# What *is* it with requests?



## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Playing last night, 20s/30s/40s material with piano and drums. We were swinging. Fella asks if we can play some Elton John. If we'd had a guitar, he probably would have asked for Jimmy Buffet.

I know that some entertainers invite requests and make it part of their act. I don't -- unless it's from the era we cover and we can play it well. And I said so and immediately lost his sympathy.

What *is* it with requests? Do these same people go into a high-end resto and ask that everybody be served peanut butter sandwiches?


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

"Highway To Hell" please.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

Free Bird!


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

"I prefer doing original material." They usually end up enjoying themselves anyway.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Doug Gifford said:


> Playing last night, 20s/30s/40s material with piano and drums. We were swinging. Fella asks if we can play some Elton John. If we'd had a guitar, he probably would have asked for Jimmy Buffet.
> 
> I know that some entertainers invite requests and make it part of their act. I don't -- unless it's from the era we cover and we can play it well. And I said so and immediately lost his sympathy.
> 
> What *is* it with requests? Do these same people go into a high-end resto and ask that everybody be served peanut butter sandwiches?


My violin/guitar duo has been asked for weird stuff too, pop for example, when what we play is celtic and swing. My last blues/rock band would get asked for weird pop stuff too. Who asks a bunch of 60+ year old men to play Taylor Swift?

What bothers me are performers who are so desperate to fulfill a request (or feel so pressured and weak) that they will totally fuck it up rather than bow out. There is no requirement to know everything, just play what you know, and play it well.


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## CathodeRay (Jan 12, 2018)

Mooh said:


> Who asks a bunch of 60+ year old men to play Taylor Swift?


They're likely trolling.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

Mooh said:


> Who asks a bunch of 60+ year old men to play Taylor Swift?


people who have no idea what music is, and have no appreciation for music of any kind. Same people who talk through an entire performance.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

I've played for bands where the singer felt we should honor whatever the patrons ask for as we are there to entertain them. Some of them would actually get their iphone out to search lyrics to a song they hardly know and attempt the requested song, completely screwing up the phrasing because "THEY DON'T KNOW THE DAM SONG". Can't say I'm a fan of that type of entertaining. I certainly don't mind fulfilling a request for an old standard if we know it well enough (which we usually do) even if we can't stand it from over play.


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

I look at requests as a compliment. They must like what you are doing and they must be paying at least a little attention or they wouldn’t be asking. That said my repertoire is pretty limited so I rarely play their requests. I do play at a bar jam where the house guitarist and bass player are amazing. I would even say they are advanced players. I have seen them take a request that neither of them know but they do remember the song. It takes them about five minutes to figure out the basics of the song and then they get us all playing it well enough that it isn’t a train wreck. Most songs that people request are pretty simple pop or rock songs with no more than four or five chords and maybe a riff.


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

I only play songs that I like .. lol


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## Paul M (Mar 27, 2015)

When I used to gig I always got a LOT of requests, but kept playing anyway.

I used to play in an 8 piece band with horns. More than once at a well paying wedding we got a request for a song we recognized, but had never played. With the power of the internet, we could find a lead sheet, quickly settle on the form, and play it after a break. We couldn't do them all. For those songs I'd just smile and say we couldn't play that song, but we knew another with a lot of the same notes in it. Once I offered to learn the song and play it at their next wedding. That joke fell flat.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

the ultimate request video, it includes some smokin' playing and great tenor guitar


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

Requests? I show them the set list and tell them, you can only request songs on the list and you have to wait until we get to that song. LOL 
Some would actually look at the set list.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

"We will play any song you want as long as it's Proud Mary."


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

"i'll see what we can do"
And pretty much all you can do is say that sentence.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

KapnKrunch said:


> "We will play any song you want as long as it's Proud Mary."


My older friend and mentor used to call wedding gigs "Proud Marys."


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The curse of making something you do _look_ easy is that observers mistakenly think it IS easy. True of work, true of cooking, and true of any performing art. So, at one level, requests are a reflection of how fluid a spectator/audience-member thinks your performance is. Of course, they have no sense of the amount of work that may have gone into preparing it. Even if the chord progression is easy, the rhythm simple, and any lyrics not particularly hard to articulate or even remember, there WAS practice involved to establish good timing and coordination among bandmates if not playing solo. They never see that. They just see you come out and play stuff seamlessly. I suspect that if one plays haltingly and ineptly, with false starts, restarts, and clumsy endings here and there, the requests would be diminished. After all, if you can't play stuff you were _planning_ to play, how could you play stuff coming out of the blue?


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Depends on the venue, the crowd, the expectations, etc. I've done lots of requests. Some of them we knew, some of them we just about knew, and some of them we didn't have a clue (and morphed it into something we knew). Live music is 'verb' and not a 'noun'. It happens and then it's over.







We just try to read the audience and see what they want/expect. If they are open-minded and having fun (expectations low), we will try. If they are stuck up and fussy (expectations high), we won't bother, we'll just say "Nope we don't know that one, sorry".

I am always surprised, though, that people who can't play a tissue paper on a comb expect you to know every song ever written and recall it immediately with no errors. If only anyone in the world could do that ----- ANYONE!!! Seriously? "Hey, you've got a pencil, how about doing up an Escher sketch or writing a good novel? Hell, you've already got the pencil. What could be so hard?"


{edited} And good to remember, the more zeroes on the slip of paper the request is written on, the better it's chance of success. 100's go a long ways to us trying real hard!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I think the phrase "Good song, but we don't really know that one well enough to be able to play it in a way you'd enjoy" can go a long way to persuading someone of the futility and disappointment to be expected. Again, they may have it in their head that since you are "aware" of the song (and requests will be popular and widely-known tunes), it could be played as seamlessly and competently as everything else you played. What they don't have in their mind is the image of someone having to shout out the chord-changes, and screwing up the lyrics, or the sheer collapse of a tune when a coordinated ending has not been previously agreed on. Butchering the song is not exactly what they had in mind. They need to be made aware of that.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Doug Gifford said:


> Playing last night, 20s/30s/40s material with piano and drums. We were swinging. Fella asks if we can play some Elton John. If we'd had a guitar, he probably would have asked for Jimmy Buffet.
> 
> I know that some entertainers invite requests and make it part of their act. I don't -- unless it's from the era we cover and we can play it well. And I said so and immediately lost his sympathy.
> 
> What *is* it with requests? Do these same people go into a high-end resto and ask that everybody be served peanut butter sandwiches?


At times they will ask for the PBJs and a high end resto will serve something fancy up and charge....they have to make the peanut butter first of course. About the only time you have to play a request is if the person who asks it is the one paying the bill. And if they are sober. If they're drunk and are back sitting down they usually forget by the time you're three songs in. A little Sing, Sing, Sing followed by Minnie the Moocher and then If I Didn't Care would do it.
Or this.


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## keithb7 (Dec 28, 2006)

Acoustic guitar, madolin, cajone and bass. We got passed a written request for YMCA.... *#*(


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Just say it's not on the set list.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Your response should have been "Who is Elton John? I don't remember him from the 20's, 30's, 40"s."


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## Distortion (Sep 16, 2015)

I had to sit through a Country Matinee a couple months ago where the queen of the bar kept getting up mid set . Stop the show . Walk up to the lead singer hand him a piece of paper and request a song . She did this a couple of times. I finally muttered under my breath sit down.


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## Hamstrung (Sep 21, 2007)

I stole this one from someone famous, can't remember who but he'd say "write your requests on a $50 bill" to which I'd add "... and we'll learn it for next time"


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## marcos (Jan 13, 2009)

Yep, after over 50 years of playing, i still dont know what people are thinking when they ask you for a specific song. Par for the course i guess but sometimes people can be annoying.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

A friend told me about James Taylor playing at Wonderland. Someone passed up a note and he read it: "My best friend loves 'Fire and Rain' and it would be really cool if you would let him get up with you and sing it." JT just smiled and said: "No fucking way."


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## cbg1 (Mar 27, 2012)

I understand the reluctance to play a song that you don't know or know well enough to play in a gig situation....
What troubles me is that some performers may not realize that the patrons are the ones who ultimately pay the bills.... sure there are going to be a few impaired obnoxious ones along the way, but the majority of them are looking for a good time and hoping that the performers can help with that....a sarcastic rebuttal or comeback may ensure the customers next request might be to the management for a "better band" or worse yet a DJ who can play the songs they want to hear....


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

cbg1 said:


> I understand the reluctance to play a song that you don't know or know well enough to play in a gig situation....
> What troubles me is that some performers may not realize that the patrons are the ones who ultimately pay the bills.... sure there are going to be a few impaired obnoxious ones along the way, but the majority of them are looking for a good time and hoping that the performers can help with that....a sarcastic rebuttal or comeback may ensure the customers next request might be to the management for a "better band" or worse yet a DJ who can play the songs they want to hear....


Patrons ARE the ones paying the bill. But they are paying for a good time, and butchering a song they asked for is likely not their idea of a good time. So I agree that a sarcastic comeback is uncalled for and likely to be unproductive. That's why I suggest that letting the requester know the band probably isn't all familiar with the tune, or prepared enough, and would likely botch it in some way, is a better path to pursue. The requester needs to know you're not making fun of them or rejecting the tune simply because you don't like it. You'll have given credence to their request and taste, and successfully avoided having to play something awkwardly, that may be so far from your style/set that you reflexively play it sarcastically. That's not gonna be good for business.

In the early '70's, I went to see jazz great Rahsaan Roland Kirk at the Esquire Show Bar in Montreal. I had seen him several times, and his was the very first jazz show I ever went to when I was 13 or so. Between sets he was sitting at the bar, nursing a drink. I approached him (he was blind), introduced myself, and said that there was a tune he had played when I saw him that first time. I remembered the name of it, but couldn't remember how it went; all I remembered was that I thought it was beautiful. He said he'd see what he could do. When he came on for the 2nd set of the night, he asked for requests, and people started shouting out tunes from his album that was charting at that time. Then he went directly into the tune I asked for, which was from a much earlier period in his career. I wish he could have seen the smile on my face. If you CAN do justice to a request, and don't mind playing it, it leaves a lasting impression. It's all in the way things roll out.


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