Cover Combo Caveats No. 2

Ah. Oh. Sorry 'bout the triple post yesterday - sometimes Blogger gets a bit like dat scwewwy wabbit when it comes to uploading stuff. 'Pologies. Anway, itz time for Numpah Two in our merry little series of ramblings from the world of "Que Sera, Sera" and "Love Me, Tender". Here we go:

(this image courtesy of wallpaperbase.com)

Rule 2 "All-Singing-all-dancing" or "Talk Is Cheap": The only time it is permissible to speak to any given musician playing at your barmitzvahweddingahannukahdayfest is at the precise time when the musician in question is very obviously fully occupied playing music and couldn't possibly respond to your request/query/command. This is an old one, a fact I can remember noticing as a kid watching others play (long before I became a musician myself). No one seems to know why, but the only time someone will try to talk to you, the musician, will be at the exact time when you're, say, trying to improvise the perfect guitar solo over some tricky harmonies. Or, as happens invariably to myself, when I'm playing drums and singing lead vocal at the same time. Trust me, doing those two things alone is more than enough to have my mental capacities running on overboost (plus having all four extremities and my speech centre busy) and if there's one thing I could neither physically nor mentally perform, it would be listening to and answering whatever it is I'm just being told. The fun thing really is that without fail, people will access the one musician completely engrossed in what he/she's doing at any given time, not the guys sitting around them playing accompaniment/chilling out. I've seen it happen with saxophone players in mid-solo, bent double over their instrument with closed eyes and twitching arms. I've seen people approach beautiful female vocalists in long dresses precisely as they were launching into the high point of a ballad, head back, spotlight on, everyone's smitten except for the bride's mother, stage left in the wings with the question "will you be playing `The Days of Wine and Roses' later?" burning on her mind. The thing is, its so hard to know how to react. Ideas tested were:

(this image is from ninaspencer.com)

A) Ignoring the speaker; usually only leads to redoubled efforts and increased volume/facial redness/indignance, so that doesn't help.

(this one comes to you from cakeplow.com)

B) Trying to answer the question; impossible for the aforementioned reasons, even though some of the musicians I've worked with will try their very best, invariable delivering quite a performance in doing so. For example, have you ever seen a sax player try to speak out of the corner of his mouth while playing? It makes for some funny squeaks and squawks, I can assure you...

(this final one courtesy of cgi.ebay.com)

C) Doing a sort of Indian yes-no, "yeah but no but" motion with your head, then trying to deal with the problem/answering the questions after the song's over tends to be the only thing that works in my experience. Again, this may lead to hilarity among your band members as they laugh heartlessly at your plight and ungainly body motions, but hey, it definitely beats bringing the whole band to a grinding halt and facing the speaker directly. I remember doing that once in a band headed by one of Germany's best recorder players. He simply stopped us all in mid-tune and turned to the person with a suitably annoyed expression. You should have seen the crowd's reaction - I think I've never been so close to death by pitchfork stabbing or being throttled with bailer twine (it was a farmer's wife's birthday party, and her sister, the acting MC, was the questioner). So, don't go there would be my advice... We did manage to cheer things up again, though, with a selection of rousing tunes such as, well, "Those were the days", "I will survive" and, of course, "La Bamba". This brings me straight to another caveat, song choice and sequence, but that shall be saved for another post. Meanwhile, cheerio and keep rocking those wedding anniversaries, guys...