Alright, my first blog, and I've been a UG member since... 2003? Jesus christ. To be fair, this feature has only been up for less than half a year or so. Even so, I'd only consider myself an "active" member for the past 3 years.
*** WALL OF TEXT WARNING***
I don't know how many of you have auditioned for bands before (more rock/metal type bands, not jazz ensembles or orchestras), but I'm finding it to be a really tedious process.
Here's a brief history of Dan's Failed Bands:
Grade 10 - A bunch of my friends started to pick up guitar. I already played piano for 8 years or so (but by no means virtuosic), and I felt like the Asian "loser" who plays keys and such. Yet, I didn't want to be a follower, so I picked up the bass.
It's not just the fact that my friends were jamming together and I wanted in (although it's a major factor), but I was always drawn to the groove and low, manly tone of the bass (boy did that sound homoerotic).
Grade 11 - Formed a rock band - Undertow - w/ 2 guitarist friends, a drummer friend, and a singer. The drummer and singer were the weakest points of our band, but we didn't let that stop us from writing 10 songs and playing in Supernova Battle of the Bands events. We lost all of them.
I guess it hurt our ego, so we had a time where we kicked out the singer and drummer, went through 4 singers, and got a new drummer which pretty much ended that band.
Grade 12 - Formed a RATM cover band that didn't even gig because evidently there was another RATM cover band in town that was already fairly well known locally. We were a lot better, but regardless, this band turned into a metalcore band. We played a couple of gigs, then our guitarist went to NY for university and that ended that.
Present - The drummer - Nick - and I had started the workings of an electronic/experimental metal group (think Neurosis, but with more electronics). It never got off the ground realy, so I started auditioning for bands.
I've found more often than not that a band doesnt want a 19-year old bassist, even if they're only 4-6 years older than me. I would consider myself pretty mature for my age, so I don't see how personalities would conflict - I've gotten along really well with some of the bands that I've auditioned for, but they would call and say that they went with someone older because they would "have more life experience" or some bullshit. What the hell does that mean? What does that have to do with being a decent bassist?!
Also, my bass-playing perspective is "play what fits." I'm not going to mess up a dual guitar harmony by trying to play some bassline that I don't feel comfortable with playing - whether it be because I don't think it'll sound right, or I won't make it sound right. Dunno.
I tried out for some hard rock band that had a fair bit of local clout. They told me that my style didn't fit their band - I watched a recent live video of theirs, and their new bassist was pretty impressive technique-wise (slapping and tapping parts), but it really didn't seem to fit with their riffy music. Imagine Deftones-style hard rock with some interspersed slap/tap (that sounds dirty). Doesn't really work out... I'm just kind of miffed by the fact that some bands consider an audition as a "Okay show off and we'll decide whether it's good enough" time, as opposed to a "Okay, show us that you're a committed player that will anchor a rhythm section."
The last time I auditioned for a band was for some metal trio. They were very wary on people stealing their music, so I had NO CLUE as to what they sounded like. Turns out they were some crazy good jazz-metal group.As soon as the guys started explaining their song in terms of modes and irregular time signatures, I knew I was out of my league. Thing is, they didn't even email the songs for me to listen to before hand. How the hell was I supposed to be prepared? They ended up asking me "how fast I could play" and asked for a demonstration. This was after trying to keep up fast arpeggio and jazz licks in an odd time signature, so my hands were well tired. It was really just embarassing.
After that time, I got really discouraged with my playing, and actually stopped for a month or so - very counter-productive, I know.
I'm going to audition for another electronic/hard rock group next week. Hopefully this will turn out well. It's very Tool-meets-Sigur Ros-meets-Daft Punk, so it'll be fun. I hope.
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