Holy crap, where to begin. So I drive up to Natalie's house and when I ring the doorbell, of course I am greeted by a television camera. The made coach commented on the masking tape on every single fret of my bass that lists the corresponding note, saying it had to go. I knew I was in trouble, he was like, you don't know the notes? I'm like, I don't know the strings.... I didn't say that but it became pretty clear by the end of the night. So the first hour was spent setting up the drum set, tuning our instruments, etc and lucky for me Jim Ritenour is saving my butt because he knows a lot about bass, and I know nothing. So basically, he tuned my bass for me, and is supplying me with a bass amp since I'm using a crappy distorted sounding guitar one. lol.
Alright so Natalie already wrote a song before we came and she played it for us on piano and sang. It was really pretty, I liked it a lot, and I'm excited to be in a band that features classical piano. It is a bit unconventional. But the most awkward thing in the world is when the video camera is a foot away from your face just capturing your reaction to like, Natalie playing, and you know its right on your face but you can't look at it and you don't wanna make a ridiculous face or pose so youre thinking really hard about what facial expression and emotion to portray. For realz, its like being in a move where you're playing yourself. This happened about 439284732894 times throughout the night.
So after Natalie played, the camerawoman asked for all our opinions, and we were all pretty impressed. Then the made coach started teaching the guitar parts to the guitarists. Like he had this all really planned out, what exactly the song would sound like on every single instrument. So basically the band just had to show up and use their skillz to play it. Unfortunately for the whole world, these skillz are nonexistant in my little bassist fingers. So basically hes like "ok guitarists, play a blah blah blah chord progression with an octave here and here and then solo it out" and of course they like play it perfectly and do these incredible improv guitar solos. Then he teaches Kesslar the drum part, which he also plays well. And then its my turn.
Holy embarassing. He shows me the part like 48329473289 times, and I can't play it back (duh), so hes like "ok rebecca, C. no, no thats an F, play a C on the G string, that isn't the G string Rebecca" (oh whoa, no underwear joke intended, didn't realize I did that). So he is spoonfeeding me the bass part. When I finally get the chorus, I forget the verse completely and vice versa. Don't even ask me what the bridge part is. Also, he wants to add all these crazy octaves and run things. I tried to be really positive and apologetic the whole time... he said I had a really pleasant personality!!
This is my strategy. Be ridiculously happy and sweet to everyone the whole time so I don't get kicked out. Not that I'm being insincere though, I say things like "You guy are all such incredible musicians, I feel so honored to be able to play with you." That is a 100% true statement. It really is so amazing and awesome to be in a band with real, talented musicians. Or to be in any band at all would be incredible, considering I really don't play any instruments. But I really do have an appreciation for music and rock and roll and being in a band has always been a fantasy of mine I knew logistically would never come true. Somehow though, it is, and it's being televised too. It's really amazing and I'm so grateful. And everyone in the band is being helpful and forgiving, which I totally do not deserve considering how I'm dragging them down.
Alright enough sappy stuff. So we play the song a few times through and call it a day. The song I think has potential to be legit good. Like it's pretty catchy and unique because it has classical piano in it but also like shredding guitar solos. So we pack up and then the cameralady said we couldn't leave yet because we had to do interviews. She interviewed me first, kind of prompting me, I felt, to say not too nice of things about Natalie. Like "Natalie is pretty quiet, do you think she was being a good band leader today?" And you know what, I honestly didn't have anything bad to say. She wrote a legitimately good song and I'm blown away because writing songs is really hard! After everyone interviewed, they filmed as we left and I went home. Then I practiced my bass part some more so I don't look like a moron at homecoming (I already know I'll look like a moron on TV)
Anyway, my life is basically like the movie school of rock. We have the shy person who is crazy good at piano and can transfer the skills awesomely to rock and roll, and the big personality guy who has all the ideas and the vision and knows everything about music, the boys who are good at guitar, the drummer with a sassy personality (but a good one, Alex!), and the cellist who was foolish to believe "tip it on its side and, cello, you have a bass!". And this is like a literal school of rock for me. I'm learning so much! Wish this happened to me last year, I would have some crazy college essay material to write. Too lazy now though, I'M A SENIOR.
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