You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Things Not to Do at Soundcheck

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

It's another episode from the YHI Live session as Peter and Adam talk about what to avoid doing at soundcheck. (And yes, Adam did at least one of these right after we recorded it)7 Things Not to Do at SoundcheckRehearse!Show up latePlay long solosMake it all about youMonopolize the monitor or FOH engineerBring a bad vibe to the gig because of your needsMake the monitor way louder than everyone else'sBonusAnd be sure to have a look at Open Studio's brand new course from Edu Ribeiro: Brazilian Jazz Drumming! Learn authentic Brazilian grooves like samba, baião, choro, and more from one of the world's greatest Brazilian jazz drummers. Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/brazilian-jazz-drumming for more information.Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? Do you have a sound check soon? I do in about 10 minutes. Really? Can you think of some things not to do before you get there? Because that's what we're talking about today, buddy. Let's do it.

I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast and a D-flat. Yeah, a sonorous G-flat. Sonorous. I'm digging the live theme. That's fun, man. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of fun.

Well, I think hopefully Adam will have. edited that out for the actual thing. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. Wow, what are we talking about today, sir? Today, so topical. We're talking about, I'm about to go to a sound check, and we're talking about seven things not to do at a sound check. Right, and we did not set this up as kind of instructional for you for what you're about to do,

but you can take it that way, because you're about to go to a sound check. Yeah, yeah. And I was at a sound check last night that took a little bit longer than I believe it should have. Right, because we had a meeting that you were late to because of your, sound check that went over, which could end up being one of our things not to do, and that is to... I have the feeling it wasn't you that extended that sound check. It was not, but now the universe is coming around because I have a sound check, and I'm definitely going to be late to today. Well, we have to demonstrate, you know, just as the great Christian McBride does in his wonderful course on Open Studio, he does a lot of demonstrating of what not to do, and the students have gotten a lot out of that, so there's nothing wrong with that.

All right, so let's go with number one. Number one thing not to do with a sound check. Rehearse. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Now, this might seem like people might be like, what do you mean? That's the time to rehearse. Well, it's not actually a sound check then.

I'm a big stickler about this because you can have a rehearsal or a sound check or it's possible to do both of them together. But that needs to be announced, I think, in advance or it needs to be organized in advance. Because a sound check, you're being a little bit disrespectful to the sound engineers and really to each other. You're supposed to be acclimating to the room, checking the sound, the sound engineer. And it depends on how big. big the crew is, you know, or if you're doing the sound yourself, front of house, monitors, whatever, big festival, small club, whatever. But it's a chance to get acclimated with, sometimes with just your instrument, like for us as piano, sometimes it's the only time we have to really be

in there. But when you try to layer in a rehearsal on top of that, like, I hate it when people are bringing in like complicated. Oh, let's go over this real quick. Call a separate rehearsal. I'm super, super agree. Now, I will say that if like the one I'm about to go to today is a one-off kind of gig, right, where it's like we've already had one rehearsal, but I am going to assume that we are going to run through some stuff significantly again, right? So depending on the situation, now, if I'm in a regular band where we're playing together all the time and the leader tries to like pull an hour rehearsal on a sound check when we all know all the music or whatever, I'm just going to be like, this is not happening. Well, no, death and destruction and many other things. Or like you said,

if it's a one-off and the leader's like, yeah, we don't need a rehearsal, you know, We'll just kind of run everything at sound check. And then sound check turns into two hours. I'm also pissed. Exactly. You know. Well, and it's just that you can do, I think sometimes what's been successful is to say we're going to rehearse for about 45 minutes and then we're going to do the sound check, you know, for 20 minutes after that. And you can be a little bit loose.

We're not trying to be so dogmatic. But there's sort of a delineation because it's very hard to rehearse, especially with certain sound engineers the way they like to work because they want to maybe, depending on the environment, they might be like, can you play something soft or slow? But you're like, no, we're rehearsing this. There's that tension then back and forth where they can work quicker if you give them that concentrated time of playing in a way that they can get it. I mean, look, the whole point is to get a good sound on you for the audience. Like that's the goal of the sound check. It's not for you to be able to get. I mean, yeah, you're getting comfortable with the sound too.

But that, again, depending on the instrument you play, you might need some time doing that on your own. Not everybody rehearsing what the leader thinks needs to be done that. Agreed. So number two, I think, is really, really important. Yeah. And that is show up late. Really, I'm surprised that you're saying this. So, I mean, a lot of these, a lot of these I'm noticing are things about time, right?

Yeah. I mean, this is something that is just, this drives me crazy. My dad is one of those dads who is like, if you're not five minutes early, you're late, right? So that has turned me into one of those kind of dads, too. Right. So it does driving nuts because it's like you're being disrespectful of everybody's time. And a lot of these on this list are about time because you know you've got a gig coming up

sometimes you got two or three sets. Yeah. You know, you've got a long night ahead of you playing music. Like, let's not waste our time before the job starts. Yeah, the energy that you need to be at your instrument playing I think should be the minimal amount. I mean, I know a bunch of artists that just hate

and refuse to do sound checks. Totally. I think part of it is because, especially if you layer and travel the same day and whatever else you're in another environment, sound check is just a time to sap your energy. then that you really want to be reserving for the gig. That's the time. Like you want to have your energy,

your mental energy, your physical energy, everything. But it's like how do you accommodate everybody and at least minimize it as much as possible? If people are showing up late and then coming in and then trying to set up their gear while you're already sound checking,

that's probably one of the easiest things to kind of kill the vibe. It's a drag. Yeah. I just added number three here and I know you're going to appreciate it, so I want you go ahead. Play long solos. Exactly.

I mean, this is not a gig. It is sound check. hit it and quit it get in and get out we all know that player that gets in the sound check and blows for five minutes over the blues head

and it's like buddy come on well this segues really well right into number four I don't know if you saw that which is make it all about you do not make it all about you it's hard for me

because that's just my natural M.O because it's all about Adam and it's sometimes yeah no but this is about

like not only playing long solos but don't make it all about you in that this is not your I mean, unless you're on a solo piano gig, this is not your personal sound check. This is a time for everybody to get acclimated on stage. And I think sometimes vocalists and pianists and could be anybody. Drummers, actually, I'm thinking, but will become like, oh, I'm more important, so I need to spend more time working on my instrument.

Now, I kind of understand that with vocalists because their instrument is themselves. So I understand it's so personal. Like you're trying to get a sound of your instrument, which is your voice, which you're. is your actual body. And so it can be very frustrating if you don't have the time to really feel confident that you're sounding good

from the monitors and the house and all that. The vocalist, I think, a sound check is most important to the vocalist. And I think the instrumentalists in the band need to respect that. Yeah.

And need to defer for time to the vocalist and to stage volume and a bunch of other things. Okay. I hate to admit it. Okay. But also, it's also,

you know, talking about to get used to the instrument, the vocalist doesn't have to get used to their own instrument because they're bringing it with them. But, like, so for pianists, we need to get used to the piano, but we shouldn't monopolize and make it about us.

Like, come early. Yeah. And, like, I'm always doing that and, like, playing or stay after. Again, respect other people's time. Yeah, because now you're checking the sound. It's not the time for you to just give. Drummers are bad about this, like,

setting up their stuff and, like, you know, give me this and give me that and all that. You know, no. So number five here is one that drives me crazy. That's monopolize the monitor or front of the house engineer. Yeah. So my lovely wife, Heather, has been a lifelong worker in restaurants.

Does she monopolize the front of house engineer on her job? No, good. But there's something that is discussed amongst servers and restaurant workers that customers often do, which is called one-timing, I think is what it's called. And it's when I come and I bring you the menu and I say, do you know anything? You're like, no, no, no. And then I come back. I take your order and then I leave and then you flag me down.

You say, can I get a water? And then I bring you the water and you're like, oh, and can I get a nice tea? and then I go and I bring you the ice team, you're like, you know, come to think of it, can we get a Coke too? Yeah. And it's just every time you come back there, there's what could have been consolidated

into a request for drinks. Yeah. Has turned into a bunch of one-timers. And now, you know, the servers and the weeds with three other tables, right? Right. So this happens, I notice a lot at sound checks where there's usually a protocol of,

you know, we'll start with getting sounds from the drums and then maybe the bass or guitar and then the keys and then the vocals. And if like the bass player is constantly flagging down the sound engineer when it's not kind of their turn to do I mean you want to get it right for sure but you'll have your time yes you know and there's no reason

if they're working on the drums to be like hey can I get more piano on my monitor right now because now you've just like taken you know the attention of the monitor engineer off of what they're supposed to be doing and onto you so yeah and I mean you know thinking about this one in particular but everything on the list like this could also be

seven things not to do as a human you know it's not just a I mean like a lot of just sort of etiquettes as a person don't be selfish that's what this one really is about and when you're monopolizing anybody's time like well you know we always come back to the like think about the

whole like how everything's supposed to sound so like we can make it so personal like I want my piano to sound good you know no we want the whole thing to sound good sometimes that means that you're the piano's going to be a little bit more in the background because it's not a great sounding instrument or whatever is not about you

If you go into it with that kind of attitude, I think that the world will reward you actually with a lot being about you. But more importantly, you know, the whole being so much bigger than some of those parts, you'll get to be part of something that's so exciting and edifying for you and for the audience and for the engineers. And, you know, I was thinking about a bunch of other ones. This leads us right to number six, which is don't bring a bad vibe to the gig because of your needs. Exactly. I'm about to go do that. I'm like that. I'm just kidding. I'm going to be late. I'm breaking all these rules.

I'm going to be late. I'm going to come in and I'm going to be like, oh, it's time to check the piano or what? I'm kidding. Right. I just added a bonus, by the way. Oh, that's good. But, you know, yeah, like,

Soundcheck can be a very stressful time. Yes, especially when you're violating all of these things. People can be, yeah, totally. People can be real A-holes. I almost went full giant steps, Andrew. People can be real. Can be real A-holes to the sound engineer and to each other at sound checks.

So, you know, like, I think I'm always trying to be hyper aware of my attitude at sound check to be positive. Yeah. Like really try to not let it get to me, even though these obviously get under my skin. Well, and the thing about it is too, as sound check, yeah, it's too, like we're saying at the beginning, is to check the sound to really acclimate all that. But it's really your first or kind of primary opportunity until you get on stage for the actual gig to set the tone for the interaction of the humans that are going to be pretty.

It's almost like, you know, that's why I think, Sometimes it's easier to skip the sound check if you know everyone's going to really, like you have to trust everybody. For sure. Because you have to, everyone has to be able to adapt very quickly. And the main time I've been done the skipping sound checks is at these festival gigs. We just did it in Newport last weekend because it's like band after band, there's no time to sound. There's no opportunity to sound check. The audience is there. Yeah.

So whatever you can get. You whatever. Yeah. So you have to get out there and take all these into consideration even more because you are still actually sound checking on the first couple minutes of the first tune. Yeah, yeah. That's the reality. You're making these adjustments. You're communicating with a monitor engineer and all these kind of things. So everything is accelerated. But you have to, I think, be even more cognizant of the human element and not monopolizing and not because everyone's having to do that. And that can turn an okay vibe into a bad vibe very quickly.

Totally agree. Slippery slope. We do have a bonus today, but first let's get number seven. Number seven is really, this is an important one, I think. And that's not, you don't want to make your monitor way louder than everybody else. Right. Don't start a loud war on stage. Be aware of the overall stage volume that's around you. Wow, it almost seems like this could... I'm pretty much talking to bass players. This could almost...

And some singers. I mean, this could almost like working with number four, don't make it all about you. This whole list could have been number four. Yeah, exactly. The monitor is not your personal, especially playing jazz. Now, I've been on a couple of kind of like pop-pish sort of gigs

where everyone's just physically more separated. You're kind of in your own world, and you can kind of control the monitors. you know, I don't really like playing like that. It's so isolating. But I mean, there you have more, or if you have in-air headphones, you can do whatever you want, you know. But the whole thing is like, yeah, your monitor is not like unidirectional just to you and nobody else hears it. And in fact, what other people are hearing from your monitor when you have it up loud is not good quality because it's coming from a different direction.

It's not the way it's intended to be. So you want to really think about an edifying experience for everybody on stage, not just you. It's not about you. Totally. All right. So before we get to our bonus, we are. Brought to you by Open Studio. That's our lovely sponsor.

Open Studio. That's right. Go to Open StudioJazz.com to check out our brand new Lightning Fast platform with all our great courses. All our great features. Quizzes, practice routines, transcription, living notation, Peter Martin's personal phone number.

Everything's there. It's all there. All Access Pass is cool because we have a new feature that we just dropped or about to drop. No, it's already dropped by now. the monthly improv lesson of which you did it. This is going to be from an open studio teacher, our artists as you are.

Every month we're going to feature a new kind of idea that I think the whole All Access Pass community can kind of rally around and practice. I love it, man. So that's going to be fun. Check that out. All the courses. Okay, so what's our bonus?

Oh, the bonus, yeah, yeah. Okay, this is really important for something. We always look at these double negatives. We're so negative here. Seven things not to do it. sound check so I got to phrase it right. Don't treat the crew like crap. Totally. Don't even think about them as a crew in the sense of support crew and things like this. Treat them as your equals because they are, if not above you actually.

You're all making the show happen. You're all making the show happen. And like as musicians, it's so easy for us to think because we're on stage and the spotlight is on us. But just like this podcast is here with Andrew, our producer, it's like you don't see him on camera, but he has an outsized ability for the actual success of how this sounds, how it's given to people and stuff. So we want to go in with an attitude of, you know, camaraderie with the crew, and you don't go in there and step over them because they can make you sound bad. I was going to say, you can't really make them sound bad. This is just practical advice. Like, I'm always amazed at people who berate sound engineers, people who. They don't usually sound

very good themselves, though. Have you noticed that? I know. Yeah. This is like, make me sound good. Can't polish your turd. I don't have a non-suck button. here, buddy. But you know, like, you're yelling at the guy who's going to make you or break you tonight. Exactly. So it's just like, you know, I bring them cookies. If you treat them like crap, you could actually sound really good and they could make you, they could just make you

not heard. If I could afford it, I would bring a brand new pair of black cargo shorts and black Doc Martin boots to every gig I was on just for the sound engineer. Are you applying that the sound engineers might want to wear that kind of attire? Is that what you're saying? Okay. I'm not even hiding it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so... Till tomorrow.

You'll hear it.