What's the Dumbest Thing You've...

Same.

 

My friend loaned me an older electronic drum set the other day. It was torn down completely. I printed a diagram of how to put it together but I didn't realize there was a sequence to it until I realized I'd left something off. Had to tear it apart twice and redo it from close to the start. Took me about two hours to get it together. Duh.

 

Sorry, how is this "dumbest thing you've...?" Unless, knowingly, it's continually playing right next to a heavy handed drummer, running saws for years without hearing protection, drilling steel, etc.

 

I got a 50 watt amplifier years ago. Reverb was loud. But I never noticed it being loud? Really. And one day my nightmare came. And the hearing doctor knew what had happend. I never noticed it being loud the reverb in a small room. I never did what every one else did to get it. I was scared of that.

One guy said I sleep in the bath tube with running water so I can sleep. But I still play the guitar. But it is so loud. I thought that is stupid?

I never did what other guitarest did. Go figure.

 

Pretty much all of the above except the drummer I was beside in my main band wasn't what I'd call heavy handed. He was "Mr. Finesse" but he could certainly hit the skins and I played in that band from about 1988 - 2005.

 

Dumbest thing I can think of, I quit playing regularly. I got the banjo out a week ago and couldn't play for squat. I gotta get back to playing!

 

My dumbest was showing up and unzipping my gig bag to find a telecaster...it was a bass gig.

 

Forgot my tele at home. Set up my amp put my board down and couldn't find my tele. Me dumb ass!!!

 

Try to answer this question.
Impossible.

 

I loaded the car with PA, guitar amp, case that held mics, mixer, cables, guitar synth, harmonizer, another case with stands, and my laptop with my backing tracks in it, drove to my gig to set up, only to find I'd left my guitar at home. Fortunately, the gig was 10 minutes from the house, so I was able to retrieve the left-behind guitar in a timely manner.

 

Hummm... seems like I’m the only one who waited before a gig to change the strings on my guitar, and ended up cutting a string while cutting the loose ends.
I (and the other guitarist) had spare strings for all except the one I cut.

I had to make a joint using a different new string to replace the missing top section of the string.

I never change strings at the last minute now...

A less drastic mistake is starting a song and finishing it with a different one after the solo. Only the players noticed it
Or playing the chords of a song for a singer that I was normally singing and playing in another key. I wasn’t really interested and when they asked me to do a solo... I used the key I would normally use for me... until the other guys shouted to me the correct key. A friend who was playing with me told me after the song that he never saw someone change to another key (the correct one...) as fast

Or playing chords in the wrong key because the bassman was playing too many notes and was too loud to be able to hear myself.

Tinnitus? Maybe...

 

I hope you packed an octave pedal!

 

Big show a couple months back, about halfway through the first set, my tone turned to mud. Thinking something went wrong with my TDPRI Shockbrothers home built amp, I did a quick amp swap for another amp we had already set up for a guest guitarist in the second set. Same problem...maybe it’s the guitar. Grabbed my backup and all is great. At break I pulled out guitar #1 again and discovered that I had somehow rolled the tone control all the way down.

 

When my Dad was alive, he'd come to visit us in Nashville area. Since he was a professional reed man his whole life, I invited a few musical friends to jam with him. My friend played bass, his wife sang, my Dad played clarinet and sax, and I played rhythm guitar. They were all reading from a cheater's bible of old classics, I stood behind the bass and followed along. I felt like I was way off key, so I played very quietly. I recorded the whole 2 hours. Then I discovered the bass was a 5 string - what I thought he was playing in A was actually E, so I was only 5 frets away from the right chords - DOH!!

 

I have lost many a partial and even a complete song every now and then, from discs, right off the computer. Sometimes I go back to work on something, and it's there....but it turns out to be another song. Somehow I've managed to save another song under that songs name. It sucks, but we move on. I wrote and lost a great song about 20 years ago....I have meant to go back and re-record it, I remember the music, but not one word of the lyrics. I will get to it.

 

I was in the shop saturday morning working on my number one axe (Lado.Co. TL-200)
my inbro called for a mid-day jam, I was thrilled !!! Picked-up my Amp, pedal kit, emergency
kit (beer, picks, battery, tuner, cables etc...) and the guitar of course.

Unpacking my stuff, everything was there except....the strings on the axe I was working on
that mornin'

 

I was just learning to play and had gotten into a band. We were playing a Prom and the other guitar player decides to sing a song that had been mentioned but not practiced. Our piano player played several songs in B, so we were used to that key. The guitar player kicks it off and starts singing.

Something's not right.

Everybody starts looking at each other and yelling keys back and forth, but everybody thinks they're in the right key. We do the whole song this way. We got a few looks from the audience, but everyone went right on dancing.

Turns out the song was in C, which some of us were playing. The rest of us in B. What an awful sound. We talk about that til this day--50 years later!

 

Not a recent music mishap, but back in 1989...1st song, 1st set of the gig. Our band is opening with my well rehearsed, already gigged, original song which features a section where the band stops as I use the whammy bar to slowly vibrato a chord. The audience is completely paying attention because it is our opening number. I reach down to grab it and...nothing happens. Turns out it doesn't work if you don't INSTALL the whammy bar. Only forgot once.

 

I was demoing a Hot Rod Deluxe I had for sale when I discovered the drive channel wasn't functioning. I apologized and remarked that I never play the drive side. So embarrassing, especially after I had told him the amp worked just fine. After a bit I realized the master was turned off on that channel.