Category: 3. Improve Your Live Band Skills

Become a better player, singer, showman and Live Band.

Creating Sonic Space Between Instruments Before Mixdown

Bill and Frank work out parts in the practice room.

How many times have you spent a lot of time recording your new masterpiece only to come to the mixdown and finding that there are way too many low frequencies? It sucks when you get to mixdown and you have to filter out frequencies on the bass guitar just so it will have some presence in the mix. Having too many low frequencies in the mix is something that you will struggle with at your live shows as well. The biggest cause of too many low frequencies that I have found over the course of my live and recording career is the simple fact that the players in the band are playing in the same frequency range as each other at the same time. I’m not talking about lovely unison lines but when two or more instruments are playing different parts at the same time in the same frequency range.

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The Difference Between Playing A Song And Playing A Song Well

Matt Copying The Original Artist

I remember back when I was in my first live band how awesome it was just to make it through an entire song from beginning to end. We would get a chord chart and the lyrics and just play through the songs. It was fun and it sounded pretty good. As time went on and our ability to listen to the individual parts that make up a song increased, we realized that we were missing a lot of subtle nuances that made the songs we were playing go from good to great. It’s true when people say “The difference is in the details.” That’s what I’d like to talk about today.

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Your Live Band Must Have A Stable Core Group Of Musicians

The Core = Guitar, Bass and Drums

Over the years I’ve played in a lot of various live band lineups. I’ve played in 3, 4, 5 and 6-piece rock bands as well as some 20 person Jazz bands. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is the bigger the band, the bigger the problems. I’m talking about scheduling problems, personality conflicts, incompatible work ethic, weak skill levels and mismatched goals for the band. It can be a real challenge in a band with a lot of people to keep it functioning. Fortunately there is an excellent solution to this problem. All you really have to do is have a compatible, stable group of core musicians.

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Build Your Set List With Live Musician Central’s Custom iMix



Live Musician Central Downloadable Set Lists

   Earlier on Live Musician Central I wrote a post detailing the benefits of using iTunes custom iMix feature to create set lists for your live band to learn. You can check out that article here: Creating A Setlist Using iTunes iMix. There are a lot of advantages to using the iMix feature to create your band set lists. The top reason to do it is so that all members of your band can get the same version of the song from the same place. That way you don’t have your bass player learning the live version of a song, your drummer learning a studio outtake and your guitarist learning the radio edit.

   Today I want to point you to the Live Musician Central Downloadable Setlist page that has links to all the custom iMixes that I have created. These setlists were created using the Top 200 dance songs of all time. I created the setlists to have a flow to them that will work very well in a club. If you’re looking for a starting place to build up your band set list then these iMixes are a great place to start.
Playing Old Songs Versus New Songs With Your Live Band

In Stereo Playing To A Packed Dance Floor

In my many years of playing in a live band I’ve made a lot of observations about what types of songs fill the dance floor and what types leave people sitting in their seats. One aspect that has always fascinated me is how an old, well known song will pack the floor while a new song will sometimes clear the floor. It’s been something that I’ve struggled to define over the years. Having a new song clear the floor isn’t something that happens every time but it happens enough that I’ve thought about it quite a bit. So why does an old song such as Sweet Home Alabama fill the dance floor every time you play it while a hot newer song like U2 – Vertigo is hit and miss? They’re both excellent songs and have a great danceable beat to them.

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Having A Jam Session Songwriting Session

Shufflin' Noah In The Jam Room

I am a songwriter as well as a live performing musician. I’ve been writing songs since I was about 15 years old and I have an extensive catalog of completed music. I write songs a lot of different ways. Sometimes I’ll sit down at the piano or with a guitar and write an entire song with lyrics, start to finish. Sometimes I’ll come up with a riff or chord progression and I’ll have to turn it over in my mind for a few days until I feel like I can finish a song with it. Another thing I’ll do is write with my band by getting together and actively writing a complete song. These are usually great songs because everyone adds something to them. Today I’m going to talk about one of my all-time favorite ways to write songs. That’s by having a jam session and just letting things happen while we record everything we play.

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Build Finger Strength With Hanon “The Viruoso Pianist In Sixty Exercises”

Hanon – The Virtuoso Pianist In Sixty Exercises

If you’re a live musician that plays guitar, bass or keyboards then you know that having good finger strength and coordination is essential to mastering your instrument. If you ever took piano lessons then you’ve probably run across the piano exercise book by Charles-Louis Hanon titled “The Virtuoso Pianist In Sixty Exercises“. I remember my piano teacher asking me at the beginning of every lesson to play my “Hanon Exercise”. Because the name “Hanon” was the largest word on the cover of the book we all just called it Hanon. I’ll tell you, those exercises were easy to learn, quickly became boring and built my finger strength and coordination in a way that few things have over the years. I owe a lot of my hand strength to good old Hanon.

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Set Delays On The Beat With The Delay Effect Formula

Yamaha SPX2000 Digital Effects Processor

One of the tricks of the trade when it comes to mixing down recordings is synchronizing the delay settings with the beat of the song. It gives your recorded tracks a very smooth and even feel when the delays are hitting on the beat or on divisions of the beat. These days, so many live bands are using sequenced tracks or recorded backing tracks that it’s an essential skill as a live musician to be able to set your delay effects to hit with the beat of the song that you’re playing. With all of the excellent digital delays and digitally controlled analog delays it’s easier than ever to get your delay effect units set to the beat of the song you’re playing.

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Get Your Band Focused By Scheduling A Gig

In Stereo Gigging The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City

Nothing, and I mean nothing, will have your live band working together like having a gig scheduled. When you have a deadline for a performance the whole band will suddenly become more focused on creating a great final product to present at the show. The constant tweaking of parts will stop, songs that just aren’t coming together will be dropped and the songs you do well will really start to get tight. Having an upcoming gig will give your band a sense of urgency that really will help you to polish things up and make them presentable. (more…)
Should I Get Guitar Lessons?

Matt Plays Guitar Like A Keyboard

I get asked this question all the time “Should I get guitar lessons?” and it’s a question that’s quite tricky to answer. As soon as people find out that I’m a performing live musician they ask if I had music lessons. The reason these questions are tricky is because I did take music lessons in general but I’ve only taken about 4 formal guitar lessons in my life and that was because it was required in my college music studies. I’m a self taught guitarist, it’s my best instrument and I play guitar professionally in two bands. So when I tell people, yes they should get guitar lessons, it’s hard to justify formal guitar lessons from my personal experience since I never really had them. I’m going to answer the, should I get guitar lessons, question today on the blog.

The answer is different for everyone and it depends on what other musical training you’ve had. Let’s start off easy, if you’ve never had any musical training on any other instrument then yes, you should definitely get guitar lessons right now and hang in there taking the lessons until you have a good command of the guitar and a really good grasp of guitar theory and music theory. (more…)