Nikki’s Notes: Compatibility is Key

Nikki’s Notes: Compatibility is Key

Flaunt Weekly

Photo by Deb Morrison-Littell

As considered in Guitar Girl Magazine Pronounce 18 Frosty climate 2021 – Ladies within the Tune Trade

There are such a large amount of musicians with big ability and doable who shoot themselves within the foot with self-sabotaging behaviors.

I lately moved to Chicago from Los Angeles with my husband, who’s a drummer. After a few months of settling correct into a fully recent metropolis and fragment of the nation, we were itching to accept as true with recent music, recent chums, and receive conversant in Chicago’s music scenes—especially the Americana scene. A Craigslist ad was once posted, and a flood of electronic mail responses came in. Every other folks show their weirdness or lack of like minded trip suddenly, and might possibly well additionally be pushed aside painlessly. Others don’t repeat their hand as posthaste, and now it’s up to you to settle them out with the smallest amount of wasted time.

We made up our minds to fulfill one guy at a restaurant after being attentive to his audio clips and searching at his are residing performance movies. In these clips, he clearly showed that he can play, play the appropriate stuff for our genre, and that he’d performed with going on artists at the higher venues in town. Trusty thru our cafe assembly, there was once one subtle red flag. Still, we made up our minds to give the fellow the profit of the doubt and time table a gathering at our rehearsal home… nonetheless, my intuition will probably be appropriate.

He had two weeks to study five songs and clearly didn’t after we met him with devices in hand. Three songs in, he said: “I’m shaky on legend of my bass is in tumble tuning.” Once I requested why he had tuned it down, he answered that he’d been playing in a steel band lately and in actual fact cherished tumble tuning. As we play soul-influenced Americana, my husband and I appropriate checked out every assorted. Counting the time of playing and emailing him charts earlier than our assembly, we realized we received’t receive these hours of our lifestyles abet.

We let him play the final two songs with us to now now not trigger doable drama (the rehearsal was once in our home). The guy tousled several chord changes, alongside side the most traditional one around, and he fumbled his touchdown on the most indispensable chord of the songs. This time, he said: “I’m shaky on legend of I’m now now not historical to playing without being stoned.” Pointless to articulate, we wrapped issues up after that. About two weeks later, he texted to see if we’d be up for assembly all yet again—clueless about the impression he had made.

When you audition musicians, you’re now now not most efficient checking for ability and “dangle component,” but also within the event that they’ve their personal act and reliability together. Their lack of these issues might possibly well accept as true with an ticket to your lifestyles at some level of rehearsals, at shows, and within the studio. They’d possibly well additionally additionally accept as true with an ticket on assorted other folks’s impressions of you. Why would you are searching to place up with that after there are assorted big musicians who don’t accept as true with these complications, or now now not lower than accept as true with ample self-perception to face and transcend their blocks continually?

Nikki O’Neill is an Americana and Soul artist on Blackbird Tale Keep. Based solely in Chicago, she also performs, writes for Guitar Player, and is a instructing artist at the Weak Metropolis Faculty of Folk Tune. Nikkioneill.com

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