Stage Volume

Have you ever walked off stage thinking you played a great show?  Someone walks up to you and says, "I couldn't hear you at all".  Funny, you were plenty loud on stage.  Have you ever walked off stage thinking you couldn't hear yourself very well?  Someone walks up to you and says,  "You were so loud!".  Turning up and turning down in the middle of songs, bandmates doing the same.  It can get crazy sounding on stage.  Everyone want's to "feel it".  For many "feeling it" means cranking it up.   

Does loud stage volume constitute good stage volume?  Hardly.  Most of the time, if your band is going through a P.A., the soundman will want you to have a conservative amount of stage volume.   Why is that?  Most soundguys believe that they can do a good job mixing the band if the sounds from all the amps don't cary into the crowd too much.   If you don't agree with this, I understand.  You might be one of many who says "The audience must hear me at all costs, and I must hear myself."  What happens when you perform with that attitude?  You sound great to yourself and the first 5 human rows of people in the crowd, the engineer turns you all the way down in the P.A. because even then your amp is still too loud.  In addition, your band can't be mixed well because you decided you needed to hear yourself at all costs.  Your statement.... as long as I sound good, I'm happy.  Nevermind how my band sounds as a whole.

Sometimes I feel I have no right to write these articles as I believe I'm always learning.  I have a lot of experience and I've made many sacrifices in my search for the best stage volume.  It all started when I got into playing through smaller amps in larger venues.  That reality about the amp on stage being just for my listening pleasure hit home in a big way.  After that, I started asking soundguys to tell me if I needed to bring my stage volume up or down.  They always seemed very happy about my welcoming them to chime in on the issue.  Sometimes it was great, sometimes I could have held a more roaring show in my bedroom with some volumes that have been requested of me.  

What is the correct stage volume?  There's no right answer.  As most of you know, every gig is different.   I used to think if I matched my stage volume to the drums things would be pretty good.  Not so!  I learned that my stage volume is almost never as loud as rehearsal volumes.  At rehearsal,  your amp volume is in fact responsible for filling up the room so everyone can hear.  The same can be said for gigs with minimal P.A. systems where maybe they just put the vocals through.  

It takes a lot of experimentation and of course it's a venue to venue issue on this subject matter.  I've had plenty of shows where I set my own conservative stage volume and then suffered as far as not being able to hear myself on stage or lost my headroom for playing dynamically.  Dynamics is how you want to gauge your stage volume.  If your amp is so quiet that you feel you have to play with more strength than usual, it's good cause to turn up.  If we were all blessed with masterful monitor mixes on the stage and nice lengthy soundchecks all the time it would never be an issue.  I imagine most of you reading this are entry level to intermediate players in addition to players who gig in many different styles like me.  My amp doesn't have a "set it and forget it" setting that I use for all gigs and all instruments.  Sure I know what I like to do with my amp typically but I always do a minute or two of adjusting once I put my gear on stage.  Sometimes, I think I have my amp set up the way I'd like it but then get on stage and found out the room drinks low end for breakfast and I have to crank some "bass" in my bass.  Some rooms fill up will little effort so I may have to turn way down.  

There are so many variables.  Being aware of your surroundings and what is happening all around you is the best advice I can give on almost all of the musical experiences.  Sacrifice is inevitable yet it always comes with a lesson to learn.  Ideally, your stage volume is for you, possibly the drummer a little if he isn't getting a good monitor mix.  You will probably play your whole show and not know exactly what your instrument sounds like to the crowd until you walk off stage and people start telling you what it sounded like.  This is the angle of live sound that always keeps me humble.  What I hear on stage through my amp and even my monitors is just for me and my bandmates.  My awesome expensive speaker cabinet is almost always for my reference only.  There's lots of good and bad live sound engineers out there and you usually don't have control over it.  All you can do is ask the crowd a few times "Can you hear everything alright?"       

Much of your stage volume is going to have to do with the equipment you choose and how you set it up on stage.  I've had very comfortable stage volumes with smaller amps set on a chair.  I've had hard to hear stage volumes with a cranked amp and a huge speaker cabinet.  Some of these issues are dependent on the directionality of a speaker cabinet.  If the speaker is sealed up and has no porting on the front, it may not fill up a very wide area.  I've found much of the time, standing right in front of your amp isn't always the best place to hear yourself.  I usually have to walk around the stage some to find the sweet spots when it comes to hearing my bass. 

Personal Experiences:

I played a gig and the soundman wanted my stage volume very low.  I struggled to hear myself during this set but I made it through OK.  After nearly a 90 minute set, the singer moves from the center of the stage during the last tune.  I decide to stroll over to center stage.  Holy loftiness, Batman!  I was supercranked!  I wish I had known the whole show.  I wouldn't have been pluckin away on stage playing with a bit of frustration towards the soundman requesting my low stage volume.  My amp volume wasn't cranked, but from center stage at this particular venue at least I could feel the sub woofers and the rest of the overall P.A. much better.  I heard the band had a great mix that night in the audience and my bass was plenty present.  

Sometimes you have to lose to learn.  Again, it's about sacrifice.  If from your very first gig, you thought you had the art of live playing down, then your that way too loud guitar player that many bands have or maybe that drummer who keeps speeding up.   Maybe, your that bass player that's annoyingly loud or slaps when it's completely uncalled for.  This doesn't mean you don't deserve to be pro-active and try for a great stage tone and volume.

Most live sound engineers are characters.  They mix up to 25 bands a week and your band is no more special to them than the others until you start your show and have a chance to prove yourself.  When you soundcheck or linecheck and are asked to play your bass, if your way cranked, the soundman will think your an obnoxious selfish jerk and will probably think that will set the tone for the whole evening.  If your lucky, the engineer will communicate with you and maybe even school you.  Every chance I have, I always ask the engineer after each show if he had any thoughts or comments on my tone or volume.  If there's a soundcheck I'll ask after that.  Even if your not working with the best engineer, he probably knows something you don't.   One more note about soundcheck.  When the sound man asks you to play something to he can check the line and tone, don't play some slap line if your playing in a blues band.  Play something that's representative of what your going to be doing most of the evening.  That way, there's less of a chance to surprise the sound man or yourself when things start sounding different.  I've also walked off the stage after soundcheck telling the sound guy "Thanks, everything is great."  Then moments later, Joe guitarist says "i just turned up", or maybe you decided in retrospect you were a bit loud or soft.  That's ok.  Sometimes it all takes a moment to soak in.  Instead of surprising the sound man, tell him your concern.  Maybe he'll tell you there's room to turn up or turn down.  Maybe he'll have another idea such as if one part of your tone could use some sprucing up which man get you more presence on stage as well.  I like a very aggressive tone for some gigs and it can get thin if I don't watch out.  Sometimes, all I need i someone to tell me it would benefit from some low end out front to help out greatly.  

Mixing humbleness with awareness is a great way to move forward as a live player.  Things may not always go your way but you'll learn from each experience.  These lessons can only make you better.   

Float Like A Butterfly

I'm asked quite often how to play fast.  I'm sure most people who ask that question know that it won't be a simple answer.  They are just hoping that maybe I can put them on the path.  We are going to talk about playing fast but only focusing somewhat on physical technique.

The first instinct when trying to play fast is to hit the strings hard.  What happens here though?  It takes more back swing on our plucking fingers.  We are also challenged with strings that are hit harder therefore vibrate in a larger way.  The downfall is getting more of a percussive tone from the largely vibrating string ricocheting off the fingerboard.  Another angle I find is greatly missed is, playing an instrument much of the time is about efficiency.  If you get a big 'ol back swing going on with your plucking finger so you can play harder to play faster, how much longer will it take to get back to the string compared to if you were just using your moderate plucking strength.  So in the end are we gaining anything by striking the strings harder?  I think we're just giving ourselves a sense of dominance so we can will the bass into sounding fast.  If you want it to be in time and articulate, it ain't that easy.

Allow me to retract my last sentence in the last paragraph.  It is easy, as long as you don't make it difficult on yourself.

Don't get me wrong, there's moments when the bass sounds great when were beating the hell out of it.  Yes, sometimes I hear a track I need to play on and I tell myself, "I think if I could pick out a bass that sounds great when I beat the hell out of it, I'll be happy with the sound."  I'm not implying that you just need to feather or just scratch over the top of the strings to play fast.  Pluck!  Pluck but look for any points where the string resists you too much.  Ask yourself if the movements on your right hand could be smaller or less exaggerated.  Does your tone not sound as good as when you were playing a big open groove?  Can you only get a good rolling sound when your right hand is based off the bridge pick-up because it has more tension?  It shouldn't have to be that way.  For some passages, I find the tone can get thin with that approach.

I'm sure a few of you have noticed that I haven't mentioned the left hand technique yet.  I could write many blogs on left hand technique.  To be simple, I'll leave it at a few points.  Keep your thumb behind the neck and don't let it creep up over the top of it unless it's for a special technique.

The left hand does need to develop speed as well.  There's two very simple ways.  Firstly, focus on making the most efficient movements you can.  Secondly, the strength you need to hold down your strings is dictated by how hard you are plucking with your right hand.  Experiment with holding down a fret on the low "E" string.  Use your everyday strength.  Now pluck with your right hand lightly, then pluck progressively harder.  Meanwhile, keep that left hand strength the same.  You'll notice how for a lot of the right hand plucking, the note fired off just fine.  As you started to pluck the string with more force, the note you were trying to hold down started to buzz.  Hey!  Some folks make a living with that sound.

If your right hand plucks lighter in an effort to play fast, your left hand doesn't have to hold the strings down as tight.  In turn, they can move around faster as they don't have to exert as much energy.

We should touch on practicing speed or fast passages in general.  Probably the most common way to develop speed is to plow through the part at full speed and let the clean and rhythmic accuracy appear over time.  This is the worst, long standing, widely used practicing habit I see.  Don't let your patience beat you!  It IS the long way.

Let's say you have a passage in a tune that's at 160bpm. Chalk full of 8th notes and faster.  Play it at the absolutely slowest you need to to play to be intelligible and clean.  Make sure at that speed you can still think strait and your not just using "The Force".  Find that speed your comfy with and practice with a metronome.  Let's say your speed is 80bpm.  Two days later, crank the metronome up only 5bpm more.  At first, you'll find 5bpm fairly seamless.  After a while at higher speeds you may find you need to spend a few extra days on one tempo.  Even if your tempo is easy, stay there for a few days.  If your already good at it, get better.  In a week your speed can be up to 94bpm.  You can get there with ease and you can get there playing just as clean as when you were playing slow.  In a month,  you can reach your goal.  Two months, maybe even faster.  If you are honest with your progress, these are much better results than the standard approach to gaining speed.  I see a lot of people waste years just moving their hands fast thinking that over time their notes will make sense.

Speed can get frustrating and comes in different forms in music.  You may work up a rhythm at one tempo, but it may not work out at the same tempo with a different rhythm.  It's good to get into practicing various rhythm groupings with the metronome.  It doesn't have to be a part of a song, it can just be an open string or one fretted note.  If your at a lack for rhythmic exercises, ask a drummer friend, or pick up a drum rudiment book.

In this blog, I'm not diving too much into the subject matter of which direction your fingers should pluck at faster speeds.  There's a lot of ways that work for many great players.  I'd like to eventually spend time talking about various right hand techniques.

For myself, I use three fingers on my right hand for the really fast stuff. 1,3,2,1,3,2,1,3 etc.  I always attack with my index finger as long as it's logical for the phrase I'm playing and my plucking pattern always stays in the same direction despite any variations in the rhythm.  My fingers are always crawling in the same direction while using three finger technique.  As of the last years, I've used two finger technique for as much as I can until I've reached my limit in speed.  Tonally, I prefer it.  It's also fair to mention I don't exclusively use but favor the "floating thumb" technique on my plucking hand.  For those of you that don't know about "floating thumb", look into it!    I will for sure do a little blog on it in the near future.

I'd love to hear from some of you who might try out some of my techniques from this blog.  Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to warm up!

Confidence and Preparedness.

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I feel that between my own experiences past and present I could write volumes on the subject matter of "confidence" for musicians.  Being fortunate to work on many projects, I've been able to observe how other musicians use and abuse confidence for good and evil.  Like any task, confidence would seem like a no-brianer as far as music goes.  It's a requirement.  It gives you permission to close your eyes when you are playing your instrument, to try some off the cuff lick on stage, or create the most awesome ensemble of vocals on an album.  I feel it gets lost much of the time though.  Sometimes through experience, and sometimes by someone's lack of preparedness.  

First, I'd like to point out how people can often mistake confidence for "will".  Sometimes "will" can give us a push physically as a musician just like it can athletes, but people forget to nurture the cerebral parts of music and in those moments "will" can't help you.  Did you feel "confident" on that test you never studied for?  Did you "will" to have this weeks winning lotto numbers as they popped up on the TV screen?  Did you "will" that high note to come out of your voice just because it was important you nailed it?  Did you pull it off?  We're your chances better if you had the confidence of preparedness in your corner?  I hope after reading this, you will find that "confidence" and "preparedness" run many parallels.

Below is a list of a few key places I feel confidence and preparedness can make or break one's progress as a musician.    

Lesson Plans and Goals:  I can't tell you how many times I've mismanaged my practice time by undermining what I feel I could accomplish with the time I'm given or where I'm at as a player.  You can't lie to yourself and decide your going to learn to sweep pick on the guitar before you've learned how to construct an arpeggio.  Actually, you can.  You can just learn a pattern and the mechanics.  The problem here is you limit yourself and this in turn limits not only your creative ability but your "confidence".  How many times have you set out to learn a tune or technique and only moments in you decide "forget it, it's too hard or ain't gonna happen today"?   

Live Performance:  It can still happen to this day!  I'm on stage and I realize I'm not paying much attention to the audience and focusing too much on the notes of the tune.  In those moments, I may lack confidence in my knowledge of the song.  In turn, I don't have much of a mental or physical capacity to be entertaining on stage or look up at the audience and connect more frequently.  We'll get into my philosophies on live interaction some other time.   

In The Studio:  "I never had this much difficulty when practicing."  These are words I hear during lessons and in the studio often.  First off, there will be plenty of blogs about being prepared for the studio.  

The studio is the last word in where the quality of your playing is that day and overall.  There is nothing to obscure all those little swiping sounds on the guitar like a loud band.  Let's face it, the studio has been developed to reproduce our performances the best it can.  Many of us can all agree that at times, it reproduces a bit too well.  It can be a very sterile environment and without a good deal of experience and/or "confidence" it can be a creativity killer or send a project into the depths like an anchor.  Learn about the sonic qualities of your instrument, the frequency ranges,  how live tone doesn't always mean album tone.  How live technique or even the strings you use may not translate the same.  There's been a few times for sure where my confidence was broken in the studio because I couldn't use my favorite bass because it wasn't right for the song.  Maybe I was struggling to find the right tone.  Does this mean I intend to lay down a lack luster track?  "confidence" will determine that.  

Creative Process:  The more confident I am with my song writing, the stronger it gets.  It's that simple.  Am I confident I can even play this very technical section I'd like to write?  If I'm not, it's probably not going in the song.  Am I confident that this really simple section in the tune is going to be effective?  If I'm not, the section will probably sound small.  

Sense of humor, patience, desire, knowledge, and persistence.  All these things are granted through "confidence".  Most everything else is just a reason why very little has been yielded.

My final thought is this... The biggest let down when your lacking "confidence" is, it's very difficult to have fun at what you do.  I feel this is the biggest sin of them all.             

Check out this little guy full of confidence, he's having a blast.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z4PKBNzmuo