. I remember one in particular where my old band was accelerating the tempo continually during my turn for a solo on Big River, iirc and I pulled off a run that I think was the fastest thing I ever played. They were trying to make me screw up (laughing their asses off of course as I tried to keep up). I hung in but I am not sure I could ever do it again. I think trusting yourself is where its at as Billbbill says but I think some will be repeatable and some not necessarily. Sometimes the goodness just happens, imo.

ymmv

Dave