A few questions…
1. Do you know anyone in the band?
2. Have you ever been a professional musician? (i.e. played music and got paid for it and I don’t mean at your cousin’s 8th grade graduation party)
3. Do you have experience playing in a band? Or are you a solo type of performer?
(It’s sort of like the difference between an Bacchanalian orgy and some quiet time to yourself in the bathtub)
4. Do you have a particular song you want to do?
5. Do you know what key it’s in and what the chords are?
6. Do you have your own instrument?
7. Are you prepared to play one song and be satisfied with that?
8. Are you prepared to be booed and humiliated by our audience? We may ask them to play GONG SHOW so be ready for rejection…we’re just saying…
If you can answer positively to those 6 of 8 of those questions, welcome and don’t suck.
If you can’t answer positively to 6 of 8 of those questions, please read on and don’t take offense to what follows. We might even still let you play, depends on your attitude. Understand that we are at work and people didn’t come to hear you. There are a bunch of places to sing karaoke around here so perhaps that would suit you better…I truly don’t mean to be harsh but on the bandstand, especially playing in cover bands, in resorts, in small bars…basically anywhere where original songs are not the m.o. musicians constantly run into issues with people wanting to sit in. Even more so now that karaoke and open mics, American Idol and amateur music contests are more en vogue. So a few of us got together to compare notes and came up with some observations and guidelines. We understand that playing music is a joy and a blast and that people come to a club to enjoy themselves but we think sometimes they lose sight, just as they do in movie theaters and concerts when they yammer loudly as if they were in their living rooms, that they should respect that maybe, just maybe there are people there who came to actually see/hear/enjoy the band that is booked and that the band is actually working a job, albeit a fun one but a job with expectations and a certain level of skill involved.
Rarely have I had to feel obligated to mention any of the following to professional musicians. Rarely. But, read on if you feel oddly compelled to feel the need to jump onstage whenever you are around another band/musician/comedian/juggler/ventriloquist or dog act. Read on if you are not someone who currently (or in the past) gets paid to play music on a regular basis by someone other than your relatives and who actually has gotten off your ass and secured a handful of paying gigs somewhere. Read on…
Playing music for people is a blessing and a fairly difficult thing to do. Especially if this is how you make your living. Not only do you have to have enough confidence to go up there and expose your hard practiced and natural talents but you have to seek out the clubs, develop a fan base, argue about money with the venues, get along with and attract and hire the right, complimentary musicians to get/secure/keep those gigs you scramble for in a world where places with live music are not only few and far between but where they generally pay ½ of what they did just 10 years ago while though equipment, studio, transportation costs have skyrocketed making almost every gig for local musicians a losing proposition monetarily. But it is hard work. Fun, usually, but grueling on the body and soul at times.
Remember that a 4 hour gig entails an addition minimum of 2 hours of load-in/load-out at venues and at home as well as, for example, time spent stringing guitars (at $12 a set of strings average), checking cables, cleaning gear, readying set-lists/music books, rehearsing with the band, practicing alone, learning new material, posting gig info on websites, sending emails, making phone calls, developing mailing lists, etc. i.e. it is a time consuming job.…so the national average, non-union, local gig where members of say a 5 piece band get between 40-70 bucks a piece at the end of the night (and many times pay for their own drinks, food, etc at places they play) works out to about a low average 8 hours per gig at $50 or about $6.25 an hour…before expenses. And if most local musicians play 4-6 gigs a month (actually average is 2-3) then why would they do all of that work just to give up some of their limited time, doing what they love, to hear you mess up some song they may or may not know. Why, because we want to make you feel like a star in front of your 3 friends who will probably NOT tip us and probably make fun of you later to try and deflate your ballooning ego. But, sometimes we cave in because we really enjoy being made to look bad/unprofessional/delusional/ridiculous for even letting you come up there with us. Maybe we want to look better when you et off stage and we get back to ding what we are paid to do. How fun. Then again, once and awhile an incredible musician sits in and blows us all away and adds so much to the music without any agenda of being in the spotlight. They just KNOW they can unobtrusively add something good and positive and special to a song. It happens about once every five years or so. Are you that person? Do you want that kind of pressure. Here’s what we expect of you…
Here are just a few of the rules a group of musicians has come up with that we like to call:
THE ETIQUETTE OF SITTING IN…
If you get the urge to jump onstage and show your musical talents with a band in a local bar or musical venue first consider if you have covered these points of common sense and propriety…
1. The band may react poorly, rudely or at the very least just look uncomfortable at your 1st, 2nd or 3rd request to sit in with them. If it is your first try at asking this particular band and you are told “let’s see” or just get a vibe that they aren’t really enthusiastic about you or really anyone sitting in, do not go to another member and ask their permission if you are shot down by one of their band mates. This only proves you are an asshole/egomaniacal/no talent/loser. If they seem marginally interested, just keep in the most pleasant band member’s vision and smile a lot and maybe buy them drinks or throw money in the tip jars. This guarantees nothing of course but may let them see that you are not just some narcissistic scab but someone who gets the drill. If you are smart you will spend a set watching the guys on stage before you even consider asking. You can generally tell who is the leader or at least who is the friendliest guy. Remember never to ask the drummer because they almost always have no say in the band and are usually either extremely unbalanced or drunk/drugged/predatory and you may draw his attention to your date or even worse you and he will be hitting you up for smokes and drinks and complaints about life in general for the rest of the evening. He may even expect that now that you are his friend that you will help him carry his enormous rig to the truck with him when the evening is over or perhaps be his designated driver. You will make enemies of the rest of the band and be badmouthed all over town. If none of this has ever popped into your head and you have had some luck sitting in with people then maybe it is now time for you to…get yer own fuckin’ band. Yeah, playing music is fun. But this is also a job. If all goes well, we get paid. If you suck, it reflects on us and we lose the owner’s trust. Or at the very least you get humiliated and everyone in the club will remember your face and snicker at you in the aisles of the supermarket for the rest of your born days. Seriously. Do we come to McDonald’s and ask you to let us cook for awhile? If you let us, you’d get fired. Get it? This is a job. We like and need our job even if it may not be our only job. Just because you hate your job doesn’t mean we should be forced to dislike ours.
2. Don’t ask to sit in. Bring your instrument, sit somewhere prominently, calmly and don’t bother the people around you. We’ll, be more likely to notice a smiling friendly, well-behaved person with an instrument…well, maybe not more likely to notice you but more likely to not have you thrown out if you are acting like a perceptive, patient and realistic human being…wait to be asked to play…or on the off chance that a mutual musician friend of the bands has heard you and knows you are good, then have them introduce you to us. Listen to what the band is playing and strongly consider if the one or dozen songs you know “like the back of your hand” really fits their style so that you will blend in and they will make you sound good and you them. Most really good players go up and play whatever the band wants to play. It’s up to you to fit in, not to them. They already have a gig.
3. If you are not known by the band as a peer, i.e. someone who can hang with what they play. Introduce yourself and compliment them on their music. Maybe they’ll ask you up or to come back some other time. Give them a CD or a link to your webpage/YouTube/MySpace where they can hear you play some. Oh, wait, I forgot…you only play in your living room and at karaoke bars and your girlfriend/mom/co-workers thinks you are great. Mayb, just maybe, they are just being nice because they care for you and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Or maybe they just have no taste. And the following is not a compliment but something that we hear versions of more often you would believe, “Hey, man can I sit in and play your guy’s (really expensive guitar/bass/drums). I have a really expensive instrument at home too…wanna talk about my guitar for ten minutes in between songs while everyone’s waiting to see if you let me up onstage?...I can play a lot better than him and you should give me a chance. I’ll get this crowd rockin’!!!”
4. If you play harmonica, don’t sit in the audience and play all set, annoying the people all around you and then ask to sit in once there is one song that you can play the one riff you know on…that goes for any instrument for that matter. You are not the hired entertainment even though people may be enjoying a laugh at your expense already. They will eventually tire of you sitting next to them huffing and puffing. People didn’t come here to hear you. You are annoying others. Remember there is more to harmonica playing than just blues riffs. There is, most importantly MIC TECHNIQUE. If you don’t understand that there are times when you are playing background harmonica and times when you may get to solo and that one is supposed to be louder than the other, GO HOME. Dynamics make a good player not volume. If the mic or monitor is not loud enough ask for some more level or if it’s too loud back off the mic. Don’t just swallow that thing like your momma’s home cooking. You are not John Popper, Little Walter or Sonny Terry or you would know this already. 9 of 10 harmonica players who sit in PLAY TOO MUCH, TOO LOUD, don’t listen to the arrangements, or pick their spots judiciously. I’m a harp player so you can’t fool me. Stop it (and it doesn’t matter if you are in the right key…stop it anyway).
5. If you show up with a tambourine uninvited, turn around and go home. Now. I mean it. “SECURITY!!!!”
6. If you are a female vocalist and the song you always get compliments for is “Me & Bobby McGee”, a) know how it goes and what the arrangement is b) realize that you are not Janis Joplin or Melissa Etheridge or even Joss Stone. Even Janis knew more than one tune and c) realize that the band immediately thinks you suck because every other shitty female vocalist in the world has come up onstage and tried to sing that song. Truly, 1 out of 100 don’t suck at Me & Bobby McGee. If you are that one, I’m sure you have lots of other songs to sing. In fact, WE suck at “Me & Bobby McGee” so perhaps another band might be more inclined to enjoy that particular misery. Any idea who wrote the song? No. Well. Let me give you a clue, it was Kris Kristofferson and if you give us 50 bucks we’ll back you up doing his version…uh, and nowhere does it go into that big killer Janis rave-up at the end. And neither will you. Bye.
7. Same goes for “Stormy Monday”. Know the tune. Know the words. We’ve heard it butchered too much to want to butcher it again. Ever heard of T-Bone Walker? Didn’t think so.
8. Very important – know your genre…if you are a heavy metal guy, a punker, a rapper, a funk player…don’t ask to sit in with a country band…unless you can also play country…get it? If the guys onstage are 60-70 years old and playing songs your grandma likes don’t ask to sit in and do a Maroon 5 song.
9. If you are there with a ton of drunken, annoying friends who think the version of “Margaritaville” you sang at the Mexican food/karaoke place last week was the best version they ever heard…our advice is to beg them not to ask you to sit in and sing “Margaritaville” with us. Sing it from your chair when the band inevitably gets a request for it….just figure you can never top that restaurant version…we all know it was truly better than Jimmy Buffett’s and you would so hate to disappoint your fans and tarnish the memory of the original inspiration.
10. And by the way, if one of your friends has a request for the band, show them how professional and smart you are by yanking them back into their seat if they start to head towards the bandstand when the band is in the middle of a song. The fastest way to not get your song played is to interrupt someone mid-song to converse with them. Playing music with passion while being entertaining and not making mistakes is way more difficult when some drunk floozy is yelling titles to Journey tunes at the bass player while he’s trying to play a riff he worked years to master. Every song ends. Bands take breaks. These are two wonderful times to make requests. Or prove you are an educated drunk and write a couple of song titles on a piece of paper and set it on the floor in front of the singer or better yet, throw a buck or two in the tip jar and then set the note in front of the singer. Bet your song gets played before the drunken harlot’s who is disturbing the bassist.
11. If the only songs you know are “American Pie”, “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, “Close to the Edge” or something else over 5 minutes long. Please stay seated. Those sitting in should presume you are allowed one song, one short solo if you are an instrumental soloist, and if we want you for more WE WILL ASK YOU. Also remember to give the soloists in the band an opportunity to take a solo on your song. Don’t know how to go about that? Why are you reading this? Make points. Be professional. Maybe they’ll ask you to play another one right away or next set, or next week. Don’t overstay your welcome. If after your number someone on the bandstand does not look at you and say, “What else you got?” or “Stay up here for another one” but instead announces quickly into the mic, “Let’s hear it for that brave guy” or “Thanks. Good job, man” or “Okay, now back to the real music” consider that a) you did just fine but that’s all the time they are allowing you and shake their hands and look forward to your drunken friends patting you on the back and maybe buying you a drink or b) you sucked and you should probably never come back into this bar/town/state again until you have gone home and practiced for 10 yrs like these guys did and got your own band together and paid your dues. There are official places set up for you to embarrass yourself while you learn to sing/play…they are called open mic and karaoke nights. This very bar may have one. Ask the bartender.
12. Also just because you sat in once, were well-received, got some applause and the band was nice to you doesn’t mean you should show up and set up your gear the next night before they get there. Wait, to be asked up onstage again. Just because they said, “Come back sometime” doesn’t mean that tomorrow you’re gonna get a cut of their extravagant $25 a guy or even be asked up again right away. Be patient, be smart, listen. That’s what musician’s do. If you were great they will ask you up again. If you added so much they want you in the band full time they will ask you. Trust me. In the past two weeks where people have sat in with us we have had a minimum of three guest musicians take every single musician off the the side and say, “Hey you want to be in my band?” One even said, “I’m not a musician but I book ventriloquists…and I’d love to play with you again.” Was he calling me a dummy? He was actually not a bad singer and could really put a tune across to the crowd but a) he didn’t know the words of the tunes he sang b) didn’t know the chords/key of the tunes he asked us to play and c) sang on top of people’s solos because he didn’t know the tune’s arrangements and wasn;t experienced in listening to a band interact around him. Interact is a very important word when it comes to sitting in. Have I said before, “It’s not your show,” play with us, not over/above/in front of us. And don’t tell us that you “really know how to get this crowd up” it implies that you think you are better than the guys you are infringing upon. Not a good move. Good musicians can make YOU look bad easily. Heard of cutting sessions? Young jazz cats always used to try and horn in (pun intended) on sets of more seasoned pros. Often the pro will put a full-of-himself upstart in his place by calling an extremely difficult/fast/unknown tune just to watch the young turk die in his footsteps. If he can hang, sometimes he will do a great service to his reputation, impress the crowd and the legends alike and be talked about for days. Most often, they wind up looking like weak, inexperienced versions of someone over their head. Just sayin’…I’ve had the great luxury to play live and in the studio with some musicians WAY beyond my limited and narrow abilities and they always made ME sound better not because I necessarily rose to the occasion but more often because they were playing just exactly what needed to be played TO MAKE THE SONG BETTER. Not about showing off, showing somebody up or rattling off every little trick up their sleeves…it was about making the music resonate. Go figure.
13. We know the drill from both sides having suffered and/or enjoyed people sitting in over the years. Even the best ones sometimes overstay their welcome. It’s not for them to decide. I remember when I was working for Willie Nelson, hearing a story about a famous banjo player sitting in with Willie on a gig and he stayed and he stayed and he stayed. On the bus afterwards when they listened back to the show, after the 2nd or third song, Willie quietly mentioned with his great sense of timing, “A little banjo goes a LONNNNG way.” Most of us on the bandstand also have been a sitter-inner for many years with many bands. In some, we become regular guests because WE LEAVE THE EGOS AT HOME AND DON’T GET IN PEOPLE’S FACES WHILE THEY ARE WORKING. Quite often we may get asked up to play, often even called in advance…”Are you coming tomorrow night? How ‘bout we play these two songs?” or sometimes we may get a call to fill in for someone who can’t make a gig because a sit-in previously went particularly well. In fact, I’ve had 4-5 new band members come into my band as a result of having sat in numerous times and when the opening was right they were our first call. Not necessarily because they were the best available musician but because THEY WERE LESS TROUBLE. Remember the more you hear a band without you onstage the better you will sound when you eventually get a chance to sit-in.
14. American Idol and America’s Got Talent prove that most people are not really very realistic at judging how good they actually sound. It also shows you that there is a place in the world for karaoke. More often than not when you talk to a singer from a professional band and you ask if they do karaoke the response is either a snooty “No fucking way, they are amateurs” or most likely a revealing litany of excuses, “I can’t do it. I have no control over the performance, the tempo, the arrangement, even what key I want to sing it in, I’m used to my drummer, the monitors and mics suck, I need a little reverb on my voice but not so much that it sounds like I’m in the Holland Tunnel…” It’s not that these pros are scared, it’s that they are professionals and realize that a lot more goes into a good performance than just reading the words off of a TV. Things like…pitch, memorization, sense of rhythm, listening hard to the other musicians around you, attention to detail, nerves, stage fright, getting an audience’s attention and holding on to it, dynamics, drama, emotion, hearing arrangements before they happen to name just a few…That’s why they get paid to perform and people at karaoke bars don’t. I have been playing professionally for almost 30 years and still get stage fright before every gig. It usually takes most of the first set to get the ears tuned, the equipment dialed in and everyone vibing together. Do you really want to get into the middle of all of that and run the risk of having a bunch of irate musicians with useable weapons in their hands pissed at you? I just played a gig where our band was obviously stressed playing in new surroundings, having sound problems and I turned around and there was a woman holding a mic, singing so close to me that I could smell what she had for lunch on her breath and I couldn’t strum my guitar because she was leaning on my right arm. Oddly, she sang pretty damn well…in semi-harmony even and mostly in pitch…she even knew all the words. We got through the song though we all made numerous mistakes being distracted and thrown off by our surprise guest and luckily the drummer yelled at her afterwards, “Nobody sings with us today until we tell them, GOT IT!” He could tell I was not happy. It took the rest of the set for us to get our bearings. The day before, a whole five-piece band convinced our band leader that they would like to play during our break. They looked like musicians. Stylish as a unit, hitting on girls in the crowd, watching our every move. So we relented though I am not a fan of handing my $3000 guitar over to some stranger but they looked like they knew what they were doing. They even had a name for their band. So for 20 minutes, they tuned up, changed all of the settings on our instruments (which we’d finally dialed in to our satisfaction by the middle of the second set we’d just completed), they readjusted the drum seat, changed the lengths of our guitar straps so they’d fit their young, skinny rock star frames and basically just took unconsciously disrespected our whole gig. They eventually stumbled through half of one song and then tried for ten minutes to start another one. We were duly chastised by our fans and luckily, the bar owner was entertained because now he knew not to make the mistake and hire these amateurs. Just tellin’ ya. Don’t just think you are ready. Be ready.
15. If you don’t know what key the song you want to sing or play on is in, or can’t rattle off the chords or quick arrangement to the band who has asked you to sit in…don’t get out of your chair. And don’t be too drunk, too high, too smelly or touch a fuckin’ knob on our equipment without asking. There are bouncers in bars for a reason.
16. Conversely, if you know 1000 songs or better still can play proficiently in rock, folk, country, blues, reggae, pop, ska, jazz, or any given genre WITHOUT sheet music or chord charts in front of you, we might be willing to talk NOT because we want you to play 1000 songs in a dozen genres but because there will be a much greater chance that in your one song of the evening you will be able to adapt to our level of musicianship, our arrangement of whatever tune we are playing and be ready for anything we through at you whether that means hanging out at our request and playing some more. Know more than one tune. Know the basics of how songs are structured, of what chords work with what keys, have a reasonable memory so that after the first verse and chorus you can get close to not messing up much the second time through, or have damn fine ears and be able to improvise proficiently in the moment and stay out of the way without falling on your ass and screwing everyone else up. These things are basically givens to musicians, pro or amateur who have success playing with other people in varied situations. No? These things don’t apply to you, you are a natural and just to good for us to miss? And you are still reading this? Do you not get that the only reason for us to spend inordinate amounts of time typing us the little primer is because there is some kind of consistent problem here with people sitting in? Can you truly say that none of this applies to you? Then perhaps we should meet you, allow you to sit in, call the songs, remain onstage for the rest of the night…we don’t meet prodigy or genius level people very often…then again, if you think this letter is SO true and hilarious and have your own nightmare stories to tell, then we’d probably be happy to play with you too.
17. Also if there have already been one or two people sitting in with us that day…don’t bother to ask. That’s about our quota. We do have certain songs we want to get to and since gigs are hard to come by we don’t want to spend the majority of any particular one not playing what we came to play. It’s sort of like answering the incessantly ringing phone while you are having sex. You may answer once in case it’s an emergency but after you realize it was a phone solicitor you just unplug the phone.
18. Remember: your job as a guest is to act like a guest and to make US sound better because we in turn are giving you an opportunity to get up there with a band backing you up to make YOU sound better than if you were just singing buy yourself on the way home in the car.
19. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY BE INSURED BECAUSE THESE INSTRUMENTS, CABLES, AMPS, MICS ETC. ARE NOT CHEAP AND WITHOUT THEM WE CANNOT EARN OUR LIVELIHOOD AND IF YOU BREAK OR DAMAGE SOMETHING YOU’D BETTER EITHER HAVE YOUR CHECKBOOK, YOUR LAWYERS NUMBER OR A GOOD MEDICAL PLAN..OR PERHAPS BRING YOUR OWN INSTRUMENT LIKE A GOOD PROFESSIONAL WOULD ANYWAY…
Now some of you may say, hey, you sit in with everybody. Yep, and 9 of 10 times I am asked to sit in or have a standing invite and I still try to respect the boundaries of each situation. Experience with these bands or these folks I play with, knowing their music, their temperaments, their expectations is essential. Sometimes you mess up, get caught up in the moment and lose track of things but if you recover and keep your smile on and apologize profusely then you’ve done the best you can. Hahaha. Just remember the whos, whats, and wheres of your discomfort and more importantly their’s and try to not do it again. Have fun and try to make sure you hosts do.
To close, if you are an amazing musician who sees our band live and just can’t resist adding your complimentary talents to what we do, indeed step on up and say hi after you’ve heard a couple of sets or seen us a couple of times. We’ll feel your vibe, we’ll recognize from your approach and from your air of devil-may-care, non-neediness that you are the real deal. We’ll see that your talent and ego and professionalism won’t be crushed if we graciously bow out and say, “Well, maybe later tonight or some other time. We’ve kind of got something going on today we want to focus on.” And know we expect that in the case of our acceptance of your suggestion, we trust that you will respectfully do your one song to the best of your abilities and thank us and move along. We’ll all know if we clicked or not. We might even let you up for a try even if you just seem like a nice person who respects our needs, our job and our heartfelt efforts to provide a good bunch of music for you and the rest of the folks who have graced us with their presence. If you are there just to be noticed, just to perpetuate your own agenda, to show the world that ignoring your immense talents would be a huge detriment to the next few minutes of this very evening, then we would kindly advise you to TAKE YOUR HUGE FUCKING OBLIVIOUS EGO AND GO GET YOUR OWN FUCKING BAND, WAIT YOUR TURN AT KARAOKE OR GET BACK IN THE SHOWER WHERE YOU BELONG.
The key is be prepared and listen. Like Miles Davis said, “It’s not about the notes you play, it’s about the notes you don’t play.”
All of this said, we do like to play with new people and look forward to hearing you IF you GET IT!
Musicians:
Post your own horrid experiences having people sit in, attempting to sit in, experience with hecklers, horrid off-center requests, etc.
And a personal note to all of you incredible musicians who have allowed/invited/coerced me into sharing the stage with you...big thanks. The honor was mine.
GEORGE & RINGO JOIN ELTON, CLAPTON, JEFF LYNNE, PHIL COLLINS, MARK KING, RAY COOPER, JOOLS HOLLAND
I just LOVE how Clapton (who played the original solo) duets with George for a bit and then defers to George on the outro solo and just beams…nice…
TAJ MAHAL SITTIN’ IN WITH THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND
Now here’s a band who displays the art of sittin’ in on a regular basis. In fact, if you’ve gone to their marathon stands at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan then you know there are surprises around every corner…here’s one. Warren Haynes has taken the art of sittin’ in to new levels with his annual holiday shows in Ashville…rumor is Warren will fly across the country to sit in for a song with someone he admires…
LOVE MINUS ZERO with NANCY MICCIULLA sittin' in at the TIN ANGEL
One of my favorite singers and people, Nancy Micciulla doing ALL the right things...making us sound GOOD and us doing our best to make the song shine for her...thanks girl.
Related goofs...
JERRY GARCIA BAND
Just a bit of Jer for y’all…Sittin’ In Limbo…
ZAZEN – SITTING MEDITATION
A different kind of sittin’ in…
TOWNSHEND & CLAPTON ACOUSTIC BLUES DUO
Not really a "sittin' in" moment but rare and cool nonetheless. How often does one get to see Pete play a straight blues and especially with EC? Enjoy
