What a great story, I sure love those jam train-wreck stories because they make me feel so not alone in the world. I have a million of them by now.
I usually play in the 'beginner' section where there are a few helpful and nurturing 'real' musicians to help folks like me, who make sure to stick to blues with the I-IV-V and clearly call out the key of the song beforehand (gee, that's helpful). Then sometimes one of my buddies like the US Rick Smith will kick me up there with the more experienced hot-shots so I can 'learn' in a more dynamic and realistic environment where you can't always count on getting the key and the song may not have the standard chord progressions.
Last time I played first set and our one jerry garcia type folkie dude member called 4 songs that weren't blues but some mix of folk/rock/whatever - stuff I never heard before and was completely lost on how to play to. Train wreck after train wreck. Guess he 'forgot' it's a blues jam (a problem we have sometimes like the one guy who came out a few weeks straight and played hot-rod chuck berry songs because that's all he know on the guitar - he just turned his ball cap backward and wailed away until they gently reminded him after two weeks that he had to learn some blues songs or at least more than two songs - he hasn't been back but I hope he's in the 'shed working on it).
I digress. So yeah, sometimes you have to have those trainwrecks, it's the only time you learn, really. We have some folks who get pissed when things go wrong and 'forget' that IT'S JUST A JAM - NOT A PERFORMANCE and the audience never seems to mind, they're getting drunk and having fun. Keep on keepin' on.
Bill Hines Hershey, PA
-----Original Message----- From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jonathan Metts Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:42 AM To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx Subject: [Harp-L] Never Call Out Stevie Wonder at a Blues Jam
This was the valuable lesson I learned tonight. I called out "Boogie On, Reggae Woman", a funk in Ab with I-IV chords and a II-V turnaround. I sang the bass line for the rhythm section, and the keyboardist knew it beforehand. I knew the lyrics fairly well and had a cheat sheet just in
case. I had practiced the harp solo and had it down fairly well -- 4th pos. on a G harp because I don't own an Ab harp to play in 1st like Stevie did. (My version sounds reasonably close to the original because all those blow bends are still there. You just kind of move the solo down one hole on the harp.)
For all that preparation, there were so many things wrong with the song that I should have just called it off halfway through. I forgot to write down the chords for the chorus, so the band just played the head over and over. That made my harp solo sound off-key, because it's based on the chorus, and it probably was slightly off-key anyway because I'm a novice at 4th position. The song has that I-IV progression twice, but I didn't tell the band that, so the vocals didn't match up to the music half the time. The drummer didn't know the song, and I didn't describe the percussion well enough beforehand, so there was way too much kick. I put down my bullet mic and played the harp solo into the vocal mic, which wasn't set up for that, plus I'm not used to that style, so I couldn't really hear myself playing. Also, we had no idea how to end the song after everyone begrudgingly took a solo.
So there you have it. Don't try to play Stevie unless you have a band with rehearsals. There are too many things that could go wrong, and in a blues jam setting, the non-blues chord progressions don't go over so well.
Jonathan Metts
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_______________________________________________ Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l