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[Nick Collis Bird]

Totally agree with you Graham, never drink when working or driving. Only drink when playing, I don't mean instruments here.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

I'm not being moralistic nor sanctimonious.  I'm as fond of a pint of decent ale as anyone, and as a morrisperson of over four decades standing (sometimes!) I have had many relaxed days/evenings. Quite simply, I'm happier playing a gig alcohol-free.  I'm not suggesting anyone else should adopt that approach, nor am I advocating total abstinence - alcohol is part of my life and fairly often I drink more than I know is good for me. Just not when I'm working (or, more importantly, driving).

Cheers 

Graham

Hi Graham, It wasn't in this thread really, but another thread that discussed alcohol and gigs where things did have a  moralising tone (in my opinion).

Drink driving is not the same as a pint or two at a gig, and people really should not be equating the two. I've never run anyone over with a melodeon or caused a road traffic accident by hitting the wrong button. I know you're not equating them, but others have done so.

Good grief. This is relatively simple folk music played on a simple instrument. I'm not taking lead violin at the LSO, I play party and dance music at weddings, parties and small festivals etc.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Totally agree with you Graham, never drink when working or driving. Only drink when playing, I don't mean instruments here.

People seem to be equating having a drink to getting drunk. The two are not equivalent.

[Lester]

Totally agree with you Graham, never drink when working or driving. Only drink when playing, I don't mean instruments here.

People seem to be equating having a drink to getting drunk. The two are not equivalent.

To some it is/was, this may be why I'm TT 

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Totally agree with you Graham, never drink when working or driving. Only drink when playing, I don't mean instruments here.

People seem to be equating having a drink to getting drunk. The two are not equivalent.

To some it is/was, this may be why I'm TT 

I understand that, and respect that.

There's a friend of mine who used to drink too much at sessions, and he tried to stop doing it. My solution was to tell him to only take enough money with him to buy a certain number of beers. Then he would have to stop. He wasn't an alcoholic, but bad at stopping when we were "on the town".

He now tends to drive to the session, so that has solved that particular issue.

[IanD]

It all depends on the person. I find a couple of beers help me relax, but of course too many do lead to the Eric Morecombe syndrome. It also depends whether your style of playing is ultra-precise and note-perfect every time (beer bad), or a bit more freewheeling and relaxed with harmonies and improvisation (beer good).

I do remember a Committee Band gig years ago in (I think) Bath where Tone (our bass player) had no dinner and then rather a lot of beers. When we called for a bass solo in one of the numbers (Garland Dance) he played the most astounding bit of improvisation around the tune that we'd ever heard, he was getting noises out of that (fretless) bass you wouldn't have believed possible.

We tried recreating it in the studio when we made the CD, but even with overdubbing several basses and a few pints in the pub at lunchtime it still wasn't the same...

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

It all depends on the person.

Indeed it does.

Very good tune that Garland dance one, so good I nicked it. I would have liked to have heard the bass playing 

[Graham Spencer]

He wasn't an alcoholic, but bad at stopping when we were "on the town".

I think that's a fairly common situation. Sadly I've played in a couple of bands with musos who had a real drink problem. One we sacked in a very unpleasant post-gig confrontation which could have turned violent (but thankfully didn't), and in the other case - a longtime close friend - we had a very sad parting of the musical ways and the year before last I flew back to the UK for his funeral (he was younger than me). 

I'm now living in a place where the climate and general ethos are conducive to a relaxed approach to life, in a mountain village with 5 wineries where I can buy decent wine for the equivalent of £2.30 a bottle, and where I can nip down to the local supermarket and buy a crate of beer for the equivalent of 83p a pint, so the temptation (and I can resist anything except temptation) to drink too much is much greater than it ever was in the UK. Alcohol is much more part of everyday life here (home distilling is not illegal, so you can imagine some of the hooch that comes our way from the neighbours!) - that's probably why I'm now much more circumspect about drinking when I'm playing.......

Graham

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

He wasn't an alcoholic, but bad at stopping when we were "on the town".

I think that's a fairly common situation. Sadly I've played in a couple of bands with musos who had a real drink problem. One we sacked in a very unpleasant post-gig confrontation which could have turned violent (but thankfully didn't), and in the other case - a longtime close friend - we had a very sad parting of the musical ways and the year before last I flew back to the UK for his funeral (he was younger than me). 

I'm now living in a place where the climate and general ethos are conducive to a relaxed approach to life, in a mountain village with 5 wineries where I can buy decent wine for the equivalent of £2.30 a bottle, and where I can nip down to the local supermarket and buy a crate of beer for the equivalent of 83p a pint, so the temptation (and I can resist anything except temptation) to drink too much is much greater than it ever was in the UK. Alcohol is much more part of everyday life here (home distilling is not illegal, so you can imagine some of the hooch that comes our way from the neighbours!) - that's probably why I'm now much more circumspect about drinking when I'm playing.......

Graham

Ah, yes, very understandable.

I was once reading something and came to a realisation that most of English history happened when the population was pissed, or half-pissed. Beer used to be much, much stronger (it only started to weaken at the end of the 19th Century), and it was also the only way of drinking "safely". Wort is boiled, much of the water was contaminated.

Even children were given "small beer" (made from a second mashing of the ingredients for beer), and at the very least small beer was the universal likely alternative to drinking water, there was no tap water.

It's a strange thought and certainly puts modern English drinking habits into perspective.

[Steve C.]

I was originally thinking only of the fine motor coordination issues in comparing driving and box playing.
You cannot play "better", though I have to agree, you may enjoy it more, after a couple.
And if your stagemanship is such that a couple helps you achieve it, well fine.  But you are not playing better.

[Graham Spencer]

You cannot play "better", though I have to agree, you may enjoy it more, after a couple.
And if your stagemanship is such that a couple helps you achieve it, well fine.  But you are not playing better.

Absolutely right.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

I was originally thinking only of the fine motor coordination issues in comparing driving and box playing.
You cannot play "better", though I have to agree, you may enjoy it more, after a couple.
And if your stagemanship is such that a couple helps you achieve it, well fine.  But you are not playing better.

Actually, if I was drinking for my "stagemanship"then, personally, that would worry me. Drinking merely to calm nerves is not really something that I would want to get into, fortunately it makes no difference as far as I'm concerned. I'm very used to playing in front of audiences and it rarely worries me.

I'd still contend, as mentioned above, that this is relatively simple folk folk music played in various informal settings. If a pint of beer means that you can't play it, then by all means don't drink it. I and many others don't have a problem with that and constant repetition that it "doesn't make you play better" is irrelevant.

How well you slept the previous night is likely to have more of an effect upon a late night gig.

[Bob Ellis]

You cannot play "better", though I have to agree, you may enjoy it more, after a couple.
And if your stagemanship is such that a couple helps you achieve it, well fine.  But you are not playing better.

Absolutely right.

While this is probably true for many people, it is not my experience. I can play to a certain standard at home, but I tend not to be able to achieve that standard when playing in public because nerves cause me to tense up. A couple of drinks help me to relax and overcome the nerves (any more than that becomes counter-productive). You could argue that this is not making me play better, just removing an inhibitor so that I can achieve the same standard as when playing at home. But something more is at work here. The relaxation enables me to put more expression into my playing, perhaps by making me more receptive to the possibilities of the music. I also notice this affect when playing at home after having had a couple of glasses of wine with my evening meal.

[Rob2Hook]

One's capabilities with a given amount of alcohol is not necessarily repeatable.  As Ian says, the effects can be significantly different depending on when one last ate.  Tiredness, food and alcohol combined will not get you to a good place for playing, but if you're fit to play and then take a drink, it does allow you to trust your muscle memory and I've known it to help get me into free lateral thinking so that I can follow the lead into a tune I only know to whistle and have never before played on the box (also easier to do cryptic crosswords).  Mind you. I believe I have a strange way of handling alcohol, probably connected with my type 2 diabetes, so the first couple take ages to get through, but once the barriers are down...!

Rob.

[deltasalmon]

I would think it depends on the situation. I've never done a paid gig but if I did, I wouldn't drink during it. A session is informal and people hit wrong notes all the time when they're sober. As long as they're not so drunk that they're throwing off the whole session or being obnoxious about it, I don't see it as a problem.

[IanD]

I was originally thinking only of the fine motor coordination issues in comparing driving and box playing.
You cannot play "better", though I have to agree, you may enjoy it more, after a couple.
And if your stagemanship is such that a couple helps you achieve it, well fine.  But you are not playing better.

Like I said, it depends on the person, and what you define as "better" ;-)

Less precise, maybe. With more expression and improvisation, possibly. I've heard fantastically skilled playing which left me completely cold, and much more relaxed (if less technically perfect) playing which I'd go miles to listen to or play along with -- think Flos Headford, for example.

And that's speaking as a sober observer/listener. Don't assume everyone else shares your musical preferences...

[LDbosca]

It varies from person to person how much you can drink and play. I can think of a clip on youtube of a big Irish player who is HAMMERED and plays a ridiculous set of tunes without anything even approaching a mistake.

I kinda believe what Seamus Ennis did on the subject; that if you have even one drink before you sit down to play it affects you much more than if you have a few while playing. One or two can definitely enhance sometimes. I do believe in the law of diminishing returns though, it's not a great feeling to be let down by your fingers when you really want to play.

[EastAnglianTed]

I do believe in the law of diminishing returns though, it's not a great feeling to be let down by your fingers when you really want to play (your melodeon).

    Especially when you're trying to impress the ladies  Good responses here, glad to know I'm not alone. I'm liking this thread, keep em coming.

EDIT: Just read it back, had to edit quote for fear of implying other meanings.

[IanD]

It varies from person to person how much you can drink and play. I can think of a clip on youtube of a big Irish player who is HAMMERED and plays a ridiculous set of tunes without anything even approaching a mistake.

I kinda believe what Seamus Ennis did on the subject; that if you have even one drink before you sit down to play it affects you much more than if you have a few while playing. One or two can definitely enhance sometimes. I do believe in the law of diminishing returns though, it's not a great feeling to be let down by your fingers when you really want to play.

That's what I said. About the comparison between driving and playing the box, one significant difference is there's not much risk of killing someone if you play the box after too many beers -- though they may of course wish they were dead. One reason for accidents driving with alcohol is overconfidence that you can do something you can't, or wouldn't try to do sober (like overtaking on a blind bend), and I'm absolutely sure Tone would never have played that solo sober -- because he certainly couldn't later.

People are entitled to disapprove of drinking, or to say that *they* don't play as well after a few beers. But anyone who say that a few beers invariably leads to worse music is making a sweeping generalisation that I'd have to disagree with -- though it still depends heavily on the person, if they play largely from instinct and muscle memory they can often play better after considerable drink (like the Irishman noted above) than others can do stone cold sober :-)

But of course you can take this too far; I'm told (though I can't remember it myself) of a Smiffs musician who once imbibed so much Belgian beer that he was still playing -- allegedly musically -- in the bar while being kept from falling over only because he was wedged diagonally by his top hat against the curved icehouse roof...

[pikey]

1 pint= The audience can hear some really nice tunes and the dancers can dance at the tempo I am playing.

2 pints=  The audience can hear some really nice tunes but the dancers get a bit puffed.

3 pints=  The audience can hear some better tunes and the dancers under 25 can still dance.

4 pints= The tunes are fantastic. Only a few dancers getting up to dance

5 pints= I have played tunes I did not think I could play, the dancers have all sat down

6 pints= I have never played so well in my life

7 pints= I have just realised I can also play the drums

8 pints= 1 gallon and I can hear the rest of the band but I cannot find my way back from the toilet.

I found out years ago never drink at a paying gig.  But a couple at a session is about the limit of my pocket anyway.

Superb!  But in my case substitute a Trombone for 7 pints......