Bear

Hello good folxs,
I hope all is well with everyone. I was reading through some replies and some people mentioned bad days and what not. So anyways, the wuestion is: How often to people have bad playing days and why do you think that is?

In my own personal expeirecnce I've found that a daily routine/warmup works wonders. Everyday that I wake up and do it, I play great. The days that I skip, I suck. I've heard some people mention weather changes affecting them, yadda, yadda...

and....


DISCUSS!

loweredsixth

I have a so-called "bad day" when I've skipped practicing the day before, or when I've had a unusually tiring gig the night before.

What I've found out is that I will feel bad at first (airy tone, inflexible chops, messy attacks, etc.) but by breathing deep, relaxing, and playing softly I can turn a "bad" day into a "normal" day. I just have to "play through" it.

Very rarely now do I just call it quits for the day and hope things are better the next day (this is what I used to do!)

MahlerBrass

One of the great band directors in Texas once said to a class I was watching him teach "Great musicians don't have good days and bad days, they have good days and great days." It still remains one of my favorite quotes today.

trickg

Fatigue is something that will bring on a bad day of playing for me. So with that said, good night!

dbacon

Not having your focus in gear will cause a very bad day!

trumpetmike

I have talked about this with a couple of my teachers, in the past, as well as a number of top level pro players and the concensus has been that bad days are just part of playing - the body cannot keep up the extremely high levels of concentration and performance all the time. The solution is to work hard enough that your bad days are better than everybody else's good days
I have heard some world class players give performances on their bad days, I have known that they were having a bad day purely because I know how they usually sound and the fact that I knew the music that they were playing - to the general public in the audience, they were still awesome.

I have yet to come across anybody who says that they don't get some days that are better than others.

joey

I think we can all agree that bad days are part of playing. The reason is simple: our bodies and minds are not the same every day. Some days are better; some are worse.

As frustrating as it might be, I find practice more beneficial on the bad days. On a good day, everything's already working like you expect. Learning how to deal with bad days and have no one know you're having one takes some work. This is what professionals do.

Consider how many performances someone in an orchestra gives every year. Or someone out on a road band. Or playing on Broadway. As a professional, you WILL be performing on your bad days. Hopefully, you'll be the only one who knows which ones are the bad ones.

Joey Tartell

bnbtrpt

Yeah, the odds are against us.

Schwab

Not only bad days, think about sick days too. I've had days where I've had the flu/I've been hungover to the point wheere I felt like my head would feel better if it fell off/I had food poisoning and I had to run out of the pit to puke inbetween songs, I still had to play and make it sound decent. It isn't always fun.

Anonymous

No one said it would be easy Dylan! Love the effort on your part! Give em hell!