I have been listening to a lot of podcasts while driving around Europe over the last week and have come to realize something quite profound (well for me anyway). The vision board I posted a couple of days was full of things I hope to achieve in 2017 but said nothing about why I hope to achieve these.

In one podcast I listened to they were saying that you should always understand why you are doing something rather than focusing on the what. When you say yes to something you are always saying no to something else and when time is short and there is so much one CAN do, understanding why you are doing something is crucial for choosing what want to focus on and for your success (and contentment!).

While it is easy to understand why you are doing certain things (for example, I understand why I need to work out three times a week) it is not so easy for things I do for my music.

So, I started thinking about my own particular whys and I came to realize that I don’t really know why I have all these musical goals.

I would love to hear from other members of the forum. Are you making music to make a living or build a career? Are you doing it to build a legacy? Are you doing it for the joy of producing art? Are you playing the lottery (hoping to get a lucky strike?). Do you just want to give back? Do you want to fill time?

What are your reasons for making music?

Hi Joanne,

interesting topic. For that I'll have to sit down in the evening over coffee and definitely answer. Even now I can say that 90% of love for music.

My life has been saturated by music. I grew up in a musical family and it was part of daily life. In that respect, I'd say I just have the music in me...

Because I have no tangible reason to play music, I rejected many opportunities that I have had over the years to participate in bands, rejected writing for long periods of time. (I'm there right now), and as a normal course of action, decline to play spontaneously at parties or if asked to jam by friends.

The only tangible goal I think I'd have with music would be to get it right once and write a hit song. I don't need the money nor do I need the fame. That just seems to have always been the ultimate tangible accomplishment to reach.

Charlie

Why do I play music? I have to play music. Why do I have to play music?

• I'm addicted to it
• It gives me great pleasure / it's my bliss
• It's my creative outlet
• It has been my only way to introduce myself to members of the opposite sex, and it ended up having me meet the very best woman in the world, who is currently my wife of 38 years
• It is my job, it puts food on the table, it paid off the mortgage, bought cars, boats, vacations, and so on
• It is my gift and I need to use it

Take your pick of any or all of the above.

When I was a little child, my favorite toys were the ones that made music. I played melodies by ear on those toy pianos, 'xylophones' and so on. And on the toy piano that didn't have the 'black keys' (they were painted on the white ones), I learned which white key to start the song on.

I played plastic recorder, drums and then saxophone in school, and every year that I was eligible, I became first sax in the all-state band. As a tenor sax player, that is an accomplishment, because by default it goes to an alto player.

In junior high school I got in this little rock and roll band (drums, bass, two guitars and me on sax). We were terrible, but everybody was back in those days.

We got hired for a junior high school dance. There I was on the stage with my best friends playing the popular music of the day that we liked so much and worked so hard to learn, and I looked out over the audience and that cute girl who didn't acknowledge my existence was 'making eyes' at me. And if that wasn't enough (and it was) they actually paid me money at the end of the night.

I knew that is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Now I'm past the age where many folks retire, and I have no plans to retire. I've added bass, guitar, flute, wind synthesizer, keyboard synthesizer, and vocals to the sax and drums to the fix, and as long as I can fog a mirror, I'll be playing music. As long as I can get a gig, I'll be gigging.

So after all that, I guess the answer is being a music is not what I do. Being a musician is what I am.

Sorry if that's TMI.

Insights and incites by Notes

The music is inside and it just bubbles out.

I started music around the age of 12. I played trumpet and when in high school I also played French horn. I started guitar at 14 and was in bands playing rock songs of that time. I was playing trumpet and guitar in bands after high school but had to quit the trumpet because of severe asthma. Meds allowed me to continue playing in bands as playing was now in my blood.

After getting married, having a child and a mortgage I started playing in wedding bands, as the money and the playing conditions were much better than the bar scene. I stayed playing in wedding bands until I retired from playing out about 20 years ago.

But I kept on playing via MIDI sequencers and a keyboard. When DAWs came out I added my guitar to the mix. Now I play guitar, bass, wind controller (my lung functions are back at 100%) and a little keyboard.

Why do I continue to play today? Because after years of playing what the customer wanted I can now play what I want. It's a great feeling being able to express yourself via music.

I listened to all the "clear channel" stations on all night radio when I was a kid...went to sleep listening to everything from rockabilly to country to R&B to blues. My dad was a fan of big band music and I really can't recall a period in my life when music was not a daily part of my life.

I was a partner in a recording/booking venture in the 60's (rock) and played in bluegrass bands off and on from 1976 until 2004.

Janice was always musical, played clarinet and after our 1982 marriage she learned guitar and mandolin and sang in the bluegrass bands. We played festivals, clubs, and a variety of other venues and played a lot...too much really given that we were both working full time. Not long after my retirement we decided biking and hiking was more fun and left the band and quit playing but never slowed down on listening.

We discovered BiaB in 2012 and ended up making music again. We've never harbored any commercial aspirations but we did have a successful bluegrass CD in 2002 that we recorded as a trio with the great fiddler Randy Howard (our website has a page on him).

Today we listen to a variety of genres...if it has soul we are all in. FWIW, we stream apple music in the home and in the vehicles daily enjoying those curated "for you" playlists and a zillion other options.

J&B

I don't play professionally (although I do draw a salary as church Director of Music Ministries). But if I couldn't play/sing music, listen to music, arrange music, transcribe music, experiment with music and sounds, etc, there would just be a clear void in my life.

If I'm angry, I'll just go bang it out on the piano. If I'm working on something at the computer, my right hand often goes over and noodles notes on one of the two keyboards sitting next to me. Yes, I still sing in the shower (usually unconsciously). There is nothing like raising my hands and having the sounds of the voices of my choir come washing over over. I continue to convert my vinyl album and cassette tape collection to digital, not because I have to, but because doing so reminds me of the music I haven't listened to in a while and it's just fun (and then I can finally listen in the car).

It's just something I have to do. Life would not be complete for me without it.

For much the same reason I shoot, cook, make furniture, fix computers, and write "articles" in a journal that nobody reads.

Because I can.

I started lessons at 4 years and 10 months of age, in April of 1956, and that adds up to over 60 years of music in my life. Along the way I picked up a BA in Music from Akron U, played in about 12 states and all over Ontario Canada, made a lot of friends (now mostly estranged) and met a lot of great people in the audiences. I got a lot of pleasure from music all those years but anymore I don't. Once it became a job I pretty much retired from it. I now play only annual band reunion shows (2 per year on one weekend) and every year I reevaluate whether what I will get from it is worth what I will put into it. One of our guys this year mentioned that he wished I had more fun doing it, and that really resonated with me. It isn't fun. But I never believed it is supposed to be "fun". Music is hard work, not fun. Fun is playing cornhole at the barbecue. Music is hard work and serious bidness!!

If I had to rely on music to make a living, I would probably view it differently. I don't have to as I make enough on retirement to live rather comfortably. However, if I had to rely on music for a living, I (A) couldn't because my skills have eroded, and (B) wouldn't want to. 60 years of anything is enough. That CD I did last year was about the end of it for me, but that's just how I am wired. Once I have done something, I have achieved that goal and there isn't a lot of motivation to do it again. Like if I ever won a shooting competition, I would never enter another one. I have done it. That bar is now on the floor and it takes nowhere near the effort to step over it as it did to jump over it. I want challenges that push me. Like, I would like to win a cooking competition. If anything I would do a solo act where I don't have to deal with a bunch of moods and personalities. Being in a 7 piece band is like having 6 wives. Imagine it with 13 people.

What is funny is that AWAY from music I am fun, funny, relaxed.... but put me in that music context and I am like General Patton leading the troops at Normandy. I have never been able to keep a band together when I am the leader because I am a difficult boss when it comes to music. "The singing has to be better. Do it again." "You are speeding the tempo up. Do we have to practice with a click track?" "That solo is too complex and because of that you are stumbling over the notes. Play less notes with more feel." "Rehearsal was at 7. Why did you get here at 7:05?" "Eat your fast food dinner on your time. We are working here." "You will not drink at my gigs. You don't drink at your day job, do you? Then why do you want to do it at your night job? On MY time!"

And that sums up General Eddie in a band leader role.... LOL!

It makes me sad when I meet people who feel like they have nothing to offer other than they can play an instrument. And you can spot them because when you meet them that is the first thing they mention. If music is all you can do, get outside and talk to people more. This is why I LOVE this place. Such a diverse group of people here who share life experiences from many fields of expertise. Not those guys who are 50 and still live with roommates because they want to wear a badge of "full time musician" and make no money, have no health insurance so when they get sick there has to be charity benefits for them, drive 15 year old cars that never have gas in them and are always broken down, eat Ramen noodles every day (but have money to spend at every jam night in town - gotta "make the scene, man!") etc...

Edit to add this philosophic thought:

It has never been my goal to become the richest corpse in the graveyard. I don't care if I earn even a dollar more than what I need to stay afloat. That said, I am also an extreme loner and rarely go out. I can't remember the last movie I went to, or the last concert I attended. I lived extremely poor for most of my life, and I consider paying $11 to see a 110 minute movie or $100 to see some old has been in concert performing their greatest hits, all of which I can listen to here at home, as a waste of money. I don't socialize, I rarely date, I only have a small handful of people I call friends and when I do force myself to go somewhere I find a reason to duck out after a short appearance. PTSD is a horrible thing sometimes. It keeps me from trusting and letting people get close to me because my life experience is such that when you let people get close to you they can just as easily disappear. The way to avoid that pain is to not let people in.

Or write songs about it. Most of my CD was songs about being hurt by people. And once by a car! And in the past by alcohol.

Thanks for the interesting responses everyone. It seems that everyone here does it for the joy of producing by their art. It is inside them and they have to. Notes also makes a living out of it and John draws a salary.

I suppose for me, I am a little like Charlie in that I don't need the money (but a little bit of fame might be nice :D). I am probably just letting everything bubble out of me (as Keith said) and who knows one day I might just win the lottery. And I guess all the things I am doing is just buying more lottery tickets.

When Don McLean was asked what the song "American Pie" meant he apparently replied that it meant that he never has to work again.

Eddie. Reading that is a treat. Especially this

"Not those guys who are 50 and still live with roommates because they want to wear a badge of "full time musician" and make no money, have no health insurance so when they get sick there has to be charity benefits for them, drive 15 year old cars that never have gas in them and are always broken down, eat Ramen noodles every day"

This is a question worth asking. Without a purpose we're just running on a gerbil wheel.

It takes as much time and energy to flail at the wind as it does to accomplish specific tasks. Maybe more, since real tasks have a start and finish, whereas flailing can become a habit that never ends.

Having said that, I think self entertainment can be a legitimate purpose, as long as you can set it aside when real tasks demand attention. The difference between choices and addictions is the ability to refrain from them when necessary.

You are truly a wise man, Pat Marr.

Not a wise guy, a wise man!

Big + 1 from me! My Serbian basketball coach used to tell us we were "running around like chickens out of head". Sometimes I feel like that!

Because I am a musician, well in my mind I am anyway.

Sorry to be so long winded Jo, lol

Happy New Year!

Hi, Jo !:))

For my part I have had
the advantage of having
been born to musical parents
so there was a lot of music
from the start but, what really
pushed me to start writing
music was the yearly European
Songcontest that in my opinion
often displayed quite poor
contributions (not every tune, though)
Came to think that I could do
better myself and as I am a fairly
good guitar player I wrote 16 songs
and requested some funds for putting
them on a record that in fact happened
in 1992. The music had been there
all the time from boyhood and thus it
just had to pop out given the right
means and occasion !

Later I discovered the barbershop genré
and am today a 16 year member of Nashville
based Barbershop Harmony Society !

I did leave everything out when my wife
got ill (later to die) and after her
death in 2011 I slowly took up writing
and producing again especially after having
received a copy of BIAB ! Writing songs
with this remarkable program has led to
over 80 songs written over 2-4 years !

I think I´ve reached the point where
it has become a passion and then there are
all the wonderful friends too !:))

I´ll be writing music til I won´t
be able to hear the chords I´m writing
or singing, and I hope that it won´t happen
soon yet !

Cheers
Dani

Pretty much everything Notes said other than I didn't marry a singer.

I started my musical career in the Air Force in Japan, that morphed into doing Vegas shows in the 70's which morphed into doing full time local gigs which morphed into part time local gigs until now I will do the occasional gig. This is in addition to all the fun I have working with these programs, doing some live recording, mixing them down etc.

I figured out years ago that I'm a big ham. I love it when people tell me how great I am. I rarely hear that doing taxes, ha ha. I just did two gigs on Catalina Island, one on Dec 30 was a private all jazz house party where I played a nice old upright piano. For that night I was a star, they loved me. Then for NYE I was in a very loud classic rock band and I was still a star based on a few screaming Jon Lord type B3 solos I did. Literally it was the drunker they got the bigger the star I became.

I'm reminded of the classic joke "I'm such a ham if someone opens the refrigerator door and the light comes on I'll do 20 minutes in front of a dead chicken".

There's a lot of truth in that.

Bob

Ha...hope you reveled in that glory.

Me...I mysteriously acquired an addictive propensity for song writing right after my USMC picnic. (I'd been playing drums since high school so music was in my future)
Probably some neuronal aberration on my part.
Music/song writing is still in my blood, has never waned (pun unintentional) and has remained a creative therapy process as I approach my 70th year on Orb Earth....end of story.

Carry on....

Ditto. Plain and simple. And I started out by saying/thinking: "Well, if they can't play what I like on the Radio Stations, I'll create something that pleases me." And it does. Not just me, got a few fans along the way.

Life without my music is just not my kind of life.

Of course! Why do you think I'm talking about it here?

I'm awesome and I want everybody to know it!! I cudda been a star man, shudda been a star...I was THIS CLOSE...

Bob

Most of my original songs have been the "because this happened" types of songs. i.e. event or situation oriented. Thus I think I'm not overstating when I claim that if (for some of those cases) I hadn't been able to write them "out of my system" so to speak, I would have become a mental basket case long time ago. There's even one particular song that I wrote at a time when I was in so much pain that the alternative would probably been a razor blade to a vein!
I've (fortunately) only played it once since....and rather hope I never feel the need or reason to play it again.

Right, and now that I've dragged this whole wonderful topic firmly down into the gloom, I think I should stop talking.

Great question Joanne. It's obvious from the responses so far that music is a major component in the life of many of us.

I can't imagine a time when music has not been in my life. Growing up music was not an art form but a way of life. While many families and friends gather for fellowship and bonding; my family and friends gathered to play or listen to music. But I could never find the intense focus, passion and drive that I saw in others.

It took a long time but I've finally figured out my musical focus isn't on performance but is on audio production. That's strange because I've never cared for live sound but find great joy in discovering how to create a sound I hear in my mind or how a tool like a compressor can manipulate recorded sound.

Like Eddie mentioned earlier, once I've accomplished a task I lose interest in it and am on to the next one.

Music has been my friend, my enemy but most of all a constant. It's always there and will always be an integral part of me.

Wowsers....I wreak with envy.

Knowing your (cudda been) success blissfully reminds me of a Bad Company song and dedicate the following lyric to you, sir:
"Don't_you_know_that you are a shooting star....don't you know...don't you know."

Back to topic.....

Indeed. It's part of the reason why I won't retire. The other part is that playing music to an audience is my second favorite thing to do (can't tell you what's first on a family forum )

Living in Florida and playing for the retirement audience for 30 years now, I've seen too many people die of "retirement disease". Golf and fishing are OK for a year or so, but for all by the most avid enthusiasts, it gets old quickly and they end up sitting in front of the TV until they are literally bored to death.

Fortunately, I have something I am passionate about that I can do during 'retirement' and still have a purpose in life.

However, now that I'm old enough to be retired, I don't take non-pleasant gigs anymore. If someone asks, I quote a high price, if they bite, it's worth the money, but most times they don't. I think it's kinder than telling them that I don't enjoy playing for them.

We had a great gig yesterday. We've been playing there 9 years now and the audience is like our extended family. We mourn with them when they have problems, and rejoice with them when they have successes. We have running gags, and when they sing along, they are our choir.

Life is good.

Insights and incites by Notes

I did better than that, she is a great singer and plays guitar and synth too!!!


I often tell bartenders that we are partners. The more they drink, the better we sound.

I'm a ham when I get on stage as well. Entirely different from my normal personality. At least I think so.

But I love my job, play 5 minutes, get applause, play 5 minutes more, get applause, until the end of the gig when people thank you for giving them a nice time. I love it so much, we usually play straight through - no breaks. I'd rater be on stage playing for the people than sitting and talking with them. That can wait until after the gig.

Notes

Thanks everyone for your very thought provoking replies. It has been most interesting and informative.

What a great question!

I happened to be driving a lot over the last few days and was really thinking about this very subject. I know the answer for me is I write for reaction/to move people somehow. It could be about love found or lost, a party, life...but I want people to feel something. I love to be a part of that. To share in that moment.

Strangely, it's not a people pleasing kind of thing though. Thanks God!

This question ties in very well with where my head has been at, so I'm really glad I am able to answer this with clarity.

My answer is NOT what I would have guessed; but it is my motivator.

I always thought of myself more along the lines of bacon.....

I make music to say things in a way I am comfortable with. I did the music career thing & made my living from it for 40 years, now it is all about what I want to say in any manner I choose.

I know that sounds self-centered, but it is not really meant to be....

Hi Joanne. What an interesting question and fascinating answers.
I just want to communicate with others. And to be involved. Cheers.

I love it.

So the majority of people here do it for the love of producing their art and that makes sense.

For me personally, my reasons have morphed a little over the last 3 years (since I discovered Biab).

At the beginning of this period I was making music for the love of It. Then something changed. I began to see how easy it was to record in my home studio and how (relatively) easy it was to write a song (note; I am not saying "a great song").

I started to have visions of this being able to support myself financially (that dream that most musicians have ) and somewhere along the line it was not as much fun as I had hoped.

So this year, I am adjusting my goals to go back to producing for the sake of art and, who knows, maybe I will get lucky. My friend, Cuzzie always says "be miracle ready".

Songwriting for me is an exercise in frustration. Mostly the words, whatever I write sounds hackneyed, trite or corny to myself.

I never had any aspirations to make a living writing songs.

I am a good interpreter of music, a good arranger, and a good improvisor. Which means I can write styles for BiaB (arranging), and I can be a good live performer or recording artist.

I'm fortunate to have grown up in an era when live musicians were in demand, and for the majority of my life I have made a living doing music and nothing but music.

Now I know that when some people do this for a living, they lose their joy of music. Fortunately, I'm the opposite. Get me in front of an audience with the sax, flute, wind synth, guitar, bass or drums in my hands or the microphone in my face, and I'm having the most fun I can have with my clothes on.

I chose music for an occupation because I was following my bliss, and it's still my bliss.

I consider myself a very lucky person.

Insights and incites by Notes

As I read these very good replies, I thought maybe the challenge would be to turn the question around and ask "What are my reasons to NOT make music". (Yes, another of Eddie's long winded posts.)

Simply stated, I lost my love for it, and like when I lose my love for a woman, she is sent packing. Is there really much difference between the love of music and the love of a person? Not really. You sacrifice, you compromise, you live with both every day they are in your life.

I got tired of playing in front of a crowd of people who wouldn't know good from bad if they sat in it. As long as they can get drunk, they are happy. I consider those to be the "lowest common denominator" audiences. I want to play in front of a group of musicians and have those musicians walk out of that room saying "Wow. Those guys can play and sing!!" Thus I want to do much more complex music than the lowest common denominator bands play. And there's the challenge. Try to find musicians who want to put that kind of time into a band that is built to blow people away with their skills. My perspective of playing music is NOT to play what the drunk at the back table wants to hear because it was playing on the radio the first time he had sex. His memories are not my memories and they do not matter to me. At all. I want my audience to sit spellbound and gasp for air at the brilliance they hear coming at them, much the way I did when I heard Frank Zappa in concert, or the amazing Cleveland Orchestra playing a Mozart program.

That is no longer attainable in the microwaved, high-speed, instant gratification world in which we now live. If I was to start rehearsals with guys I recruited today, the target date would be like July 1. THAT is how hard they better be prepared to work. 4 rehearsals of 4 hours per week between now and then. And we are going to do it again until I, as bandleader and musical director, says it is right.

Starting to see why I don't have a band?

I am seriously AWFUL to work for. (And sometimes, WITH.) Note the verb. Work. Music is hard work. It is NOT a fun hobby IF you are doing it with higher goals in mind. If you set your goals low, like many bands in my area do, and play the generic list of 45 that every band plays, enjoy your shows, but you will never see me there. I think years back I started a thread about "the list". Brown Eyed Girl, Mustang Sally, ANYTHING by Lynard Skynard.... pretty much any of the unimaginative 3 chord junk that you can play when you are 10 and just started lessons.

My final instructions for any memorial that will be held after I pass include the stipulation that the last thing to happen will be the playing of MacArthur Park. That has been my idea of a masterpiece since 1968, and in my opinion, the way music is supposed to be written. I listen to it and play along with it every day. My "Make-A-Wish" dream (if I were dying) would be to meet my songwriting idol Jimmy Webb AT MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and spend an hour over lunch talking about songwriting.

So in closing, I have accepted that now at 65, I can't reach that level. And there is no participation trophy in music, just the Grammy. Thus I have pretty much put it away. Time for a new hobby. This year I will get out and shoot more and enter some competitions.

And that is why I DON'T play music.

Well that's certainly a pessimistic way to see things.

You have to pay your dues to get to the top of the mountain. The Beatles played the Cavern club in Germany with a bunch of drunks. Alabama played a salty little dive in Myrtle Beach called The Bowery to a bunch of drunk tourists. And I'm sure every band and artist that made it to the big time has a similar back story.

You gotta pay your dues.

I have played in bands where the leader was of similar attitude as you describe yourself. It wasn't fun, it was drudgery, and soul sucking. It took the joy out of playing music. And everything else aside, playing music should be enjoyable. Folks who are overbearing in their quest for perfection tend to drive away the good talent unless they are paying exceptionally well. It's totally possible to make it to the professional level and be a nice guy. I hear lots of stories about some artists who are just so easy to work with and reflect that attitude to their band mates. Being in such a band is a privilege and people are lined up to get that gig. One of the better bands I played in had a very relaxed attitude toward learning new tunes and getting things right. Everyone was capable of playing and singing well and there was no pressure to "get it right, NOW!!".

Maybe I'm reading your comments inaccurately. But the way you describe yourself seems that you maybe push your mates a bit too hard. 16 hrs a week for 26 weeks to get a show together? What kind of music are you playing? I can see that if you are playing major concerts and the money will be excellent and you're doing the Dregs or Zappa, or Satriani...... but you don;t generally have that sort of audience who appreciates that style of music in the club down town. The band I was mentioning above.... we started in Sept.... once a week for a few hours a night in a garage... a total of 12 sessions to prepare a new band from scratch to do a house gig at one of the most popular clubs in town. We learned the obligatory 40 to 45 songs needed for the first weekend. We stayed there at the house gig with packed houses for two and a half years. We had tight starts and endings and the stuff in between was good as well.

If you are not in love with music anymore.... then yes... take time off. If you really love it, it will call you back.

BTW: good luck with the shooting competitions. There are some pretty amazing folks in that field as well. Highly competitive and extremely talented. Perhaps your drive will find fertile ground there as that tends to be a solo sport. And it takes lots of practice and drive to get good making small groups and hitting popup targets.

Thanks for the perspective Eddie. I am probably one of the instant gratification types that you cant stand. If I cant do it fast then I am not interested. I once joined up with a guy to play a duo. We practiced for a whole year and never even had an inkling of a gig. He used to stop me in the same place in one song and say "it doesn't go la la la laaaa, it goes la la laaaaaaaa". Every time a coconut. I mean who actually cares, right? I certainly don't. I prefer to just move on.

Aspiring to get people to gasp with admiration at your brilliance is an unattainable (an probably unsatisfying) goal for anybody. Whatever your age. There will always be those that are better than you and some people will always think you are rubbish and some people will think you are good. Music is such a personal thing.

Add Steve Vai to that and you are spot on.

I guess is has just been a vision quest that I do something unique and not blend into the gray. The only place I go to see live music is 3.5 miles from my home. That is about the limit I will go to see music because those "blend into the gray" type bands are everywhere else. That particular room has music 4 nights a week and it is a mix of jazz to folk to country to blues to roots to Americana to Cajun.... and the woman who owns it stresses that she expects a lot of original music. (She is possibly THE biggest proponent of the art community I have ever known. Music, painting, sculpting, film making... anything artistic and creative.) No Gimme Three Steps allowed.

I understand that my perspective sounds pessimistic to many. That is born from a desire to not become complacent and say "That's good enough". It isn't good enough. It is NEVER good enough. And when you get to a place where the best you can do is still not good enough, it's time to move on to another thing and seek perfection. (When I shoot, I don't just aim for the middle of the target. I aim for the hole I have already put in the middle of the target.)

I should also add that this kind of overachieving attitude WILL drive people crazy, and history speaks to many who have been driven crazy. In music, Brian Wilson comes closest to what I am trying to say. I am convinced that when Brian Wilson dies, he will ask god for ONE more take. It is often painful to be this way, but it is who I am and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to try and change your DNA. I have lived a life believing that if you come in second, you are the best loser.

And yes, I see a shrink twice a month. Maybe I should go to her more....

Now THAT concept I am familiar with. Between Wife 2.0 and Wife 3.0 I took 20 years off. And now sitting at 12 since Wife 3.0 was jettisoned.

+100

I ditto that

Plus of course that 'small' prerequisite of actually being brilliant yourself at all in the first place

"Aspiring to get people to gasp with admiration at your brilliance is an unattainable (an probably unsatisfying) goal for anybody."

Unsatisfying? If that's what I set out to do and I do it, that is the definition of satisfying. I believe it is also attainable, BUT, not for guys who work in the shop or the office all day and play music as a hobby. There are some GREAT hobby level players, and I know many of them here in town, but nobody would be interested in what I want to do because if we did it the way I wanted to do it, there would be 8 week road trips living in a bus or vans at some point.

We are lapsing into the old discussion we have had here many times about cover vs original. I simply don't want to play copy music. I have been looking for a couple of years for guys who know music, who can read music, guys who can write music, and guys who can play music. If I were to say "No that's a major 7th there, not a dominant 7th", or "sing the third above the melody" and they don't know what I mean, they don't make the cut. And that is not a matter of snobbery (and I have been called that often) as much as it's a matter of my being able to communicate. I can't explain to a blind person what "red" is without saying "red like an apple", and they of course have never seen an apple. Or trying to teach French to someone and I don't speak French. I speak English and "music". I am far from a theory maven, but I know enough to look at a piece of music and understand what I am looking at.

I once went to our big outdoor venue here (Blossom Music Center) to see the Cleveland Orchestra do Mozart's "A Little Night Music". I went in with a blanket and a suitcase. I spread the blanket out on the lawn and opened the suitcase, which contained the score. All 4 movements, 16 staffs, 2 measures per page. I sat and followed along with the orchestra for the whole symphony. Most of the people around me were laughing at me because I wasn't "watching" the orchestra. Well, do you see a concert, or hear it? As I followed along on that sheet music, I got to both hear the music and see it, so who's the weirdo here?

I told you that to tell you this. I want to assemble and play with people who know MUSIC (not songs) at that level. It is very difficult to build a house with carpenters who are not at close to the same skill level. Or to play on a football team where 3 of the 11 players on either offense or defense play at a skill level below the other 8. There is nothing at all wrong with learning by ear. How do I teach you an original song when there is nothing to listen to, only charts?

A few years ago I went to a basement "musical meet and greet", and everybody there, 6 players, could sight read. And we didn't just play where whoever felt like driving took off on a solo. Everything was charted. Now, the guy running the thing was a music professor, and those 10 or so songs we played were his songs. I got lost many times because those changes meandered like an old dirt road! When you are following along and suddenly your arrive at Am9b5... I am not THAT good of a player where I can play without thinking out a chord. That may have been the only one of those impromptu jam things I really enjoyed, even though I was the weakest link. Sure there were physical mistakes made, but we all followed along on charts and read what to play, and playing stuff nobody had ever seen....

Fake/Real book players are a whole different level of skill too. I can't read those things. I would imagine there are a good handful of people here who can read those.

But back on topic, being the band in town that blows the other bands away and steals their fans is what always made it fun for me. The Motown band I was in, despite being a copy band (that was before I cared about writing), was SO busy we were turning work down because at some point we had to rest. When it was outdoor gig weather, we would do 7 shows between Thursday and Sunday night. Doubleheaders every Fri, Sat and Sun. And the throat can only sing so much. That I enjoyed. And that is the band from which I retired from full time playing.

"I have lived a life believing that if you come in second, you are the best loser."

I think this says it all.......and not in a good way.

Just a IMHO, YMMV, yada yada post, no offense intended...

Edfdie, Do you believe at all in the Pareto principle where you achieve 80% of the result with 20% of the effort (the last bit will take an enormous effort)?

If not, do you believe that the 80% is not worth aiming for?

Edited to add: while there are certainly things in life where 100% is very important, like open heart surgery or rocket science, but I wouldn't put music up there.

U

And the nomination for "Mr Shallow 2017" award is - -?
Disgraceful attitude to women.
And If all music bar yours was so inferior, i can understand
why you no longer cast it down from your personal Heaven. We are SO unworthy.
Mebee go listen to Cohens I Came So Far For Beauty?
WendyM

Kudos to you Eddie for playing that style of music and standing by your convictions.

I was in a starving band back in the day. We took the time to learn lots of songs that we liked and weren't playing on the FM radio. Album cut songs. One example is a Charlie Daniels song called Saddle Tramp. It's a progressive country jazz style jam song once you get past the first 3:30 minutes. The cool part starts at 4 minutes.
SADDLE TRAMP
We covered Green Grass and High Tides in it's entirety, and quite a few other undanceable songs. With very few exceptions, we'd play a club one time and they'd give us the old... don't call us...we'll call you ... routine. When asked... "No one can dance to your music boys, sorry, we're a dance club." It was heartbreaking to us because it was good music and we had spent hours on end working out the parts.

Eventually, that band ended because we weren't making any money. From that point forward, I was in working bands that didn't mind playing the songs everyone loved to hate. I can say I've never played Mustang Sally.... not even one time. But rest assured, Freebird, Wipeout, and other similar songs were on the menu every night. We had fun, entertained the crowds, made good money, and played full time.

Another guy I knew, "Kelly"... used to come over to my place to jam.... this fellow was a bass player... really, really good. Loved Tower of Power, Herbie Hancock, and others in that style. He ended up in a funk/disco band to pay the rent. But he really wanted to play fusion jazz funk. There was no market for that in a town with a military base with 30k Marines.... you either rocked hard, played country, or played disco/dance... or you didn't work.

I feel for you.

Me? I'm the opposite, I enjoy Mustang Sally in front of an audience and the peak is my improvised sax solo in the middle, which at times gets applause. I also enjoy playing complex music. In the 1980s I was in the house jazz band where people like Ira Sullivan, Red Rodney, Duffy Jackson and others would come and sit in (the guitarist in the band used to teach at the University of Miami and played with Ira for a few years, so he knew a lot of heavyweights). I also played in a concert band, and mostly enjoyed Romantic to Contemporary era "classical" music.

I don't do it to impress people, I do it because it's fun. Even when the jazz heavyweights were on the stage and I knew some were much better than me, it was fun.

What I don't do anymore because it's boring and repetitious is watch TV. I cut the cable in the 1980s, never installed an antenna, and never got a digital converter. Full disclosure, I have the one-at-a-time DVD in the mail subscription to Netflix. I watch a movie perhaps twice a month. And that is the absolute only time the TV is turned on.

Everybody plays differently, and I enjoy playing music.

Yes, we work at it, but the work is in all the preparation, not in the performance, that's pure joy.

I'm sorry it doesn't work for you anymore.

If you came to hear us, you might not like the stuff we play, but I might impress you with one of my improvised solos, or maybe not. We don't do much jazz anymore.

But I'm not up there to impress people. I'm up there to have fun and share the fun with at least part, and hopefully most or all of the audience.

To each his/her own.

Notes

I've heard the Cleveland Orchestra here in Miami (winter home), the Budapest in Budapest, the Czech philharmonic in Prague, and many other famous orchestras as they travel through here (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Dresden, Oslo, etc.) but I would never go to hear Mozart.

Different tastes for different people. Although Mozart was a certified musical genius he bores me. For me music started with Beethoven's "Eroica" and peaks from Dvorak to Prokoviev to Shastakovitch.

I recall driving 350 miles (Round Trip) to hear the Moscow play Shastakovitch's 4th symphony, when the same orchestra played the 5th only about 50 miles away. Why? I've heard the 5th many times. The 4th is the one he hid until Stalin died (for fear of his life) and is absolutely brilliant. Nothing wrong with the fifth, but it's rare to hear the 4th.

I planned my vacation to Prague to hear the Czech Philharmonic play Suk's "Asriel" and caught the Prague Symphony and the Czech Opera when I was there. Found a couple of good jazz clubs too.

I generally spend most of the concert with my eyes closed. I can listen more intently and get more joy out of the music that way.

But because my main listening love is Symphonic, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy a good Muddy Waters 3 chord blues tune. It's like food. I love a great Filet Mignon, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy popcorn too.

I guess I'm either just lucky, or brain damaged

But I'm drifting off topic here. I love playing most kinds of music. In our duo I enjoy putting on different musical hats for different audiences, Rock, light Jazz, Caribbean, Latin American, Disco, Country, or whatever. There are things we don't play, some because we aren't suited for it (if we can't do a good job, we won't do it), and some because it just doesn't work for us. We have over 500 songs, and I enjoy them all.

Insights and incites by Notes

My story is very similar to your Herb. I was in a jazz/blues trio with a B3 and drums. Same story as yours; don't call us we'll call you and they can't dance to your music. The B3 then (then later he bought a digital keyboard thank God) player and myself went into the wedding band business. We really enjoyed bringing smiles to peoples faces, to us that was the ultimate high.

PS - If I had a dollar for every time I played Mustang Sally, Johnny B Goode and that ultra-stupid chicken dance I would be a millionaire!

If I heard you play Saddle Tramp, you could easily identify me as the one in the front row standing and cheering wildly.

Then again, I'm not the one hiring you, so I understand what you mean. My thing about playing music that makes ME happy is 180 degrees opposed to how you get a band booked. A dream set that I would assemble would include the whole suite of Ballet For A Girl in Buchannon from Chicago's second album, but people would only understand Make Me Smile and Color My World because that's what they heard on the radio. That kind of thing would result in those callbacks that never come. I just don't see the value to being the one guy of 6 in a band who hates every song played and plays with a long face instead of a smile.

I LOVED playing in the rock band. I then LOVED playing in the Motown band. But that was over 25 years ago, and the "What makes Eddie happy" focus has shifted away from listening to songwriting, copy music stopped being fun. And some make the argument that seeing a symphony orchestra is "a copy band" because they play classical music from the 1700s and 1800s, but it is obviously not the same thing.

I absolutely understand and respect your perspective though. And I am glad we can discuss rather than argue!

What I take from you and our many discussions over past years is that you are the embodiment of the concept known as "levels of listening", where the more you know, the more you know to listen for. I have been to concerts over the years that were notably underwhelming, yet the person who went with me thought it was the best thing ever. It really depends on what you know to listen for. People can hear Tower Of power and only hear the solos. I hear the arranging under the verses, and as great as Lenny Pickett and Emilio Castillo are, Steve Kupka is the guy that does the arranging, and he's "da man" in my ears. And they must be doing it right, because it has now been 49 years!

Appreciation of any art form has the same properties. I could go to an art museum with someone who paints and has studied painting and we would be in 2 different buildings. One might see Monet and be taken by the beauty of the softness of his lines, and another might say "Why is it all so out of focus?" (Because it's NOT a photograph!!!)

I also get badly misunderstood as arrogant, as if I think my music degree makes me think I am better than those who don't have one. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am blessed and grateful that I had the opportunity to attend college on Uncle Sam's dime (in exchange for 3 years of my life). It wasn't until I started college at 22 that I learned how much I didn't know. College does not build walls. It opens doors. I learned how to learn in college. When I went back the second time to get a degree in computer studies, I went in (at 41) knowing the "college rules" and easily got that Associate Degree that I needed to even get interviews as I moved away from music and into IT. And even in that field I saw "levels of listening". I was in a lab with people who didn't even know how to format floppies, and it took restraint to remind myself that these people were there to learn what they didn't know. I was made lab assistant and did as much teaching as studying in those lab sessions.

But back to music, it really is a personal thing and we all need to be happy. Maybe some day I will miss playing every weekend, yet as I say that my mind flashes to an image of me loading 4 keyboards, 2 stands, an amp and amp stand, a bag of cables, a sax, a sax stand, the bag with the wireless sax mic and in-ear monitors.... into the venue, setting it all up, tearing it all down, loading it back into the car.... and then I don't miss it so much.

Interesting that you make that assumption.

Perhaps the situation was more like "We are not happy together and we would be better off if we parted ways rather than trying to get toothpaste back into the tube."

That could not be MORE respectful.

Funny how a psychological assessment like yours would come from someone who does not know me or my life.

Do some research on PTSD, focusing on the afflicted party's inability to allow people to get close to them and get back to me.

In the meantime I will revisit Leonard Cohen! One of my songs, Do It All Again, is about exactly the same subject.

Well said Herb.

I do, Joanne. That last 20% is the difference between the people who have reached the top of Mt Everest and those who have not. The most difficult part of any task is that last 20%.

I like the quote:

Eddie and everyone else, I am reading a book about PTSD called Thirty Days with My Father by Christal Presley, PhD and it is a real eye opener for me. I didn't realize what effect PTSD has on our vets or their family and friends until I started reading this book.

If anyone here has PTSD you have my deepest sympathy.

PS - thank you vets for your service.

I suspect my story is a little different because, unlike Eddie, I only discovered the joy of playing music for other people AFTER I retired.

From the age of 10 I played the piano on my own or at family gatherings because in those days, in the UK, almost every home had a piano. For the next 45 years I hardly played at all but managed to maintain my teenage playing skill with occasional ownership of a piano or electronic organ. My interest was revived when I bought a Yamaha keyboard in 2000 and soon after discovered BIAB but I still played for myself, usually wearing earphones.

Then in 2010 we had the good fortune to begin snowbirding in a Florida campground where the manager used to play guitar in a band and still entertained us with his singing. He knew nothing about electronic music and was fascinated when he heard me using BIAB and persuaded me to play at the campground parties. Then we started rehearsing together and for the first time in my life I played with another musician. He has the ear and the experience and I can read music and arrange the backing tracks - what a team! Doing that for the first time was a thrill that I never anticipated.

I am now a "veteran" at least in my own limited fashion. I love playing in the open air in Florida and have found a niche where the audience want to relax, drink and talk without shouting. Playing indoors is much less pleasant because of terrible acoustics. I don't sing but can play hundreds of cover songs from wide range of genres and like to offer some trivia about each song or the original artist - try that at an indoor venue. For the next party I have put together a medley of songs written or performed by artists who died in 2016 - George Michael, Leonard Cohen, Debbie Reynolds, Prince etc. My newfound interest in performing has lead me to an interest in artists and genres that I knew little about only 10 years ago. I have belated discovered country music (it was not in my British upbringing) and absolutely love anything by Queen, I even play ABBA.

I am amazed I am doing all this at 74 - so is my wife!

I would be bored to tears in Florida if it wasn't for my music - it keeps me young.

Tony

I'd love that, and I'd like to add the medley from Abbey Road, Court of the Crimson King and a few others as well.

What a great story. Sounds like fun and it sounds like music I'd enjoy both seeing and hearing. I especially like the part, "and for the first time in my life I played with another musician. He has the ear and the experience and I can read music and arrange the backing tracks - what a team! Doing that for the first time was a thrill that I never anticipated." You ought to write a song called "Bookends".

In forums we can only draw conclusions based on what people say and how they act. Did you not, in this very thread, recently say,

"when I lose my love for a woman, she is sent packing"
and
"Between Wife 2.0 and Wife 3.0 I took 20 years off. And now sitting at 12 since Wife 3.0 was jettisoned."

Yes I did say that, Johnx3. What would your idea of the right course be, stay with someone after it was clear we didn't even like each other anymore? That has nothing to do with my "attitude" toward women. That has to do with how life goes, and "stuff happens". Thought the world of all 3 when we got married. When the magic was gone, it was gone. Remember, by then, THEY hated ME too. Any comments about their attitude toward men?

Obviously I was not commenting on whether or not you should stay in a relationship. But the way you described your ex-wives is probably why your attitude toward women was described as disgraceful.

Great story Tony! As we say in sunny Ohio, keep on rock'n!

@Eddie -

Eddie, I've seen and heard The Easy Street Band on youtube - what a great band! Covers and originals! Westside Steve is a fabulous vocalist and he and Keirsten have a heavenly blend on their duets. The musicians are top notch. And so many players - live horns - gotta love it! You were certainly blessed to be a part of that one.

I hope you're still playing the reunions. If I lived closer I'd be there and enjoying every minute of all that talent together. And I'm not from and never even lived in Ohio!

This certainly has become an interesting thread

It is indeed Herb. And there is still loads more to glean from it. I would love to hear from all sorts of different people. How about all those who contributed towards the Xtra Styles competition?

I do understand one thing Eddie talks about and that is the lack of professionalism when doing local casual gigs. Everybody is older now and most of the bands I get called for don't rehearse. It's a case of yes everybody knows a lot of the tunes but we all know how many versions of these tunes there are. The original radio version? The album version? The famous concert version? Another artists version? This gets all mashed up on stage sometimes and used to drive me nuts because when I was doing this as a career I was in a Vegas show group that was rehearsed down to the nano second. Smooth, polished, perfect.

I simply had to get past that or I would stop gigging which is what Eddie has done. That's fine for him but it's not fine for me. I like gigging and will continue gigging until I can't do it any more and that's all there is to it.

One thing I will disagree with Eddie about is the simplicity of some 3 chord tunes. If all you do is listen with one ear and don't pay attention to what's really happening there you think a 10 year old can do it. Not so at all. Listen carefully to EXACTLY what those players are doing, how it's mixed and how it all fits together. Those so called simple, basic, "anyone can to it" tunes were recorded by the best players in the world. That's why so many cover bands doing that stuff suck so bad. Yes, they can get through those tunes but they're all lacking that polish that amateurs have no clue about.

Bob

High praise. Thank you. Steve taught me much about entertaining during my few years with the band as it was waving goodbye. This past year was a rewarding experience because of some of the songs we did. Anything For Love was a lot of work but I loved playing it.

If you look back in the history to when we did Livin' In America, complete with the Rocky intro, that was the most fun moment I ever had with that band. Playing only sax then. Since they I also play supporting keyboards.

Thanks again.

VERY true! I won't tell any specifics because you never know who might stumble across this thread some day... but I've been burned by this. I was involved in a gig last summer for which I prepared like it was my job... for 2 months beforehand I woke up, ate breakfast, then rehearsed all day long in preparation for a gig. At the last minute, some other guys got added to the mix, and they showed up totally unprepared, even though we had agreed in advance what they needed to be prepared for. My name was on the program, so I didn't appreciate the fact that their lack of preparation reflected on me as the entertainment provider.





again, I totally agree. Listen to just about any local band playing STATESBORO BLUES, then listen to the Allman Brothers playing it. The difference between the pros and everybody else is their ability to make simplicity sound awesome.

Love that Pat!

KKJZ here in LA has been playing a lot of classic Ramsey Lewis lately, The In Crowd, Wade On The Water, Hang On Sloopy, etc. I tried to do those years ago and just couldn't make it work because they're so "simple" it was totally boring to me. Listening to them again now I really hear what he's doing. Basically it's standard R&B piano licks but every single time through those changes he does something just a little bit different and it grooves it's butt off. He throws in little licks at just the perfect time too. That takes an absolute master player to pull that off on those very simple tunes.

I saw him do all those tunes live around 1969 and he tore up the place. Simple stuff, not particularly jazzy, not too technical. Too simple. It fools regular players like me into thinking that we can pull that off too. Yeah, good luck with that. In fact, here's The In Crowd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c40gly7OG20

Listen to this carefully, hear how he builds it up, takes it down, messes with the crowd all on one stinkin chord then finally comes back to the bridge then does it again but builds it to a bigger climax before taking it out.

Bob

[quote=Pat Marr]
VERY true! I won't tell any specifics because you never know who might stumble across this thread some day... but I've been burned by this. I was involved in a gig last summer for which I prepared like it was my job... for 2 months beforehand I woke up, ate breakfast, then rehearsed all day long in preparation for a gig. At the last minute, some other guys got added to the mix, and they showed up totally unprepared, even though we had agreed in advance what they needed to be prepared for. My name was on the program, so I didn't appreciate the fact that their lack of preparation reflected on me as the entertainment provider.

[quote]

Pat, I had a very similar experience. I was pulled out of music playing retirement by a dear friend. She wanted to put a band together for her church's social. Myself and another friend agreed. We practiced twice a week for about a month and got down enough songs for the gig. At the gig another church member saw that we didn't have a bass player and volunteered for the job. My friend said that would be great. It wasn't! All he knew was a Johnny Cash tonic fifth bass line in the key of A. We didn't do any songs in the key of A. We had three part harmony in Hotel California in the key of E with him playing tonic fifth in A. Talk about awful. I will never play out again............for anybody!

Simplicity can be deceptive.

It's sometimes more difficult to get a simple tune to sound great than a complex one.

And I do know a number of jam bands that don't rehearse - and they sound like it.

Even if you are doing group improvisation, you need to have the groundwork done, and that takes rehearsal. You also need to learn to feel the other players in your band, so when doing group improv you support each other instead of just fight with each other.

I'm lucky that I'm in a duo with my wife.

When I met her, she was playing in a different band. Both our bands broke up and we ended up in a 5 piece band together. Plenty of personnel problems, much like the ones described in this thread. Leilani and I have very intense work ethics, so after the proverbial straw broke the camel's back, we decided to go duo. I bought an Atari/ST computer and some synths and started making my own backing tracks.

Thankfully I studied arranging in school.

Now we have no personnel problems, we work hard, and on stage we play hard, and we have fewer people to split the money up with.

There are disadvantages of course, but I think the advantages far outweigh them.

Insights and incites by Notes

Interesting stories!

I'm on a facebook musician group populated by the old musician crowd that was active in my hometown in the 70s. A while back somebody started a thread called WAR STORIES, and everybody told their gigging nightmare stories... it was one of the most entertaining threads I've ever been involved in on any forum.

Rather than hijacking this thread, I'm going to start a WAR STORIES thread... everybody is cordially invited to participate!

After a brief try at coffee shops and book stores, it was apparent that few people wanted to be bothered by live music so my wife and I sat down and asked ourselves what do we want to say.
We both enjoy writing music but realized that Gospel allowed us to share the love of Christ through our songs. We only work with our local church but that still a great way to share and sometime you see a few folks that "Get It" and that's what it's all about for us. It's better to have one person understand the Gospel than a 1'000 that ignore you in another setting

Back to original question (sort of) - I don't "make music" I do play music or at least what might be called music if you are generous. Also remember I play guitar (I just have a lot of other toys because I was in the 5% for a long time and could - now reduced to the 10%) so:

As a young man (OK, TEEN) it was for the obvious reasons but since this is a family site I'll let that be (plus back then I had hair and was not fat).

But now that I am older (OK OLD, balding, and fat), and also had been away from playing at all the middle ~25% of my life and away from all performing to this day - I do it now purely for the "zen" of playing (I'm great in my own mind).

However, when I get in "the groove" (which isn’t always) I get that same endorphin rush I use to get running (I was not always fat) so I play to chase that rush - just like a junkie.

That is the truth no more - no less.

Larry

Larry,
I've had that same rush with both people that can read and those otherwise ..
including some who thought they could.
Having fun is indeed the best part.

I love music...said that before... but I got started playing live because it was a more fun way to make money than working a 9-5.

Money for nothing and your chicks for free.... isn't that what someone else said about it?

Yea, the love of the music is it for me from as far back as I can remember. It's certainly never been about money, although I have made some reasonably good money when I was doing pro gigs. I also love the technical aspects of recording; arranging, playing, tracking, mixing, and mastering. I was the only kid in my HS with a sound on sound reel-to-reel recorder back in the late 60's.

These days if you're in it for the money, I'm afraid that part of it is pretty much over. The digital era makes it easy to record, but also easy to steal. When a band like Lady Antebellum gets 62 million plays on the web of "Need You Now" and only earns $1,200 in royalties, what chance do the rest of us have? I guess my "lotto ticket" goal now is to get someone "famous" to "cover" one of my songs. No money, but a lot of bragging rights, eh?

If any band should not complain about stealing, that band would be Lady Antebellum. Listen to this mashup.

Lady A's stolen song

As far as the $1200, everybody knows going in that they will make like .0004 cents per play on the web. I don't agree, but when you sign a contract for .0004 cents per play, you sign away any right to complain about the money. Pandora and all those services pay a ridiculous amount for plays. I think Matt Finley has his music on Pandora and may have input here. At the end of the day though, Pandora plays for a major touring act is just loose change found in the couch cushions.

This has been here before, but you may not have seen it. Proof that there is not much new under the sun.

6 identical country song mashup

I didn't say Lady Antebellum was complaining about stealing, my point is that digital music is easily stolen however you define "stolen". The drop in overall music industry revenue testifies to that point. Kids particularly, IF they buy an album, share it with anyone who wants it. Thanks, Napster, for kicking that off for us. There's a whole generation of people who think music should be FREE. Anyway, I quit fighting that battle long ago. People steal music in one way or another, whether by outright copying or streaming rates so low that it might as well be free. And just because you KNOW they're screwing you doesn't justify the act. So basically I'm saying if you're in it for the money, good luck with that.

As for the "mashup" reference, I had a friend who used to tell me, "Why do you bother, Bob? It's all been written!" Pretty much true in every genre. But we trudge on. I'd love to get a song covered, but I don't expect to be paid anything substantial IF it ever happens. Man, I hate the term (and the reality) but "It's a labor of love."

Back in my entrepreneurial days when I owned a music store, and had just completed my first album, a lady walked in with her husband and announced "I love your new album so much I made eighteen copies for my family and friends." Her husband just stared out the window nervously. That album cost me $20k back when that was a lot of money. I'd NEVER do that again. I wanted to tell her "Well, it's people like you that insure that I'll probably never be able to afford to do another one." But I didn't. I just said "Thank you." and wrote it off to the general public's complete ignorance of the concept of intellectual property. I'm always reminded of a quote I once read regarding the music industry: "It's a great business, but a sad profession." Anyone who's been in the "biz" for any length of time has experienced a least a little of that. Carry on.

AND, as a bonus, she thought she was paying you a compliment. I don't think I would have had the restraint. I would have probably said "Well thanks. While you are here, why don't you steal 18 sets of guitar strings like you stole 18 CD sales?"

The inclusion of the word "stolen" addresses that no while claim of theft was made by the band, stealing is hardly the word here. If anybody stole anything, Mr. Kelly stole that song from Alan Parsons. I can't believe there was not a lawsuit with the chord changes and most of the melody being a direct rip. But my point was that nobody stole anything. That's what online traffic pays.

Nothing has changed but the technology, and it was around long before Napster.

If they buy it:

Back 'in the day' local radio stations, in order to boost ratings used to announce, "Tonight at 11 we will play _____'s new album without commercial interruption."

Thousands of people would have their tape machines cued up and ready to push the REC button. Then the station would play the LP and when flipping sides, the interruption would be "You are listening to W(or K)???.FM ___ on your dial."

When they buy it:

Cassette copy after copy would be made and shared with friends.

The differences are:

• The Internet makes it easier to share with people you don't know
• Music just isn't as important to this generation as it was to previous ones

I hear people moaning all the time that they can't make money recording music anymore. Well, most musicians never made money with recording. For >99% of all musicians, playing live has been the way to make money. Only <1% made any money from recordings.

For every Beatles, Pink Floyd, Elvis, or whatever there were at least another thousand bands working clubs, parties, hotels, and so on.

Plus most 'one hit wonders' or 'one CD wonders' ended up never making a penny of their recordings, and in many cases ended up owing the record company in the end.

When Motown was courting us in the late 1960s, and they made their final offer, it was $.02 per record. Out of the royalties came inflated recording costs, inflated promotion costs, inflated production costs, and inflated distribution costs. Our lawyers figured that we'd have to sell a million copies of our first recording just to get break even and not owe Motown money. That's when negotiations broke down.

The streaming services aren't doing anything that the vinyl and CD merchants did. Exploiting the artist.

The real difference is that today music isn't as important to the screen generation. Not too many years ago, every hotel from a Holiday Inn up had a band playing 6 or 7 nights a week. Usually a pop band 6 nights and a jazz band on the 7th.

Plus singles bars, restaurants, country clubs and dozens of other venues had to have a band.

The only bars with TVs were corner taverns with a dozen or so bar stools and no tables. Discos came later and they put the first nail in the live music coffin. Now people stay home and watch TV and the 6 night gigs are all but gone.

Music just isn't as an important to this generation. And I don't see a change coming any time soon.

Why music isn't that important is another subject altogether, but I think I've hijacked the thread enough.

To get back on topic, I make my living doing music and nothing but music because it's by bliss and I'm able to make a living at it. If I couldn't make a living at it, it would be my hobby and it still would be my bliss.

Someone mentioned the high. I get into "the zone" almost every gig. That space where there is no place, no time, and no me -- where the music seems to flow through me instead of from me, and the time between when the gig stops and ends seems both infinite and instant. In any case, the gig is over too soon, and although I'm tired, it's a good kind of tired.

Insights and incites by Notes

Notes, do you have any idea on what airplay pays bands? If you get into a rotation where you are played every hour and project that over 2000 stations, and stay there for 4 weeks, at one penny per play that works out to $14,400.

Now, to factor in the odds of having that song get that kind of heavy airplay, you may as well put on a blindfold, try to

1. Get into your car
2. Drive to a bar with dartboards
3. Park your car
4. Find the entrance
5. Find the dartboards
6. Throw bullseye after bullseye, all night long.

MUSIC doesn't matter to this generation. Nobody says "Have you heard the new song by _________?" They say "Have you seen the new VIDEO by _________?" Different world since MTV. I remember when concerts were pretty much about watching a band stand in front of mics and amps and playing. Now it's dance teams, lights, costume changing, fire, smoke..... Personally I much prefer to see The Eagles stand on stage and sing Hotel California.... without elastic audio correcting the vocals on the fly and the high notes being mixed in from the board. It is truly a (sadly) different time.

the pay scale for streamed music doesn't match the pay scale for youtube vloggers. Whereas it seems to take thousands of hits to generate pennies for the talented musicians, relatively untalented people who can consistently generate a vlog per week and build a subscriber base are making about a dollar per thousand views. That's a lot more than the musicians are making.

watch these articles and scratch your head in disbelief:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn0y3Opb8Wk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWlsNOaj1sQ

Pat I don't know if that was to me or not, but I am talking about real radio plays like what you hear in your truck, not internet or streams. We know streamed plays pay nothing.

Nothing but the technology? The technology is everything. Copies back then were analog crap, and not everyone had a tape machine. Every computer, and there are way more of them today than there were tape machines in the day, with a CD drive is capable of making a perfect dupe of any song or album. And instead of giving a few cassette copies to your friends you can share it with the whole world in a few seconds. Basically the general feeling is "if it's possible to steal it, then it's OK to steal it." Personally I don't care. I've never aspired to make a living with music although I have had some nice paydays. But for the folks that think they're gonna make a fortune in the "biz"...good luck with that.

Since the talk has morphed to money.....

Yeah, streaming music is a rip-off for the writers. Building a business model along the lines of Pomplamoose is a good way to make a musical living.... sell direct and don't stream.

Film & TV pays really really well compared to streaming. Pay varies based on length of the cue.... but normally between 5 cents to a few dollars per cue/play.

It's possible, with time and effort, and recording good usable cues, to build a nice, steady, livable income stream.

The conversation has definitely morphed into the good old days were better so let me join in.

I am very excited about the times. Growing up in Zimbabwe what chance did I ever have of making anything at all out of my music? There was nowhere to perform for pay and there was no way for me to expose my music to a label (that I knew of).

Now, for absolutely nothing I can record a song, make a video and release the song on all digital platforms. Who knows who will see it. And I am doing this right now. When else were aspiring musicians like me able to do this in the past?

This recording and video cost next to nothing to produce https://youtu.be/1KagFbfP6x0 and it will be released on my next album.

Exciting times for sure!

You are a breath of fresh air for sure!!! Thank you!

Yes, the upside is you can do your own release to a global audience for very little money, how cool is that?

The downside is not much in the way of money to be made.

It wasn't so much the fact that anyone can just make their own copies of music on their computer to load onto an MP3 player that killed the money aspect of it based on my experience, it is all the new streaming services out there. MP3 players are obsolete, most people just stream these days.

When I first started with CDBaby back in 2003 things were quite different. Initially it was physical CD sales, but that changed very quickly to MP3 downloads via the various partners, iTunes etc. And that was a good thing, there was much more money to be made (via CDBaby) with an MP3 download than a CD sale.

In checking my CDBaby accounting page it looks like the trend from someone buying an MP3 download to just buying a stream started happening around 2006, that is the last year I was consistently selling a lot of MP3 downloads, after that it is mostly streams. MP3 downloads pay the artist around $.77 or so, streams $.009.

Not that I made a lot of money from it mind you, but for the first few years I was able to pay for my BIAB yearly upgrade with a few $$ left over from money made from CDBaby.

But, that's just the way technology has changed the industry and not likely to change anytime soon.

My $.02 for what it's worth

That's interesting info and coming from a seasoned customer,you are providing relevant insight.

A question for you. Is CDbaby still a income vehicle you would recommend to a new artist wanting to publish and distribute their work in today's market? Not just for income, but for exposure as well.

Charlie

Hi Charlie,
Well, at the time CDBaby was the only game in town, now there are more options.

One nice thing about CDBaby is they distribute your music to all of the digital sites, not just a few, and there are lots of them. Also with CDBaby you pay one fee to get a new release up and you are done, other sites that offer a similar service, reverbnation is one, require a renewal fee every year or they take your music down.

But, I haven't kept up to date to be honest, maybe there is a better way to get your music up on iTunes, spotify, etc. now.

The "good old days" really weren't all that good... it's just that your memory has gotten worse with time.

I agree 100%.

1) The publishers always exploit the artists
2) I'd rather hear the real thing than an auto-tuned or other artificially enhanced performance.

And speaking of that. I went to a big rock fest quite a few years ago. I really went to see/hear Dr. John. Alice Cooper was on the bill, and during the scene where they marched across the stage to hang him on the gallows, the tape playing the music and vocals malfunctioned and the only thing you could hear was the parade drum. They went through the motions as rehearsed anyway.

And the publishers exploit the artists. The publisher makes more than the songwriter for the sheet music, more than the artist for a record sale, and so on. And like I said, it's not only musicians. My cousin wrote a novel that sold a few hundred thousand copies, but she never got to the point where she made a profit, and being a fist timer, the publisher just promoted it enough to recoup their costs from the royalties.

Visual artists pay for the canvas, framing, etc. (which is extremely expensive) and for the works that sell the gallery takes home more money than the artist.

Of course, all this changes if/when you break out and become famous. Then you get a better contract because you are worth more to the publisher.



I agree, but people listened to crap. And everyone I knew had a cassette machine. They listened to 2nd and 3rd generation tapes with no problem (except for the few like the musicians with 'ears').

Before that they listened to lo-fi 45rpm records and before that 78s. And what about those 8track players that faded out in the middle of a song, clicked to the next track, and then faded in to play the rest of the song.

The average music consumer doesn't care that much. They want to hear the words and sing along to the tune.

---------------------

And yes, you can now get to a global audience with the Internet for minimal investment. That's a good thing.

The down side is there are zillions of others doing the same thing so marketing to get people to find you might cost more than your streaming or download fees.

I can make more playing one gig live than most can with streaming and download profits for a year. And I do this a few days per week. I've paid off my mortgage, taken a foreign vacation almost every year (after we did 49 US states), bought a boat, cars, and paid all my bills doing music and nothing but music. Life is good.

The down side of that is that I'm playing at my full potential. I can't sell multiple copies of that performance and possibly break out and become a millionaire like Kenny G.

But for every Kenny G who makes it, there are thousands who record and try but never make a buck. It probably has about the same odds as playing the state lottery.

---------------------------

So the way I see it is, the odds of making big bucks in the recording industry have never been good. On the other hand the opportunities have expanded but the field of competition has as well.

The big stars like The Beatles, GNR, and so on have always been the exception to the rule, and that small percentage has been able to live off their recordings since the last half of the 20th century, but with the increase of technology, they are now making less than they used to make.

But for centuries, the vast majority of musicians have made a living playing music, live, in front of an audience. Before mass media, all the musicians made all their money playing live to an audience.

The demand for live music is less than it has ever been since I was a child, but it's still there. Unfortunately there is more competition, screens (especially cable TV), open mic nights where your competition plays for free, DJs, and sports bars.

But a good musician can probably still make more in one night than he/she can with a year of Spotify royalties.

Back on topic.

Most of us play music because we really, really, really enjoy playing music. Those of us who can also make a living by playing music, are IMHO the lucky ones.

Insights and incites by Notes

We used to do a bluegrass song titled "I think We're Living In The Good Old Days."

J&B

That's correct, and you are right. It doesn't get any better than this.

it wasn't posted in response to you specifically. My point was simply to say that if internet ads justify paying vloggers about $1.37 per THOUSAND views... (even after youtube gets THEIR 45% cut) ... pro music surely draws larger audiences to ads that are billed the same way to advertisers... but the music streaming companies are keeping a MUCH larger share of the revenue. It isn't even CLOSE!

You would make more money by putting your music on a youtube blog and monetizing it, doing the things others do to build your subscriber base than you will EVER make by allowing Pandora to stream your music. Plus, putting it on your own youtube site gives you other options, like partnering with retailers, selling merch etc.

Same internet, same ad pricing, different payout schemes. Why musicians continue making their music available to the people who screw them is a mystery to me.

I agree... these are good times for those who think outside the box and look for ways to use the new paradigms and circumvent all the middle men. . Those who continue to use the old approaches are destined to remain one step behind the sharks who dominate that world.

Online streaming is nothing more than "record company 2.0"

We make music because we have to. It's that simple.

Why we let people exploit us is the mystery to me.

• Open mic nights - the owner/management gets paid, the bartenders get paid, the wait staff gets paid, the janitors get paid and the musician works for free, plus he/she even brings friends and family in to make more money for the people who are getting paid
• Playing anywhere for 'exposure' - same as above
• Bad deals with record companies and streaming companies - similar to above

If you want to play for free, there is nothing wrong with that. Find a charity you like, play in a public park, a neighbor's house, a party, or any other non-commercial place you want. But if it's a business and the management and staff are getting paid, don't play for free, you are only being exploited. In addition you are harming the ability of both yourself and other musicians to make a living by playing music.

Insights, incites and a minor rant by Notes

+1

A BIG +1

This old argument seems to resurface around here from time to time. And the point about playing open mics is just wrong!

Open mics are a way for venues to try and make a little profit on nights when no one is coming in to drink. I have attended and performed at many and they are generally poorly attended with the performers, and maybe a friend or two each, making up the entire "audience".

And most of the performers tend to be amateurs who are testing the waters or just experiencing the thrill of being on a stage. These are typically folks who will never be paid to perform anyway.


This one always cracks me up! We are all here because we use software to eliminate paid musicians in our live performances, recordings and/or practice sessions! Using your "logic", if you are using BIAB or RB you are putting other musicians out of work! That drummer and bass player and rhythm guitar player and keyboardist who have to work as Walmart greeters could be making a living playing music if you were not using software to eliminate their jobs! And Notes, you actually make money selling tools to help others eliminate paid musicians!

My view is playing open mics AND using BIAB are both just fine! And I don't lose any sleep over the poor buggy whip makers who lost their jobs when those newfangled automobiles ruined the horse and buggy industry either. Progress changes things. Ya gotta stay sharp and adapt. Or you might end up in one of those Walmart greeter positions.

Edit: and no offense intended to Walmart greeters! It's a job and if you are working good for you!!

I have been beating that drum for years. Our town is fraught with "jam night" events. I will never play at one, and outside of when our band threw one a year ago, I have not. I have attended a few just to look around. It's the same guys, many of which do not play in bands regularly, who know 3 songs, and this is their 7 minutes of fame to get up and play one of those 3 songs. All so their drunken friends can give them empty praise telling then how great they are despite the fact that they usually suck (or a band would recruit them).

If you want me to play, you will pay me. If not, I don't really miss it. And I don't have to be in a bar with people who make me uncomfortable.

Yep as you have stated in bold above this is the reason they want to do it and why they don't mind NOT getting paid.
Good luck to them, they are enjoying themselves and bringing some fun to their lives.

It is is their guitar, their voice, even though they may only know three songs, their time (not mine or yours) and if they choose to do it for free, well more power to them.

This is mainly a hobbyist board, where most people are actually out money fulfilling their hobby of making music, just getting tired of this old argument on here, maybe if it was a pro board for working musicians I would understand, but on here it isn't.

Musiclover

Faulty logic.

We play in venues that hire singles and duos, and never hired a larger band. There isn't even enough room for a larger band. The stage, if there is one is 8'x8' and even a trio wouldn't fit on that. Putting musicians out of work? Not. Putting musicians to work.

In addition there are places around that hire 4 piece and larger bands. They would never-ever hire a duo because their venue is too large, we would look tiny on stage, and couldn't fill the room with the ambience that a larger group could.

In fact, we played for the local Marine Corps League for the Corps' birthday party for 12 years straight. They got a bigger facility, thanked us for all our years of entertainment, and told us that they needed a bigger band for their new building. I recommended a couple of bands to them.

So we are not putting anybody out of work at all. Your logic is very flawed.

We have a couple of clubs here that now have open mic nights on the weekends. Musicians are playing for free, they are bringing in paying customers, and getting one free beer. That's exploitation, that's putting other musicians out of work.

How would you like it if someone came to your boss, told him he would do your job for free a couple of days a week, and your boss gave you a couple of days a week off without pay?

This is what open mic venues do to working musicians.

Insights and incites by Notes

I understand the feelings of some of the payed musicians on this forum but like all issues that effect us personally it's hard to be objective.

It boils down to the following question. If you choose performing music as a way of making money why should a money making venue subsidize you by not choosing a business plan that includes the low cost option of open mic nights? It's freedom and capitalism in the raw.

Tony

Reputation probably keeps the drummer, bass player, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist off the stage more so than BIAB ever could.


Some musicians are either unreliable, incorrigible and unkempt. Some are all three and more.


Style probably keeps the drummer, bass player, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist off the stage more so than BIAB ever could.

Many musicians are locked into a particular genre of music and lack the ambition and drive to expand out their current playlist so therefore would not be a good fit to play in a band that plays originals rather than all covers. The metal guitarist may not be able to adjust to working with an all acoustic bluegrass band. (The bluegrass band likely couldn't adjust either)

BIAB is a tool. Midi is a tool. A good keyboard player with a quality keyboard playing live and using his keyboard to it's full potential can replace an entire orchestra. A musician that is versatile and a good player can use midi from his guitar to replace a keyboardist, bass player, drummer.

The fact that Notes is chosen for a gig over his competitors probably has nothing to do with BIAB but more so with his personality, business sense, talent and reputation. Logic tells us that regardless the reason a choice between several options is made that those options not chosen must look elsewhere for consideration.

Charlie

Spot on, Notes. Giving a club a free band while bands are sitting at home wishing they had a gig is bad for our business and if band members would "band" together and stop doing free stuff, the practice of jam night would die a quiet death. But the non-working musicians are still attention whores and that few bits of empty praise from their friends matters to them. For myself, the only one I have to impress is ME.

Around here, most establishments that offer open mic also have paid bands the rest of the week... so it isn't as though the open mic undermines the other musicians.. they draw different crowds.

Karaoke and open mic both draw an audience of active participants that hopes to watch a while then play a while. Most of the people in the open mic audience have their names on the list to perform. Same goes for karaoke.

Traditional bands appeal to an audience of passive observers. They came either to socialize or to hear the band. In both cases they tend to be passive observers while the open mic and karaoke crowds tend to be active participants.

In the same sense that Eddie would not be interested in attending a karaoke or open mic night, those crowds would probably not be interested in watching someone else perform if they didn't have the chance to get on stage next.

The establishment owner has an incentive to appeal to all of the above crowds, because if he limits it to the same one every night, it dilutes the earning potential. For example if his live music audience tends to spend $x,000 a week, if he can focus the same 7 day income into 5 days, anything he makes on the other 2 days from the karaoke and open mic crowd is gravy.

So in a sense, these karaoke & Open mic acts help the club owners to stay in business, which is good for the other acts that are getting paid.

But there is also the case of minimum quality, below which point it drives customers away. Lots of open mic nights close down because the quality is such that even the other players get embarrassed and stop coming.

Back on topic....

As a Xtra Styles user & winner in the contest, the song I wrote for it, "Lovely Mystery", is the perfect example of "my reasons for making music".

We have ALL seen the odd couple, the old fart with the young blond, or the old lady with the young stud....the well dressed man & the derelict looking wife, etc etc and have wondered HOW the got so lucky (or unlucky, as the case may be ). How they, as a couple, could go thru such sorrow, or joy, or stupidity...come on, ya all KNOW what I am talking about, we ALL know that couple!

The song is, plain & simple, myself wondering out loud in a way that others can relate to.

I'm from the WWII era when making music as a family was more common. We didn't have TV until I was 14. Listening to radio while huddled as a family WAS our main source of entertainment.

We would entertain ourselves by singing and playing guitar or mandolin. I think that folks today have more entertainment options so home-brew music has fallen off sharply in recent decades.

We made our own 'instuments' such as a salt box partially filled with rice or dried beans for a shaker.

Technology has stolen much of those joyous memories.

Donny

You make a big deal out of open mic participants taking jobs from working musicians yet you use (and even sell addons for) a software tool designed specifically to replace musicians! How do you not see the hypocrisy in that?

I'm with you on that! My dad came from a family that grew up on a farm. A larger family that had 14 kids. To this day, they still meet every Sat morning in the "milkhouse." It's not really that now, but once was. It's not uncommon for guitars to start playing and a sing-a-long happens...and dancing.

Thanks for sharing that. I absolutely love hearing of simpler times. I miss it, and wasn't even there!

Thanks Donny!

J3,

Simple logic dictates that technology is replacing humans in every field of endeavor. It seems necessary that each of us find a niche to fill for survival and self preservation. Bob Norton is slightly ahead of the curve.

YMMV

Donny

I hear ya Don and I fully support using technology. But I don't understand why folks feel the need to demonize others who are just trying to have fun or catch a break.

Lovely story don. Thanks for sharing. We definitely have such a huge variety of options for technology based entertainment these days. My sister is visiting me at the moment and is lying in bed playing bridge online with people all around the world. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing. One thing I do notice is that kids handle all this technology overload much better than adults. It just becomes part of their lives.

I don't see the software tool replacing musicians.

I gig in a duo using software. But I play in places that never hired a bigger band. I play in places where a bigger band wouldn't even fit. Two musicians are working in a place that has always had singles or duos. Net gain or loss = zero. So how is the software replacing musicians?

Insights and incites by Notes

The software is making it possible for you to provide musical parts in your performances that another musician would be playing. So because of the software you are able to avoid hiring musicians. And you sell software to allow others to eliminate paid musicians from their performances, recordings and practice sessions!

AND ALL THAT IS JUST FINE!

What is hypocritical is doing that and then turning around and criticizing musicians who want to play an open mic! Open mics (and similar events) are 1) fun for the musicians, 2) beneficial for the venue (which is almost always barely breaking even) and 3) perfectly legal!

So I encourage you to keep performing and saving money by not hiring real musicians AND I encourage anyone who enjoys Open Mics to go out and have fun!

Doesn't make sense to me. Two musicians working where two musicians have always worked.

We just sound bigger than two musicians used to sound.

Net gain = 0

Net loss = 0

So how many musicians are out of work?

So following your flawed logic, the player in a piano bar who brings along a drum machine is putting a drummer out of work, even though a drummer has never played in that piano bar.

Doesn't make sense to me.

So I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this point.

Notes

Wow! I can't believe someone needs to point this out to you two. It's not 100% in either direction!

Just because YOU wouldn't have additional musicians, doesn't mean NO ONE is using it that way.

And just because someone is using the technology to enhance their performance doesn't mean they would WOULD be using additional musicians otherwise.

Seriously, at some point respect the post please.

I love ya both but, come on. Keep going back and forth all you want; but maybe maybe start a new thread. Just a thought. Flame on.

You should read the posts more carefully! I am not concerned at all with whether or not someone is using tech to replace musicians...if they are then fine...if they are not then fine! I am responding to the tired old assertion that open mic participants are somehow wronging musicians who wanna get paid. And of course they are not!

...and perhaps you weren't one of the two I was referring to

That being said, just trying to get it back on subject. The answers to the posed question I found to be pretty awesome. I now get it is very common to have a conversation go on within a conversation. It's also common to try to steer it back on course, as several have attempted

Me? I thought agreeing to disagree about it was a civilized way to end it.

If everybody agreed about everything, what a dull world we would live in.

Back on topic.

Sunday we played at a country club we've played a couple of times per year for probably close to 20 years. The last time we played there was for their New Years Eve party.

They hit the dance floor as soon as dinner was over, and the dance floor was full right up to the last song. They applauded, showed their enthusiasm, and at the end of the night quite a few people thanked us, told us that they loved us, and even got big hugs from many of the members.

Next gig is a marina we've played once a week during 'the season' for 9 years running. No dance floor, it's outdoors, in a marina, on a lagoon. We get to play anything and everything, have running jokes with the audience, and they feel like extended family to us. Lots of applause, even more hugs, and we know a lot of personal information about the regulars, we share their joys, and sympathize with their sorrows.

After that a couple of nights in a club we've played off and on since the early 1990s.

We have a lot of fun doing this, we have warm relations with many of the customers, and we feel love, affection and appreciation coming from the audience.

This is one beautiful reason why we play music. It's not only the music, it's also the dialog with the audience.

In fact, if we go to a club or a party, I'd rather play music than be in the audience listening to it.

Insights and incites by Notes

Agreed! Well said and mark me impressed.



This is what I miss about playing in a studio. When you play out live there is instant feedback. The reactions with the musicians and audience become there own type of free form art. Thanks for the share of this! It stirs something in me for sure!

If we want to talk about musicians loosing gigs forget talking about single, duo or trios using backing tracks. Lets talk about DJs.

Our wedding band used to have bookings every Friday and Saturday with an occasional Sunday doing weddings. During the off season we played at VFWs, Elks clubs etc, i.e. no bars. Then DJs started taking over. Ours and all other wedding bands started loosing gigs to DJs. Soon the VFWs and such started using DJs. Most bars around here are now using DJs or Karaoke. None of these use musicians!

Sorry for going off subject but the talk about musicians loosing jobs to backing tracks just had to make me post this. Well that and the devil!

And part of the problem is the quality of the live bands. None of them rehearse because they don't get paid to rehearse. As a result they know the 45 simplest cliche songs around, and all the bands play the same stuff. You see a lot of bands thrown together just to play for their $250. I have been at places where a band was setting up and players had to be introduced to each other DURING SETUP!!! Give me odds on THAT "band" being tight?

Part of why I don't bother anymore. If music doesn't mean enough to you to rehearse and do it right, don't do it at all.

I believe open mics have an important place in the local music scene. I try to attend the weekly one that is close to where I live and the hours aren't late (wed 6:30-8:30). The place isn't that crowded then and this venue has a lot of music on other nights where the players are getting paid.

I think the host of the open mic gets paid for his time and I enjoy doing my few songs and listening to others that could be pure hobbyists sprinkled in with some music pros who come by to support the host.

Fun is had by all. Probably wish it was more of a "listening room" environment, but it is what it is.

That 45 song list would definitely be worth knowing, probably differs from one part of the country to the other.

Musiclover

Yeah... I agree with that statement mostly. I'd probably bet that the band would be loose as a goose.

I went to a jam some time back at the invite and arm twisting of a bass playing buddy. A local working band with a long history was looking for a guitarist to replace their guitar player who was retiring due to medical issues. These guys were around my age.... late 50's to early 60's.... and had been together since they were in school.... with some time off here and there then reforming and played a few gigs a month for fun.

I was appalled at how loose the music was. They didn't have things nearly as tight as it could have, or should have been given how long they had been playing together. I jammed and had fun but declined the job offer.



On the other hand.... I went to see Paulette Carlson (lead singer from Highway 101) in Myrtle Beach many, many years back. Her band was amazing and so pleasantly tight. So after the show, I had a chance to talk with one of the guys in the band. I asked the guitar player about his rig because his tone was spot on. I asked how long the band had been together, and he said... "Oh, about 24 hours now". They were all studio cats from Nashville and played the show with one rehearsal with Paulette and used charts she provided, for the music. It all depends on the quality of the musicians if they can jump on stage together and play tight or not. Her hits with Highway 101 sounded "just like the record" so I had figured it was "her" touring band. Apparently not.

This was one of the songs she sang that evening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gb4m3eGRTY

She's got a voice that just kills me... in a good way. Husky, smokey, powerful,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uAcP_Pwi6U (check out the bass at 1:22... ooops) this was one of here big Hwy 101 hits.

My brother-in-law is a trumpet player who does 'club date' gigs. Although he often works with the same musicians, not only do they rotate among the pool of musicians, but they often play with other club date musicians for the first time.

This is not the 45 rock set, but more the light to moderate jazz / standards gig.

They all seem to know the same songs, in the standard keys, and if a singer comes along, the leader puts up or down fingers according to how many sharps or flats the singer wants to sing in.

You would think this is a recipe for a train wreck, or a sloppy, loose gig, but they sound tight and even to this musician's ears, they sound like they have rehearsed.

Of course, this is what they do for a living, so they know all the standard cues for 'arrangements while you play' and have a good knowledge of the material they are playing.

I've hired my brother-in-law to sit in with us when we need another body, and he is on top of everything as we play and rarely makes a minor mistake, and when he does, he recovers almost instantly (with zero rehearsals).

I've never done the 'club date' end of the business, and have no desire to start, but my brother-in-law thrives there.

And he plays music for the same reasons that I do, for the enjoyment of it. The money is necessary to pay the bills, but the playing is bliss.

Insights and incites by Notes

I've done both recording and live performances, and by far, I prefer live.

In the 'old days' when the band recorded all the parts together it wasn't as much fun as playing life, but much more fun than today. Nowadays I get called in to lay a sax part on a rhythm track that has already been finished and a scratch vocal track. I miss the interactions with the other musicians (including the singer).

The bliss of performing to me is playing live and having that party with the audience.

I tell the people who hire us, "We work for free, and charge you money to schlep the gear around and to pay for the
instruments."

Insights and incites by Notes.

Great way of looking at it. I really like it when you do what you love doing, and then at the end of the night they write you a check.

In the town where I grew up, in a musical sense, there were a few "band leaders" if you wish to use that term. These guys were the so called star of the gig... they ran the band, booked the gigs, it was their name on the marquee, and they walked away with the lion's share of the money as a result.

One guy in particular was an outstanding musician who loved jazz and getting a call from him to gig was reserved for the best players since he didn't rehearse the band very often, he expected you to be able to play what he called and make very few mistakes and when you did, to recover quickly and invisibly. He'd call the name of the song and the key if he thought you needed it. Otherwise, he'd just start.... he played piano. He also expected you to know more than the basic chords like a country band would use.

He hired players mostly on a short term basis. His bands had high turnover, due to the factors I mentioned. Working with him was a real PITA. If he couldn't get a guitarist for the weekend, he'd play without one or take one for one night if that's all he could get.

I knew him in passing, and knew of his reputation. I also watched a buddy of mine, who played with him on a fairly regular basis, do a rehearsal in a top 40 club for the gig that night. I asked my friend later how he could take the mess.... and he replied, he pays well.

I gigged for a short time with one of the other "band leaders" in that town. Both of the guys mentioned were outstanding piano players, sang well, and knew more songs without needing a cheat sheet than you could shake a stick at. The guy I played with was a more mellow fellow than the first, and didn't have a drinking problem, but being wrapped tightly like he was, often presented other problems for the musicians in his band.

I consider that an interesting era of my musical education.

I was fortunate in a couple of ways. First was that when I started, the drinking age here in Ohio was 18. That college market meant that there were a lot of bars, to the point where there were more live music venues than quality bands to play them. Then in 1984 the laws changed the minimum age to 21, with the exception that those already 18 were grandfathered. However, when that gap closed as those kids turned 21, that shut down a lot of clubs as the business was just suddenly gone. Then it became a club owner's world where there were more bands than clubs, WAY more bands than clubs, and the bands started cutting each other off at the knees by playing for almost nothing JUST to play. That has continued all the way to now, where there are not that many established bands due to the fact that musicians can't play 5-6 nights a week and everybody is a hobby player. That is what brought us to the "replacement band" era, where everybody is in 5 bands, none of which rehearse. In my immediate area there is a group of about 18-20 guys who shuffle lineups and play in different configurations. In order to do that, with no rehearsal, they either play "the list" or they play 6 ridiculously stretched songs per hour and fill them with long solos, doing bush league stuff like pointing to each other to say who should solo next. (That stuff is supposed to be worked out in rehearsal before you get there, isn't it?) I mean, really? If I want to hear you play scales I can come to your house. I want to hear a BAND. Get down to the bedrock of that word, band. Band is also a verb, meaning "to unite. to come together." And that's what I want to see when I see a band, some players who have banded together, not this guy plays then that guy plays then the other guy plays and then the bass player solos so everybody has a chance to use the bathroom (nobody wants to hear THAT!). It has reached a point in my area where your choices are a trio of musicians with a front singer using recorded tracks for keyboards, horns and BGV (all in an effort to make MO MONEY!!! - music comes last, make MO MONEY!!!) or a group who calls themselves a band but isn't really a band so it is a glorified jam night. I can't tell you how many times I get emails from people asking me to come out and hear them because "Tonight we have so and so as our guest drummer." Drummer? That guy who starts and stops the songs, keeps you playing at the correct tempo where the singer can get the words out between breaths and the guitar player can play all the notes of his solo? The guy who keeps the band tight? THAT GUY you replace with whoever you can find that wants to make $75 because your real drummer got a gig that pays $100 that night?" What chance does that band have of being tight? If there is ONE guy in a band that has to be GREAT, it's the drummer. You can hide almost anything else, but if the drummer stops and the rest of the band keeps going, or the reverse, you sound horrible no matter what happened before.

As you can tell, I am not easy to impress. I had the fortune of playing in 3 really good bands back to back, covering about 12 years. The last 2 years I played with guys who mailed it in. We would play weddings where the couple often had a "request" song. I remember the night the request song was "Unforgettable". That song takes some chordal twists and turns, and you just CAN'T play that song unless you meet, chart it, and rehearse it. This band tried to work it out on napkins while we ate dinner. I refused to join them when they did it, and I was SO embarrassed for both the band AND the couple when they botched it badly. At the end of the night when it was pay time, the father of the bride docked the band $300 for that gaffe. The leader pulled out a contract and started arguing with the guy. The guy simply said "You had ONE song requested, and you didn't think it was important enough to learn how to play it correctly. This $300 iS your fine for doing that to my daughter." When we left that room I looked at the leader and said "If this was my wedding, I wouldn't have paid you at all for doing that. How many times do I have to tell you that you MUST rehearse? You guys are nowhere near good enough to wing it. You should probably find a replacement for me because being in this band is embarrassing."

And there is yet another story of why I DON'T play music anymore. In fact I am getting to a place now where I am going to start selling off my gear. I want to be in control of where it goes, so it goes to people who will use it rather than wait for my estate to sell it at a yard sale for chump change.

To paraphrase Bobby Womack, "I used to love her, but it's all over now."

I still enjoy writing, but playing I can easily live without.

Bob,
What's a "Club date gig"?

Eddie, don't get me started on drummers.

Yes, a drummer is the single most important element for a tight band with the bass player coming in a very close second. When the two of them are working together it's a freaking awesome thing to be a part of.

On more than one occasion, I have had the occasion to be in a band that was auditioning drummers when one left or got fired. One guy showed up with a huge kit.... cymbals and toms and this and that.... heck it took up nearly half the rehearsal room's floor space. The kid was really proud of his kit and told us so several times that night. Problem was, he thought he was Neil Peart which is fine if you're playing with Rush, but we were playing Walyon and Willie. Keep a freaking beat. He didn't work out.

One of the other guys that showed up had a small kick, a high hat, a snare and one floor tom. That was almost hilarious until he started to play..... nothing fancy but a more solid beat I hadn't seen in a long while. The band was instantly tighter with him playing.

Then there was the drummer I played with at church.... two of them to be precise. Drummer one led from behind. What a whimpy sounding beat. The other one.... every time you came out of the chorus back to a verse, he'd drop a beat and instantly speed up the tempo. He was the one they wrote the old joke about..... How do you know when there's a drummer at the door? The knocking gets faster.

Despite those drummers who give others a bad name.... I have been blessed to have been in several bands with really good, solid, drummers.

Great drummer stories, Herb!!

Last year I was working with some guys who wanted to be a blues band. The drummer, who thought it was his project though I was musical director, was just awful. He played everything too fast and sped up from being too fast! He would crow about "all my experience" every rehearsal. Then I did some research. He had played in exactly 2 bands in his "experience", and neither of them lasted more than a few months.

We were rehearsing one day, and it was what I dubbed a "maintenance rehearsal". I told them "This week we are going to go over those first 20 songs and fix lyrics you are singing wrong, accents to your lyrics, like where the emphasis is supposed to be, and clean up some transitions from verse to chorus to solo to bridge and so forth." So we started that rehearsal and fixed a few things. Then we got to a song where there were drum breaks and coming out of them he lost tempo completely. I then said something every drummer hates. I told them "I have run every one of these songs through a BPM analyzer. I want to run "Walkin' By Myself" with the drum machine." So I set the click track up, piped it through the PA, and off we went. IMMEDIATELY the band was tighter. So the next thing I did was say "Okay, Let's run it again with the click but this time play your live drums with it." We started, and in 4 measures he was off the click. We tried it again, and again, by the 5th measure he was off. We tried it a third time, again, by 4 measures he was off. And then he got defensive and started telling me that even if you listen to the originals the tempos drift, to which I replied "I don't care. Here we are going to play in PERFECT time."

I then asked him not how MUCH he practices, but HOW he practices. He told me that he made a CD of our stuff (all blues covers) and every night he goes downstairs and plays along with the CD and runs each song twice. I told him "That is exactly what I thought, and that is exactly wrong. IF it is true that the original songs drift, why would you want to play along with something that drifts? Here's what you do." And I set the click track again and said "Play just your high hat." Which he did. After 8 measures I sad "Now add snare." And 8 measures was okay. Then I said "Now bring in the kick." and as soon as the kick came in his meter went out the window. And I then said "THIS is what you need to do when you practice. Learn to play DRUMS, not songs.

And that was the end of that band. LOL!!!

Great advice for starting drummers, though! Hope he ended up listening

What my bro-in-law and the others around here call it is one person gets the gig, and then calls other musicians he knows to fill the rest of the band slots.

They work from a decent sized pool of musicians that all know the same thousand or so songs and they are mostly jazz standards and 'society music' songs (whatever that is).

When my BIL is leader (gets the gig) he chooses the musicians for the kind of music the contractor wants, and who he knows will do well.

I don't have any idea why they call it 'club date'.

I do know that they all do it well, probably not enough to fool other musicians, but enough for the audience.

Notes

A drummer is the final reason why we are a duo.

When I met Leilani we were playing in different bands. Both our bands broke up at the same time and we both joined a 5 piece band that was just forming.

We were gigging, and after a time we lost our bass player. I don't quite remember why, I think he had to move for family caretaking.

We were out of work a month while we auditioned and then worked in a new bass player. We didn't want to come out until we were tight - we had a good reputation we didn't want to spoil.

So for a month Leilani and I made zero dollars (this was back in the 1980s before I started this BiaB aftermarket hobby turned sideline).

A couple of months later, we lost a drummer do to personal health reasons. We auditioned and found a new drummer. She had a small kit, kept great time, enhanced the music with tasty licks but didn't overplay, and could even sing background vocals!

We had our first gig at the dining room of a big country club that we played many times before with the old drummer. The crowd was big, they brought out extra tables, and folded back the 'accordion wall' between the dining room and the lounge and asked us to set up there.

The drummer who we found out later was a 'Seventh Day Adventist' member said "God won't forgive me if I play in a bar."

I told her "God will have to forgive me for homicide if you don't play in the bar tonight." I added that none of us drink on the gig, and we are facing the dining room full of people who would be very disappointed if there was no band tonight. She played.

The next day I bought a 4 track Teac reel-to-reel tape recorder and started making backing tracks (I play bass, drums, sax, and at the time only rhythm guitar, and right handed keyboards). I mixed them to cassette tapes and bought a dual deck cassette player/recorder to play our tracks.

When a Yamaha keyboard with a sequencer built in came out I bought it to get rid of whatever tape hiss there was, and then an Atari/ST computer. I've gone through many stages of improvements over my sequence/playback gear until what I have today. http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html

Do I miss playing with a real band? Yes.

Will I ever go back? As long as Leilani and I are both alive, I think No.

Leilani and I have been doing it since 1985 now. We've never missed rehearsal, never missed a gig, never showed up late, never showed up drunk, never took a long break, never acted unprofessionally, never refused to learn an often requested song, and never treated an audience member rudely.

We always do our best, we love what we do and it shows, we love our audience and that shows too, and we're quite good at what we do.

We seldom make mistakes and almost always cover them up so the audience doesn't know (with backing tracks that can be a challenge), We have a rapport with the audience and when a regular customer requests a song, if appropriate to our skills we will learn it. Then we will play it for them without being asked. This makes them feel special, and it should, because they are special.

We have to charge money to pay the bills. To do what we do, it takes a lot of daytime hours. For example: To learn a new song I have to learn and be able to play the drum, bass, and all the comp parts that go into the backing track, choose the right sound for each part out of thousands in our hardware synth modules, find the right key, balance, optimize for live performance, record as a high quality mp3 file, then learn the parts we are going to play live (the most fun parts). Then we rehearse until it's right. If we had 40 hour day gigs, we couldn't approach the kind of quality we offer.

I know other bands who buy karaoke tracks or other backing solutions and do an adequate job, and it works for them. But for me, adequate isn't good enough. It has to be a good as I can make it or I won't be happy with it.

We're still friends with that drummer, and she ended up eventually playing in bars -- we never asked about the religion thing.

There is more than one right way to make music, and this is the way we choose.

Insights and incites by Notes

amazing and inspiring story

He did not.

Notes, when you play out, do you play MP3s you have made or actually use BIAB?

Bob!

Thanks for sharing.

Amen!

Notes said, after talking about drummers...

"We've never missed rehearsal, never missed a gig, never showed up late, never showed up drunk, never took a long break, never acted unprofessionally, never refused to learn an often requested song, and never treated an audience member rudely."

You must have had some pretty suck-e drummers in your world if that is the way you pigeon hole all of them! And if you are talking about other musicians also, then I apologize & bow to yours & Ed's perfection.

I hate to say it, but once again a few folks have to have a pi$$ing match on how great / pro / expert / what they would put up with / in someone else thread....it really brings down the level of the forum to where it is even below us poor, commoner's level of experience.....

But it gets old, and we have all heard it way too many times...so please do us a favor and start your own thread so you folks can go back & forth blowing smoke, and the rest of us poor, amateur, un-educated, no discipline blokes can get back to enjoying the trading of fun & worthwhile info!

Now I will insert the usual no offense meant, and it is not....really & truly.

Thank You.

I don't use BiaB live on the gig, here's what I do:

1. If there is an appropriate MIDI style for the song I'm learning I'll start with BiaB and when done, export the MIDI file
2. I do most of the work in Master Tracks Pro (discontinued but has the best groove/change filter I've found) - adding song specific and other parts, adjusting the groove, choosing the right sound for each instrument using my array of hardware synths with thousands of sounds, and so on.
3. When everything is right and as good as I can get it, I'll record it using Power Tracks Pro Audio to make a WAV file.
4. Next I'll use CDex to make a high bitrate, high quality mp3 file.
5. I bring the mp3 files to work

Why not BiaB live? I find BiaB's output very good, but since auto-accompaniment parts tend to be generic, I find that with some work in a sequencer I can turn very good into excellent by adding things that BiaB or any other auto-accompaniment device can do.

At one time I played my MIDI files directly through the synth modules, but

• I got tired for schlepping a 10 space road rack full of nothing but sound modules to the gig (I do one-nighters)
• In the unlikely event a sound module should fail, I can't bring a duplicate of every one of them to every gig

By going with mp3s not only is my setup time quicker and easier, but I bring a spare computer booted up at all times on stage. In case of a problem, I simply move the USB end of the USB/Audio interface to the next computer. I use a USB/Audio interface because it gives me higher fidelity than the headphone jack and there are no pops or crackles if I accidentally jar the cable.

Why MIDI and not real tracks? The RTs are great, but the editing capability is almost nil. For example; I have over 24 clean guitar sounds ranging from the generic to specific sounds like Tele Rear Pickup, Tele front pickup and various Les Pauls, 335s, and so on. I'm not restricted to the RT instruments. Plus I can change notes to get the chord inversion I want, change parts/licks to more song specific ones, exaggerate the groove by changing the timing, balance individual drum instruments, and do millions of things not available with audio files. This is not to dis the RTs, I think they are genius, but they aren't my tool of choice. One nice thing about BiaB is that there are different tools for different situations and different ways of working with music - and there is definitely more than one right way to make music.

When playing the mp3s, I have a system down where I can make the decision of what to play next in the last few bars of the song I'm playing (if need be) and start the next one immediately.

This might be TMI. More complete details on how I make the backing tracks and use them on stage are explained on this page http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html

Insights and incites by Notes

I think we have a misunderstanding here. Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough.

I didn't mean to pick on drummers, it just so happens that a drummer was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back that finalized the decision to go duo.

BTW, my first instrument was drums, so I'm a drummer too.

I've been in bands since the 1960s and I've had problems with guitarists, bass players, keyboard players drummers and I have probably been a problem myself.

I've seen band members show up drunk or drugged, miss rehearsals, show up late for the gig, take long breaks, spend more time chasing a member of the opposite sex then doing their job on the gig, not learning their part before rehearsal, antagonizing management or audience members, and so on.

Not everybody in any profession takes their jobs as seriously as others do. Leilani and I take our job very seriously and have very strong work ethics.

I have been in good bands where we all took our jobs seriously, but that seems to be a rarity.

The only problem Leilani and I have is that neither one of us likes to be the 'band salesman'. Fortunately we have mostly repeat business and a few agents that throw work our way from time to time.

Insights and incites by Notes

A few points or comments.

I don't play live but if I did I would use either high quality MP3 files or waves as Notes does. I'm a firm believer in keeping it easy and simple. I saw a band in Myrtle Beach many decades ago when Cakewalk was a midi sequencer. It was 2 guys...one on bass and one on guitar. They called themselves The Kick Brothers. Everything was midi or midi controlled and everything sounded amazing since they programmed all of the parts by hand. They had drum modules, piano modules, string pad modules, and even used midi for vocal FX and lights. The entire show was running on a 286 computer. They had as much gear as a normal band. Yeah, they sounded good but one module breaking down or crashing would stop the show.

Keep it simple and easy to do.


Drummers, click tracks, church and religion. Where do I start with this one? Church.... years ago I was in the church orchestra as a guitarist.... ( I have tons of stories I could tell about that experience but I will limit it to this short one ) I would come in and tune up using my tuner. I had referenced it to the piano since the piano wasn't easily adjusted. The piano was not on A-440 and I brought that to the attention of the music minister (MM) who eventually got the piano tuned professionally since it was slightly out of tune with itself as well as flat overall. Once that issue was resolved, I would tune up and play and my guitar sounded like it was out of tune but it wasn't. The rest of the orchestra was out of tune because the MM would tune them all by ear.... his ear, before the service. I used to have my tuner on watching the fiasco unfold. The bass player, who also used my tuner and agreed with my assessment, finally bought a nice tuner and donated it to the MM to use. The MM refused to use it during the tuning time before the service. He instead, totally eliminated any tuning during the sound check run through, and told the orchestra members the tuner would be laying on the piano in the choir room and they should tune up before the service. Of course, that never happened and the music continued to sound out of tune.

Here it is many years later, I'm no longer with the church, nor is the bass player, and the current drummer is a friend on Facebook. He just mentioned that the church has recently switched to a click track for precise tempo control rather than trusting someone to start the songs at the wrong tempo which did occur quite often.

Talk about politics and drama in the band.... you should play with a church group.

Excuse the saying, but Amen to that! I played in 3 over a 4 year span and tho I was paid well (because they could not keep musicians all 3 had to outsource) it was worse than ANY country, rock, or pick-up band I ever played in!

In the end it soured me to a lot of things......

Maybe this should have been in the other thread about worst gigs, interesting things that happened, and musical catastrophes thread.... but I'll share it here since it is church related.

The church shall remain nameless for this account and same thing with the players. I was not playing actively with the band at the time. I don't recall the reasons.

However, the bass player was involved in an auto accident and was in very serious condition with shattered bones in his neck. I offered to fill the bass position until he was able to return. It would likely be months because he couldn't stand or speak and had a head brace they screw into your skull to keep your neck from moving.

Things went well for the first few weeks. But shortly lead singer girl didn't want me to have a mic. I was singing harmony in the appropriate places with the other singers and dared to ask for a bit of my voice in the monitors. She said it was "too much"....Then she told me not to sing on stage even without a mic because I looked "unprofessional" lip syncing. Ooooooh kay......that's when I first realized this was going to be "fun". I kept singing along to the music.

moving along....Let me describe the rig for the bass. The bass was plugged into a DI with a split output for the FOH and to a hot spot monitor with a 4" speaker for the player on stage. I could barely hear that 4" speaker so since the hot spot had an amp in it, I found an unused 10" floor wedge and placed it back by me on the floor so I could maybe hear what I was playing. The stage was not excessively loud but it was in the days before the "quiet stage" phenomenon swept the churches.

As a point of reference, I had it just loud enough for me to hear. Well below the level I would normally play it at. After the second week playing with that speaker, lead singer girl confronted me and said "Turn that thing down because it's blowing me away up here. She was 15 feet away at the front of the stage and the speaker was pointing away from her. This was BEFORE the service.... So during the praise & worship part of the service, I did the unthinkable..... I walked up behind her to hear what she was hearing..... and I could NOT hear my bass at all........ not from the monitor speaker I was using, and not from the FOH. She glared at me, I smiled back, and after the service, confronted me about that too....

So... I let it go like water off a duck's back.... and go to the church on Wed nite for the normal P&W band rehearsal. I get there and there's the bass, plugged into the DI, but no hot spot and no floor speaker. I ask.... no one seems to know. Apparently, it just up and vanished on it's own. Glances averted, mumbling about you need to talk to so and so who isn't there.... I talked with the guitarist for a while. He says, "man, I got nothing to do with this crap". his exact words. They start to get ready for the first song, so I get up and go to the spare equipment room and look into the loft.... waaa laaa... there's the gear. I pulled the speaker out and put it on the front of the stage by the girl singer's feet.... after she told me she didn't know where the speaker was or why it was missing....the look on her face was beyond words.... then I turned and walked out without saying a word and never went back.

I might have told this one before but I don't recall..... a different church several years later. This was an orchestra and anyone who could halfway play was welcome. everyone volunteered their time and talents. A new Music Minister (MM) took over and actively attempted to build the orchestra. A drummer joined and a bass player came in and we had a pretty good rhythm section for the orchestra. We laid a solid, tight, groove. And we played some pretty complicated stuff. Lots of songs in Eb and Bb and even Ab now and then. It was a great learning experience and I became quite proficient at playing the chords required in those songs. Heck It was fun.

The MM would come up with various musical projects to present to the church from time to time. Some were good, some were not. At least from a guitar player's POV. In other words, some didn't need a guitar in them at all and this project was one of those.

We were only about a month and a half away from the time this was to be presented and had not yet hit any of the music in our Wed nite rehearsals. So with about 5 to 10 minutes left in the rehearsal, MM says pull out song #3, hits the CD player and plays the first 20 seconds of the song.... then says go to measure 35 and counts it off. Train wreck... says go to measure 65 and counts it off...another train wreck.... says OK... and repeats this with a different song and gets the same results. I didn't play a note... I simply listened since I'm an ear player trying to get a feel for the melody line. Next week, he does the very same thing. And the results were exactly the same.... at this point in time the event was a mere 2 or 3 weeks away. I'm thinking, he really needs to practice on THIS if it's going to sound halfway decent.

So the following week, same thing.... last 10 minutes of rehearsal, he says pull out the special music. Hits the CD player.... so I very quietly put my guitar in it's case, shut off the amp, and leave the stage and head up the center aisle to the exit doors. The music stops, and I hear the MM say, over his mic... "Herb, you think you're too good to play this music don't you?" There was about 15 people on stage and about 25 church members in the auditorium getting ready for the next class in there, and he says that.

I turned around and said... "Call me tomorrow and we'll talk".... at which point he actually repeated it again. I kid you not. I simply said "Call me tomorrow" and walked out the door.

Next day, no call but an email telling me NOT to come to play on Sunday until "we can talk". A meeting was set up and I was surprised to find out that it was in the senior pastor's office. He had been the MM when I first started playing as the only guitarist. Long story short.... the MM slides a piece of paper across the table and says these are the conditions you must agree to in order to remain with the music program. He had them numbered. There were about a dozen conditions. I read them , placed the paper back on the table and asked him one question. I asked, Have you given these requirements and conditions to everyone else in the music program as well? Deer in the headlights look from both of them. MM finally says, uhhh, no I haven't. I replied as I slid the paper back across the table to him, "If you haven't given these to the other members with the understanding that they are also to follow these condition, why do you expect me to follow these conditions? That is blatantly unfair, is it not?" The senior pastor said, he has a point.

I pointed out that all the musicians and singers were 100% volunteers. We would play and sing when we could. I would be willing to play as I had been doing. Was there any problems with my performance levels? no... then what seemed to be the problem with me continuing to do as I had been doing? no answer.

Needless to say, the meeting didn't end well since the MM refused to back off of the conditions. Funny things was I was at all the rehearsals ...98% of the time. The same thing could not be said of the drummer or the bass player.... so they had no clue about what happened until others told them why I wasn't there on Sunday.

And so ended my time with that church orchestra.