I
was rehearsing with my first Salsa orchestra Bapao and suggested
we should play a certain song. The piano player jumped up and shouted:
You just say this because you hate me, youtre always
pestering me! He ran toward me and started hitting me. I was
flabbergasted, I just didnt realise what was happening, this
took me completely by surprise and I didnt resist at all.
I did not understand at all why he felt so insulted and no one else
in the band did either. |
Bapao had a lot of gigs and was appreciated a lot, we played at
least two times a week and often four or five times. For that reason,
nobody in the band wanted to stop playing, or take the risk that
we would not find an adequate substitute for the piano player. So
I kept playing with this person. This was not a good idea at all,
for although we kept it to ourselves, we really hated each other.
It took the band half a year to decide this should stop and that
the band would tell the piano player we did not want to play with
him any longer.
Later on I was in a band with a percussion player who thought he
knew everything better. He quarreled with
everybody in the band, every rehearsal with another member, and
when he had quarreled with everybody, he started all over again.
Apparently I had not learned my lesson the first time, for I kept
playing with him for quite a while and for the same reason: this
band played a lot, it was quite successful. But I was very relieved
when this band stopped. That feeling was much more important than
the feeling of regret that this band was no more.

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Its always possible that people just cant get along,
but apart from that, there are a lot of pressures band members have
to cope with. They feel a huge responsibility; the quality of the
performance of the band is very important for them and they are
very dependent upon each other while criteria for the quality
of the performance are very ambivalent.

I hope I have learned my lesson now. When things start to happen
in the band, I quit. To keep playing in a band where tensions mount,
is a very bad idea. Playing in a band is supposed to be a party.
A band is not an encounter group
But most of the time, I appreciate
my musical contacts very much. To make music together is very intimate
and satisfying!
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