i quit

[rightonthemark]

i quit my band a couple days ago…for multiple reasons.
it came down to stress and anxiety and not feeling like i had enough time to commit to doing it well.
one member seems to flip out at the mistakes of others – nothing like a perfectionist who can’t see their own imperfections.
my not fond ofnus bringin on a female singer and thus hassles me if i spend too much time in the mancave working on learning the song list.
and on top of that i have had recent memory issues.
it takes me much longer to drill songs into my head than it used to.
and that seems to be intermittent.
imagine you have a lamp that occasionally flickers. seems to work fine most days but sometimes flickers off and on. eventually you’d likely get tired of it and replace the lamp.
now imagine your brain operating like that making it difficult to focus and remember even simple things at times.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lql2g9SgJ6sk

rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

[Byron]

Man that sucks. Good luck; I hope you can find someone else to jam with.

[superblonde]

I would rephrase that as, you fired the band. Also I agree, from recent experiences with singers, I’d be hesitant to perform with a singer too unless they also played elsewhere (at least piano or something) because otherwise they seem to have no appreciation or discipline (or even skills) for studying or practicing, for themselves or others, and nowadays they even use a huge crutch like an ipad on the mic stand for displaying lyrics on stage, which is even lazier. A 50 year old vocalist who comes to rehearsal flippantly saying “my range isn’t good today so we need to tune down” is also just not acceptable, it’s called, do a vocal warmup (!). I see why Iommi punched Ozzy or why Keith Richards went thru bad periods with Jagger etc even though they’d been together for years previously.

I want to put up new graphs of my song learning effort based on my recent practice. It takes me sooo long to get a song right (many months), just tons and tons of time. So I dont know if younger players are really learning fast, or if they forget in retrospect how much clock/calendar time it took to learn each song (hindsight always looks so rosy), or if the time effort has remained constant and they just deny it. I was talking to the guitarist of one of the better cover bands in the area, about all the area bands playing songs that are so old they’ve been playing them for decades now. We agreed that these older musicians are not covering newer songs because they are too lazy to learn the new songs. The flip side of that conclusion is that it really does take a long time to learn songs yet no one really admits it, so they just don’t do it, and stick to playing old songs. Its not simply because the older audiences want to hear the old songs to sing along.

So I dont know, maybe you aren’t slower at learning. Maybe you’re just more aware of the time it takes? Or your experience has raised your standards? (So you’re not as quick to judge a song as being ‘ready’.)

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[superblonde]

By the way do you know Robert’s Rules of Order. It’s a short book often used by nonprofit companies and small organizations, so they don’t break out into fights or ego problems, since there is a clear procedure for how to propose things, arrive at consensus, etc. Nothing fancy just kind of standardized poker rules for running a decision making meeting without pissing people off accidentally. I always admired the founders of The Doors in that apparently early on, they established some consensus rules for band decision making, etc, but then again those were all very highly educated guys (only Morrison was the unhinged one, being an alcoholic etc). I wonder if Roberts Rules could work in a band situation to avoid conflicts and make goals easier, I would guess so.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rightonthemark]

the remembering a song issue is more about remembering structure than anything else. sometimes maybe a particular riff. but i can learn a song; play it several times with the recording and feel i have a good grasp of it. sure it might be sloppy but i know it. and within in hour or two i forget the structure or a riff…something…that’s a new issue. and it seems intermitten. like the light flickering doesn’t happen all the time.
my wife did some reading about it and about some other symptoms i’ve had and it’s looking like it’s adding up to stress.
but next week i’ll let a professional make an assessment.
in the meantime i have a local all-star jam i singed up to play “i hate yslef for loving you” including the lead as well as rhythm on “taking care of business” and “lay it on the line.”
songs i already know so it’s just a matter of brushing up on them. and i get to jam with different folks on each tune. it’s for a benefit to raise some money for some locals in need being put on by one of our local morning DJs.
so there is that.

rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

[Igglepud]

You might try practicing different songs and riffs in short bursts. 5 or 10 minutes, do something else for 5 or 10, come back every half hour or so.

MY ROCK IS FIERCE!!!

[Author]

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