Originally posted by jason999:
how difficult is it to land one of these positions?

Thanks!
Jason [/b]

Originally posted by Agathis:
I was tempted to post this in its own thread but decided against because
theres a lot of data here that I hope I don't regret writing.
Great question. i learned about 50 of the "A" tunes they play at those
types of bars. Quality singing an absolute must. I auditioned at a really
high quality one here in Phoenix a few months ago and was told without
hesitation, No thanks. They were nice and all but...

the issues they had with me were:

*quality of singing not ready yet

*which brings me to second issue, they generally play everything in the
ORIGINAL key. i need to take them down anywhere between a half step and
a step and a half so i can SING them, not make a fool of myself. to do
this, i use the tranpose button to the key signature i feel i can pull
off. they said this is an absolute no no, in fact they didn't even know
how to do it on the motif racks they were using. this set me up for failure
as i ended up singing things way out of my range that sounded strained and
bad in general. as you may know, singing is all about tension and when they
told me i couldn't transpose things with the button, all hell broke loose
with my nerves, tension, sweating, singing voice gone to pot, i've never
had the physical sensation of my mouth and throat actually drying up like
sandpaper in spite of the copious amounts of water I was drinking every 30
seconds and the couple bottles i drank that morning. it was pure tension/stress,
never had that before or since. you can imagine singing your favorite songs
at the peak of your range and someone says, oh by the way, you are going
to have to do them a step and a half HIGHER now after you'd practiced them
forever in your comfort range. simply put, it didn't work.
which brings me to my next one.

*they don't allow any books of leadsheets/lyric sheets/laptops or anything
like that on the pianos at this one. by not using the transpose button, in
a sense you have to know roughly 200 songs with lyrics from memory (the
experienced ones know MUCH more than that) in every key. you have to be able
to transpose them on the fly at any time as he said they play things in different
keys all the time depending on the singer, i know i mentioned that they prefer
in original key, but his point was, you need to be able to do them in any key
whether you need to transpose them very often or not. you're gonna say but
those songs are 1 4 5, easy! yes true, but some have solos, intricate intros,
endings, all kinds of other things, anyway, to transpose say bennie and
the jets with its great solo in any key RIGHT NOW in performance, its just
something i can't do and not sure if i will ever get there. I mean i could
learn it in all keys, but to learn everything, every way, i just didn't see it.

*the last reasons that really made me give up entertaining the idea of even
going back to the woodshed and trying all this stuff was, at that club, one needed
to be a proficient bass player and drummer too. can you imagine? it was an eyeopening
day to say the least. wanted to go hide...


on the positive side, these guys (most of them) were GREAT players/singers/entertainers
and the club is a resounding success, now I understand why. I do know though that
they can vary in terms of quality, musicianship etc. Some are more comedy oriented
for example where all that other stuff isn't quite so vital. Then again, this is
probably the best one I've been to so... [/b]