playing an away game??

Clarky

any of you guys out there ever found yourself having to play / write / record in a style that's not what you could consider to be your 'home game'???

one of my little jobs is creating media music..
movie trailers, tv, documentaries, games etc...
it all started of with big epic style movies trailers until the media music house discovered that I'm a guitarist..
next thing I find they're throwing styles at me that I have absolutely zero experience with...
it's been enlightening.. 

Snap

not anywhere near the same league as you mate, but I often help a chap out usually contributing fretless bass, and a lot of the time the style isn't really my sort of music. It's good stuff, musically challenging too, so it does make you break out of your routines. 
Another chap I've done remixes for has a completely different style of music that I like. Some of the stuff I've really not liked at all, but that makes for a really interesting project and the emerging remixes were nothing like what he expected, but he said he liked them

thecolourbox

I've only really had two music jobs that were more than just a one off, one was playing church organ which I did for 10 years, and the other was being a jazz pianist in a cocktail bar in the centre of Vienna. I was a piano player, to be fair, albeit classical piano was all I'd learnt really - organ required very few lessons and even less religious belief and paid quite well. It was a catholic church, and they were all very miserable albeit pleasant enough folks, but they could not sing at all well so it took the pressure off as it didn't really matter how well I mastered the three keyboards on it because they weren't really listening and were just waiting for the end of the mass so they could go back home again.

The jazz one was more of a challenge - 3 hours straight a couple of nights a week, didn't pay as well in monetary terms but I learnt a lot about expensive and obscure alcoholic beverages in that time, which no doubt helped relax me into the jazz technique more. And how to pad out solos/variations of tunes when you need an extra few minutes as you're running out of tunes to cover the 3 hours. 

I also don't really write music in the styles I like to listen to, which I suppose is quite weird. I don't have the voice for the styles of music I like, so I tend to write more in mellow synthy styles, or even folky voice+guitar type stuff, despite the fact I never listen to these styles other than a couple of artists that are influenced by those styles. I'm not sure it's a good thing but it's all I can do to be honest. Hearing my nasal drone ripping through angry garage rock would definitely put me off doing it again

Edit: thinking about it, I don't listen to organ music (awful sounding instrument) nor really much jazz piano either in fairness. Am I some sort of surrogate musician?

Teetonetal

Yes - especially back in the happy days when I was working as a depping musician, if you limit yourself to the styles you like or are comfortable in, then there is nothing like as much work to go around.

The only time I came really unstuck was when presented with a request to play guitar on a medley of Gloria Estefan's greatest hits for a cruise ship function band. Pages of music sellotaped together, but not to match the medley.  Not really having any clue on how to handle 80's pop funk I was trying to read all the popping parts and just got thoroughly lost and wasn't confident of the style enough just to improvise and muddle through. Was grim. Didn't get the work in that case!

Otherwise, I think it's extremely good for you to be honest, it opens up new ideas and influences that you can bring to your own style and just makes life more interesting. 

The most fun one was contributing all instruments to a friends country music project, really enjoyed learning about a style of music I'd always completely ignored and a whole range of sub genres I'd never even heard of. Luckily was not a paying project so could take my time. was loads of fun.

guitarjack66

Dissing organs is dissing a whole genre of 60s music. The Animals without Alan Price or The Doors without Ray Manzarek wouldnt have been the same.

thecolourbox

guitarjack66 said:

Dissing organs is dissing a whole genre of 60s music. The Animals without Alan Price or The Doors without Ray Manzarek wouldnt have been the same.

I meant church organ

Clarky

Snap said:

not anywhere near the same league as you mate, but I often help a chap out usually contributing fretless bass, and a lot of the time the style isn't really my sort of music. It's good stuff, musically challenging too, so it does make you break out of your routines. 
Another chap I've done remixes for has a completely different style of music that I like. Some of the stuff I've really not liked at all, but that makes for a really interesting project and the emerging remixes were nothing like what he expected, but he said he liked them

it's good to be challenged like that.. it asks more of you in terms of both technique and creative
thinking..

Clarky

thecolourbox said:

I've only really had two music jobs that were more than just a one off, one was playing church organ which I did for 10 years, and the other was being a jazz pianist in a cocktail bar in the centre of Vienna. I was a piano player, to be fair, albeit classical piano was all I'd learnt really - organ required very few lessons and even less religious belief and paid quite well. It was a catholic church, and they were all very miserable albeit pleasant enough folks, but they could not sing at all well so it took the pressure off as it didn't really matter how well I mastered the three keyboards on it because they weren't really listening and were just waiting for the end of the mass so they could go back home again.

The jazz one was more of a challenge - 3 hours straight a couple of nights a week, didn't pay as well in monetary terms but I learnt a lot about expensive and obscure alcoholic beverages in that time, which no doubt helped relax me into the jazz technique more. And how to pad out solos/variations of tunes when you need an extra few minutes as you're running out of tunes to cover the 3 hours. 

I also don't really write music in the styles I like to listen to, which I suppose is quite weird. I don't have the voice for the styles of music I like, so I tend to write more in mellow synthy styles, or even folky voice+guitar type stuff, despite the fact I never listen to these styles other than a couple of artists that are influenced by those styles. I'm not sure it's a good thing but it's all I can do to be honest. Hearing my nasal drone ripping through angry garage rock would definitely put me off doing it again

Edit: thinking about it, I don't listen to organ music (awful sounding instrument) nor really much jazz piano either in fairness. Am I some sort of surrogate musician?

I adore church organ [Bach stuff].. always have.. blows me away..
switching from anything to jazz is always a big ask.. folks spend a lifetime trying to master it

Clarky

Teetonetal said:

Yes - especially back in the happy days when I was working as a depping musician, if you limit yourself to the styles you like or are comfortable in, then there is nothing like as much work to go around.

The only time I came really unstuck was when presented with a request to play guitar on a medley of Gloria Estefan's greatest hits for a cruise ship function band. Pages of music sellotaped together, but not to match the medley.  Not really having any clue on how to handle 80's pop funk I was trying to read all the popping parts and just got thoroughly lost and wasn't confident of the style enough just to improvise and muddle through. Was grim. Didn't get the work in that case!

Otherwise, I think it's extremely good for you to be honest, it opens up new ideas and influences that you can bring to your own style and just makes life more interesting. 

The most fun one was contributing all instruments to a friends country music project, really enjoyed learning about a style of music I'd always completely ignored and a whole range of sub genres I'd never even heard of. Luckily was not a paying project so could take my time. was loads of fun.

I've not had to do it much live.. mostly in the studio so at leat I have time to do a little research
being put on the spot live would be a nightmare.. lol