Just came back from a gig. No set list. We exclusively took requests from the audience. Heck half of the songs we didn't even have the music. The gig went fabulously well.
ooooh. That would be a tremendous step up for our group....a bigger step than our legs can reach. At least we can manage sight reading a piece we have never done.....we do a pretty good job sight reading.
@Richard-III said in Set lists:
All the drummers I know wouldn't have any use for sheet music anyway. Why? None of them can read it. Of course the drummers I've used had another problem. They couldn't keep time. Seriously. After the last one, we just gave up having a drummer. Life is so much better. Same story with guitar players.
This drummer is super. He stays on tempo, very skilled at all the components. He is also a member of the Philadelphia Eagles Drum Line. As a NY Giant fan, I do not hold that against him and I am his biggest fan.....in spite of his misguided allegiances! 
Speaking of too much music, we had a gig last night, which went very well with no set list issues (LOL)
The opposite of too much music happened, however. Our drummer's music never got there, he wasn’t responsible for it. He did an amazing job of ad libbing the whole night.
No one was the wiser. He would ask us how the intro went and a little about the song and go from there!
@Dr-Mark said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub
My favorite artist is Picasso because sometimes my underwear bunches.
Oh no you didn’t go there! 
@Dr-GO said in Artist on BOARD:
I personally don't paint by numbers. I use braille. Interesting thing is the finished version has a lot of texture to it.
As long as you don’t do surgery that way
@Dr-Mark said in Artist on BOARD:
Hi BigDub,
Whenever I'd try to do something like that, some of the numbers would bleed through.
Don’t thin the paint so much......that way you cover the numbers just fine.
@SSmith1226 said in Artist on BOARD:
Time to post another painting of something that perhaps is not a cow. Maybe a sheep or a landscape.
You took the words right out of my mouth....This is a view of the Delaware and Raritan Canal about 5 miles from my home and a place I spent many a day enjoying as a kid. Swimming, canoeing, hiking, even camping out along the towpath
Let me add a clarification of my original intent of this post:
My reasons for bemoaning the deviation from the setlist is selfish, lazy, and not generally looking to improve the workings and practices of my band.
I just want a smaller amount of music to carry to the gig without the looming possibility, more probability of one or more surprise entries added to the setlist. On the spot. I do have an iPad, and I put as much music as I can on it, but as some of you have shared, it has it's glitches, not to mention my ineptness at navigating ForScore and those things that seem to come easier to others as well. I think it might be just a small trade off to what I have been doing...
Here's another admission on my part: it isn't really that hard for me to carry my whole book and a separate small gig play list folder and keep the big book near my chair for those additions. I can really do that. People run marathons and triathlons and feats of great physical strength. Also, the percussionists have to bring many pieces of equipment, and tuba players have their tubas.....I do not, so I guess I can suck it up and be a big boy now.
@SSmith1226 said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub said in Artist on BOARD:
@SSmith1226 said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub said in Artist on BOARD:
@Tobylou8 said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub said in Artist on BOARD:
I am so glad you all are taking my art so seriously. But, really, don’t be so stuffy. Have a little fun with it. But don’t milk it to death.
You steering us away from fun? I'll calf no part of it! Cud you please leave us alone? I don't know what the veal problem with us having fun is!
The problem is........cows don’t have fingers. Come on, let’s not be silly here.
You think Cows have a problem by not having fingers! Cows never had fingers, but Steers are in real trouble. They are missing the parts that turned into Rocky Mountain Oysters. Now that is not being silly. It is a real issue if you are a steer or ox. No Bull!!! (Any more)
You, however, have a lot of Cajones, though
I took French so I wasn’t sure of the meaning of this, although living in South Florida, I had a good idea. I could picture Tony Montana saying something like that.
So I looked it up and this is what I found. And you are correct, I do have an abundance of cajones especially in the bedroom and closets.
Well, that is the official meaning......correct.
Slang, however, could be something else, entirely.
One of those words we all know, but can’t find it in the Spanish dictionary.....jajaja
@SSmith1226 said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub said in Artist on BOARD:
@Tobylou8 said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub said in Artist on BOARD:
I am so glad you all are taking my art so seriously. But, really, don’t be so stuffy. Have a little fun with it. But don’t milk it to death.
You steering us away from fun? I'll calf no part of it! Cud you please leave us alone? I don't know what the veal problem with us having fun is!
The problem is........cows don’t have fingers. Come on, let’s not be silly here.
You think Cows have a problem by not having fingers! Cows never had fingers, but Steers are in real trouble. They are missing the parts that turned into Rocky Mountain Oysters. Now that is not being silly. It is a real issue if you are a steer or ox. No Bull!!! (Any more)
You, however, have a lot of Cajones, though
We have a set list. We practice the eventual list plus a few extras. Sometimes good tunes get cut, but the week of a performance, the list is set and there are no audibles for extraneous tunes. We've played one encore since I've been there. There are two folders, practice and performance. Only the performance folder attends the concert. I feel sorry for you having to lug all that music around. I used to play in a church band that did that. 500 charts and any song could be called up at any time. We played 8 different tunes on any given Sunday. I took my file "bucket" home to practice the tough songs (the ones George Rawlins recorded!!) and lo and behold an audible was called. The other trumpet player wouldn't let me look on his music, he turned it away!
Anyway, The conductor isn't going to change, none of them do, so maybe a little cart for your horns and file "folder". This is what I used for years and it is still in good shape!
I’ll message my shipping address. Can you get it to me by tomorrow?
@Tobylou8 said in Artist on BOARD:
@BigDub said in Artist on BOARD:
I am so glad you all are taking my art so seriously. But, really, don’t be so stuffy. Have a little fun with it. But don’t milk it to death.
You steering us away from fun? I'll calf no part of it! Cud you please leave us alone? I don't know what the veal problem with us having fun is!
The problem is........cows don’t have fingers. Come on, let’s not be silly here.
@Dr-Mark said in Set lists:
@BigDub
Oh Snap! Possibly ask yourself, "how do unrehearsed songs sound when played as part of a show?" If it sucks, well......that sucks.
If and when it happens again, notice the quality. If it sucked, let the director know.
There's nothing wrong with sticking to a script. Yes, there's nothing wrong with having back-up tunes ready to go but these need to be rehearsed unless you guys are the Tonight Show Band with Doc Severensen.
Actually they can go either way, depending on the makeup of the group that happened to turn out that night. We CAN do a great job sight reading, when we are on our A game.
It is also hit or miss whether the band director ( who we all like a lot ) can be rather stubborn and likes to get his way.
I wouldn’t want to lose him, though.
@Dr-Mark said in Set lists:
Hi BigDub,
Yes, I would talk to the director. Lugging a NYC phone book sized set list is just crazy. If he/she wants that level of freedom, the set list needs to be digitized so you guys can carry all the songs on an IPad. If it's on an iPad, there's ease of portability, ease for the director because the songs can be pulled up alphabetically, and once its digitized, everyone can have access in case some of the songs get lost or destroyed which frees up the person responsible for getting the sheet music to the people.
To be clear, it’s not the set list that is the problem. It’s the impulsive nature of the director. He gets a stray thought in the middle of the concert and decides we should do a number not part of the set list.
We have probably over a hundred possible tunes we could do, including many marches I have never played yet. That comes up during a concert at times as well.....let’s play so and so march.....I look over to my section mate, "never heard of it", he says, oh, I think we played that about ten years ago, once.
I am so glad you all are taking my art so seriously. But, really, don’t be so stuffy. Have a little fun with it. But don’t milk it to death.
And another thing. Every time I play for memory the notes I decide upon don't seem to match up with the notes everyone else in my section seem to be playing. What's wrong with those people?
@J-Jericho said in Set lists:
@BigDub Whatsamatter? You can't simultaneously paint with one hand and play trumpet with the other?
well, of course, but I'm not sure which would suffer the most. Probably a tie for last place!
This was certainly a challenge and I re worked it after several years because I didn't like the awkwardness of the cows. Now I am happy with it, though.
@J-Jericho said in Set lists:
Just do what members of Duke Ellington's orchestra did: memorize it all. Problem solved.
Were they volunteer amateur players as well? just wondering........
@Mike-Ansberry said in Set lists:
@BigDub I got an iPad a couple of weeks ago. I'm still working on getting everything into ForScore, but it helps a bunch. Now I don't have to carry 3 large books with me. Just an iPad. Okay, truth is I'm old and don't trust technology. I still keep the books in the car just in case something goes wrong with the iPad. But it is a lot easier anyway.
I am definitely working on that as well. My iPad is not the large one, so it is a bit hard to see the notes. It still definitely is the way to go.
Does your band get a set list? Our community band gets sent a playlist a couple of days ahead of a gig.
Great concept. We have heavy, thick folders with all the music we play, including 4 March Books, scales and warmups, etc. - you get the idea. It's like two New York City phone books. Ok, one.
So the set list is a real great thing. Now I can use a small folder with 14 or 15 songs, all in order. Size of a diner menu. Ready to play. E-Z. P-Z.
Perfect.
Except, impulsively, our director almost every gig, guaranteed, will pull another song out of thin air, and whisper to us, "let’s do National Emblem" or some other random song.
So much for the convenience of a small folder. We have to lug the fat folder. To be prepared for the slim chance. Of one change.
I need to see about talking some sense into somebody. Right? I could go for having maybe 3 or four alternate songs stuck in there just in case the mood strikes. Still a thin folder, still workable.
