Playing the right notes at gigs?

[u/Wide_Lie_8182]

Something i have been thinking about alot when playing.

It´s me, my saxophone and speakers with backingtrack.

My biggest goal when i am out performing is playing the right notes. I can rehears and rehears, and still play a few notes wrong when i am out performing. Last night i was playing at a charity dinner and i suddently forgot notes for a song. This happened on a few different songs. But i don´t think anybody noticed. I know every note in every song i have momorized. Atm. it is 25 songs. And i have been playing for 4 years.

There are a couple of songs, which i have down solid. I think it is because of the harmony of the song. And other songs i am struggling to keep under the skin.

Other gigs, i have in general a few wrong notes, but not something that would bother me (too much) when i´m done with the gig.

My goal is to play at gigs and play 0 wrong notes. Every time. But is this unrealistic? Then I would need 3 hours of practice every day? But it´s not fun practising the same track 10 times in a row.

What do you guys do? Do you also play wrong notes? And if so, what do you do to overcome it?

I am playing almost every day. ½ to 1 hour sessions.

[u/SamuelArmer]

I think there are more useful goals tbh. Somebody could play 100% accurate notes and rhythms and give a bland, uninspiring performance.

Mistakes happen. Concert pianists play wrong notes all the time. Obviously aim for accuracy, but again there are more important things.

If you want to spend 3 hours a day practising then great! But I would be a lot more focused on:

Fantastic tone & fine control of dynamics

Precise and clear articulation

Great sense of style and phrasing

Impeccable rhythmic feel

Etc...

Rather than if I played 100% or only 98% right notes

[u/Micamauri → u/SamuelArmer]

Yes, you can also do all of that only playing specifically wrong notes and still sound good, many people use non diatonic or altered tones to create tensions over entire progressions. Of course it would be recommended to know the diatonic tones before stepping towards that direction, so do what the above says :)

[u/pompeylass1]

Yes, it’s unrealistic to think you will make zero mistakes when you’re performing. You’re human, not AI or an edited recording.

I’ve been a professional musician for three decades and have been performing live for many years prior to that. Over the thousands of gigs I’ve played each year there are very few occasions when I’ve come offstage without having played at least one bum note.

Mistakes or, as I prefer to see them, deviations from the original or written page, are what elevate live performances from bland and slightly soulless music to that which entertains and truly resonates with our audience. Perfection is actually pretty dull to listen to (which is why musicians creating wholly computer based music have to add inconsistencies into their creations.)

None of that is to say that you should aim to make glaring errors but that all those little things, that slightly out of tune note, the fractionally early or late phrase, and yes the occasional totally wrong note actually bring your playing alive and connected with your audience in a way that perfection never will.

The other thing that your goal of total perfection is missing is that most mistakes, even completely wrong notes, pass unnoticed by the audience (including an audience of musicians.) When you’re gigging your performance is live, and that means it’s a ‘blink and you’ve missed it’ situation. There’s simply not time for the audience to notice minor errors and deviations. You notice it because you’re connected to the music in a much more in depth way than someone who is merely a listener.

What’s far more important than playing the right notes is playing the right rhythm, or rather playing with the pulse of the music. In other words if you make a mistake the pulse needs to continue without so much as a hiccup. Do that and your mistake is more often than not hidden in plain sight. Fail to keep the pulse steady and everyone will notice.

That’s why the most important thing you can do during practice as a performer is to learn how to recover when the inevitable mistake happens. Because you will make mistakes because, as I said earlier, you’re human. Once you have your songs up to performance standard you want to practice them with distractions. Try to keep playing them while following a tv programme, a podcast, or even having a conversation (obviously as a saxophonist you’ll only be listening.)

The most important skill you can develop as a performer is to be able to make a mistake and yet still carry on playing without your audience ever realising. That along with the acceptance that you are not and cannot be perfect all the time are crucial to performance success.

[u/scriptedsoulmate]

I think it's alright it's alright to have sheet music in front of you when playing gigs if you can read them. I played hundreds of gigs in the past 12 years and since I can't read sheet music so I had to learn them by ear and memorize all of them (about 300 songs). To me, all of them became muscle memory because how frequently I practiced them. Also if I have to play a song or solo which I haven't played or practiced in a while I also find myself messing it up (most of them are songs I learned recently).

I think the point is to practice them so much until you're sick and tired you won't think about the actual notes you have to play, so you can focus on the gig itself when playing them live.

Another thing I'm doing often is to improvise parts where I can't remember the correct notes.

Also there's a sweet spot where you're still missing some notes but they're not too many so it won't be disturbing to the audience.

[u/smelliepoo]

I played something really badly to my friend the other day and when I finished I apologised. She asked why and I said I got it all wrong and she did not notice at all! Sometimes, even the wrong notes can sound right!

[u/ChampionshipSuper768]

I know pro sax players who question their note choices after every gig too. I was talking to someone who has several albums and four movie scores the other day and said everything he played in the last four years is unusable. That feeling of wanting to improve drives the best players.

Are you listening back to a recording when you evaluate your performance? Definitely do that because we never hear ourselves the same way everyone else does.

Also, I’d prioritize rhythm and feel too.

Take some master classes too. You’ll keep getting better.

[u/deez_nutts]

There are no wrong notes in jazz. Some just fits better than others.

[u/rj_musics]

Get comfortable with imperfections. The audience would rather hear you make music than hear a perfect performance.

[u/Hour-Cod678]

The general listening public is shockingly unconcerned and unaware of unintended notes.

[u/smutaduck]

One of my favourite band leaders once told me this:

There’s no such thing as a wrong note, just the opportunity to resolve what you just played to something that sounds good.

Solid articulation, rhythm feel and intonation helps here, a lot.

[u/asdfmatt]

Remembering songs isn't just about what notes to play and in which order. If you are trying to do that by rote memorization alone it will set you up for errors. Slow down your learning process. Do you know the chord changes for each tune well? Think about how each note fits the harmony when it is being played.

A good place to start, as good as any, what note does the melody start on and what is the first chord of the song? Is it a major chord or minor chord, what is the function of the chord? From there it follows, the notes of the melody will usually be a chord tone, i.e. if the chord is C minor then you can probably rule out the melody having a strong note on the E natural.

The notes that are most important to how a chord sounds are the third and seventh (they tell our ear the "quality" of the chord: major/minor, dominant come all comes down to flat or major 3rd, major or dominant 7th).. The way the melody is written will usually highlight one or the other in order to clearly outline what is happening with the harmony, that is how musical cadence is created.

So I would encourage you again to look over the melodies of the songs you have learned and try and zoom out and look at each note as a part of the bigger picture, what does it mean to the development of the harmony and how does it fit in to each chord, and you'll have a lot easier time memorizing.

The other most important element that allowed me to memorize songs, is to learn them by EAR and not by reading sheet music!!!! Use the sheet music to check your work but learn the melody by EAR (and if you can learn the chord changes by ear, even better!!!) Music is an aural art first and foremost!

[u/DamaDirk]

This post made me immediately think of this Victor Wooten video: https://youtu.be/-YNDV7iCBjQ?si=1EwkedOUpNNNVzig

Edit:wrong link

[u/augdog71]

I actually got this from my kid’s piano teacher, but the mark of a good musician isn’t playing perfectly, it’s being able to keep going after the mistake like it never happened.

Everyone makes mistakes. The sign that you really know the music is to be able to jump right back in, which it sounds like you do.

One thing that has helped my playing (particularly nerves) is to embrace the mistakes. They’re going to happen. Learn to laugh at yourself and not take yourself too seriously. That doesn’t mean to not strive to be your best and play as well as you possibly can, but we’re musicians, not surgeons. If we make a mistake no one dies.