A few bad notes or a missed chord

[dot75]

Herbie Hancock's story of an early gig with Miles where he played entirely the wrong thing and froze for a few seconds in panic before realising that Miles had instantly made it right...

[Bobby Timmons]

^ Yep. And then good players are also in the practice of using context to make 'mistakes' be part of the flow of the music and end up working or even shape the interpretation or direction of the following stuff. But those have to be limited, you can't constantly be screwing up and assume it's musical.

[northernbreed]

... Wes birthed a clam ...

Made my day!

[BreckerFan]

I agree with a lot of what's been said. Mistakes are inevitable to a degree and it's important to not dwell on them in the moment. And yeah I can't tell you how many times I've thought what I played sucked and go back and listen to it and it wasn't as bad as I thought (or vice versa unfortunately lol).

There are some days where I feel like I can grab whatever I hear on the guitar vs just playing by muscle memory, and I'm trying to work on being in that space more because I have way fewer wrong notes on those days. I think one thing that helps is ear training exercises where you hear something and immediately try and find it on the guitar. Sometimes I use an app to play chords or intervals or whatever, or sometimes I just play along with records and try and catch as much as I can in the moment without stopping and listening again. Strengthening the connection between your ear and the guitar is the main part of the battle IMO.

[emanresu]

The bad notes get scared away the more you play but are always lurking in the shadows.

[emanresu]

Hey!
I'm drunk atm and got a drunk idea.
Bad notes are like trying to give up alcochol!

How to practice to NOT do something? A good answer could kill 2 flies at the same time.
BNA? like AA?

[Christian Miller]

I am certainly the Charlie Parker of schadenfreude….


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[Mick-7]

"As far as guitar picking, if I make the same mistakes at the same time every day, people will start calling it a style." - John Prine

My new alibi: "That was not a mistake, it was a technical experiment."

[JazzIsGood]

This is all pretty helpful info in this thread. It has helped me get to the bottom of it a bit.
I am gigging like 4-8 gigs a month. Nobody gives me shit at all, people sometimes gush over my playing. People are not lining up to hire me either. All the gigs I get are 2 categories. Either I'm booking it myself or people hire me to sub for a piano player who is out for whatever reason.

I'm just taking notice of my own clams. I had a conversation about it with some people about it where we concluded it's possible to play with zero clams if you stay simple and play it safe, but where's the fun in that. Better to risk it and play some more fun stuff. There is some kind of middle ground there.

In my search for the answer on this, I've started to try to fix some gaps in my knowledge. I think that's going to be my next attempt. There are things that "every pro jazz player should know" and I do not know them. For example, I know 4 inversions of drop 2 major 6th chords, but I do not know 4 inversions for drop 2 minor 7th chords. I've been gigging plenty, I play major 7th at times in the first inversion, I play major 6th and it's other inversions sometimes to spice it up here and there. It gets me by fine, but I don't know the fretboard and all the music theory THAT WELL if I'm being honest. I also don't know the names of the notes on the 10th frets on the D G and B string very well. It takes me a second or two to remember them. This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I mean not knowing the names of notes on the 10th fret is pretty bad I think, for someone who is getting paying gigs, ya know?

I think if I learn the fretboard better, learn all the common chord inversions most people know, and generally fill in some gaps I will be able to reduce my clams and also have a bit more freedom of expression on the instrument.

Play the background gigs to get good enough to play the nightclub gigs.

But really, everyone wants to see and play a good show. The guy who will give you shit for landing on F# over a D minor was going to give you shit anyway. You need to not let these types get under your skin. Usually they’re just jealous your playing out, but the only effort they put into gigs is waiting for the phone to ring.

Gigging is strange. I’ve had people come up and tell me there are no jazz gigs or players here while I’m literally playing a jazz gig with the band I made from local dudes.

A line is short, hopefully you play a thousand in a gig. Who cares if two of them bent to cover a flub.

Actually, are you gigging? Once you get out there, you don’t really think about the mistakes. I think about general improvements all the time, but a missed chord just flies by and if the next one is right, it’s all good.

Jo Jones never threw that cymbal at Charlie Parker, that’s just a myth.

[AllanAllen]

This is all pretty helpful info in this thread. It has helped me get to the bottom of it a bit.
I am gigging like 4-8 gigs a month. Nobody gives me shit at all, people sometimes gush over my playing. People are not lining up to hire me either. All the gigs I get are 2 categories. Either I'm booking it myself or people hire me to sub for a piano player who is out for whatever reason.

I'm just taking notice of my own clams. I had a conversation about it with some people about it where we concluded it's possible to play with zero clams if you stay simple and play it safe, but where's the fun in that. Better to risk it and play some more fun stuff. There is some kind of middle ground there.

In my search for the answer on this, I've started to try to fix some gaps in my knowledge. I think that's going to be my next attempt. There are things that "every pro jazz player should know" and I do not know them. For example, I know 4 inversions of drop 2 major 6th chords, but I do not know 4 inversions for drop 2 minor 7th chords. I've been gigging plenty, I play major 7th at times in the first inversion, I play major 6th and it's other inversions sometimes to spice it up here and there. It gets me by fine, but I don't know the fretboard and all the music theory THAT WELL if I'm being honest. I also don't know the names of the notes on the 10th frets on the D G and B string very well. It takes me a second or two to remember them. This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I mean not knowing the names of notes on the 10th fret is pretty bad I think, for someone who is getting paying gigs, ya know?

I think if I learn the fretboard better, learn all the common chord inversions most people know, and generally fill in some gaps I will be able to reduce my clams and also have a bit more freedom of expression on the instrument.

I think you’ll do just fine, keep working on the gaps.

[hotpepper01]

Playing bad notes happens to me at almost every gig. And most of the times, I am one of very few who noticed it or the rest is just to polite. Even worse than playing a bad note is playing out of sync/time/rhythm. Playing out of sync is much more disturbing to the ear of the listener..

[pauln]

I had a conversation about it with some people about it where we concluded it's possible to play with zero clams if you stay simple and play it safe, but where's the fun in that. Better to risk it and play some more fun stuff. There is some kind of middle ground there..

Each of us has a zone within which mistakes don't happen, but beyond which mistakes may happen. The whole idea of practice and rehearsal is working toward that threshold's elevation.
A critical thing in performance is to weigh what you would like to play against what you can execute without flaws. The ideal situation is that your threshold is high enough that you may play freely without concern about venturing into the "mistake zone" - that is, the technical and musical requirements for performance are well within your "no mistakes zone".

This feeling may be familiar to those who primarily perform Jazz but also take the occasional Blues, R&B, C&W, or Rock gig - the "down shift" feels "easy"... Likewise, you want your Jazz performances to also feel like a down shift from your personal level of playing (in general you always want your performance level to be within your threshold of control).

[enalnitram]

I've picked up a lot of useful concepts from learning about engineering and woodworking. Great craftsmen will show you their successes, not their mistakes. And when they speak about what not to do, you can be sure it's because they learned the hard way: by f'ing it up.

So many young artists will share a first effort. A seasoned artist will have a goal in mind and work towards it, with preparatory sketches, drafts, studies, etc. It's the work that goes into the finished product. It will have problems but those problems get worked out. And then, they'll show you only the work without the problems. This is the end product and it's how they uphold their reputation.

I had a friend that followed Michael Brecker around for part of a tour, and he recorded all the shows he saw on cassette. After listening to them, I was surprised at how many of Brecker's improvised solos developed the same way: starting, building, and ending with the same motifs, phrases and architecture. Much was improvised, but it was also honed, worked out, developed. A lot like a sculpture.

[AllanAllen]

I had a friend that followed Michael Brecker around for part of a tour, and he recorded all the shows he saw on cassette. After listening to them, I was surprised at how many of Brecker's improvised solos developed the same way: starting, building, and ending with the same motifs, phrases and architecture. Much was improvised, but it was also honed, worked out, developed. A lot like a sculpture.

There's the real truth of it.

[jameslovestal]

There's the real truth of it.

The Wes Mongomery in Paris live recordings made in 1965, where his playing was very similar to the studio versions, is another example of this.

[Christian Miller]

Improvisation can also be a process of distillation - sometime unknowingly. If you play the same tunes night after night on a tour, this does tend to happen. (A teacher of mine also pointed this out.)

Steve swallow makes the same point:

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