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Words mean something, … or at least they used to…………… Basically, I agree... but it's worth noting that language evolves to meet new perceptions of reality. Notice I say PERCEPTION of reality... all that's required for the dictionary definition to change is for most people to perceive a DJ as a musician.
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The gig we've had for 7 years now just gave us a raise. We didn't ask for it, but we are building the business and the owners wanted to show their appreciation.
It's outdoors, on a deck, over a salt-water lagoon. We now ask people to bring lawn chairs because there aren't enough seats on the deck for everyone, and the overflow sits out on the 'beach' at the end of the deck.
The owners know that the way we treat the gig is to make all decisions as if we were the owners and were collecting the revenue. In other words, what's good for the business that hires us is good for us.
Example. A group of bicycle riders that ride from Cocoa to Key West passed us by about 5 years ago. They liked us so they make sure to schedule their trip so they could stop on our day for lunch (we do Tuesdays). They had a tail wind yesterday and got there early. So we started a half hour early.
We also skip breaks and if the crowd stays late, we play late. We recognize regular customers and play their requests without them having to ask. We tell stories on the mic, have running gags, and talk with the audience. We have a personal relationship with the regular audience members, know many by name, know things about their life and ask about them, and generally treat them as if they were friends and we were all at a cocktail party. It's how we compete with DJs and KJs.
Here's how the musicians should think about the bars and restaurants that hire them: What is good for the establishment is good for us, and we will do everything we can in the capacity of entertainers to make money for the club - that includes keeping customers happy so they want to stay a little longer and come back again.
Insights and incites by Notes
Insights and incites by Notes way to go Notes! Instead of complaining about what isn't like it used to be, you're busy making your own reality, and benefiting form your own good decisions.
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Words mean something, … or at least they used to…………… Basically, I agree... but it's worth noting that language evolves to meet new perceptions of reality. Notice I say PERCEPTION of reality... all that's required for the dictionary definition to change is for most people to perceive a DJ as a musician. Sometimes it’s wise for people knowledgeable in a particular subject to override perceptions or even dictionary definitions and speak out in order to educate others. Take for example the Meriam-Webster dictionary definition of a luthier: lu•thi•er
ˈlo͞odēər/
noun
a maker of stringed instruments such as violins or guitars. I could go to a website like “Build Your Own Guitar” and order any number of kits and easily build my own electric guitar inside of a week. Shucks, … if I were willing to fork over $525.00 for a USA Made Natural High Gloss Tele Kit – Flag, I could make an instrument that would rival the USA Fender Telecasters being sold at music retailers all over the country. http://www.byoguitar.com/Guitar_Kits/Guitar-Kits.aspxI've been working on guitars as long as I've owned guitars, and that's been about 45 years or more. I’ve disassembled, cleaned up and reassembled several electrics over the years. I’m also pretty good at setting up guitars for proper intonation, string height, neck adjustment, sanding frets, filing nut slots, etc. Did I mention that I'm also a pretty good carpenter?  So if I purchased one of those kits and built a guitar, then I would fit the textbook definition of a “luthier”. Especially since I could easily build an instrument worthy of the components supplied in any of the kits. But only a fool or someone who’s totally ignorant of what the term actually means would call me a “luthier”. That same principle applies to anyone who would call a DJ a “musician”.
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But only a FOOL or someone who’s totally ignorant of what the term actually means would call me a “luthier”.
That same principle applies to anyone who would call a DJ a “musician”. I get it Bob. But at this point in the discussion I'm going to point out that what you're doing here is a well-known fallacious argument in which one person in the discussion subtly shifts the focus from the issue being discussed to the other person's credibility. It works on people who are afraid of being perceived as a fool... in much the same way as kicking dogs can keep them cowed... but it's not good practice. It's a fallacious argument because a fool could argue that the earth is round. The veracity of the statement has nothing to do with whether or not the person is a fool, and therefore that information proves nothing, except contempt for the person whose opinion differs.
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I have been gigging since I was in Junior High School. There are fewer gigs around for live musicians than there used to be. Why? It isn't as profitable for a club owner to hire bands. But why is that? - Live music isn't as important to young people as it used to be. DJs have the single bar and wedding market pretty much sewed up.
- DUI/DWI laws - when people go out to hear live music, they don't drink as much as they used to. Of course that saves lives, but it does hurt the profit margin.
- Higher taxes on drinks served over the bar - this was an attempt to get people to drink less but all it also resulted in less profit per drink as the bar owners ate much of the increase themselves
- Open mic and other people who are willing to play for free in for-profit establishments
- Karaoke Jocks who don't play an instrument but download K tracks and sing along, often undercutting the prices of live musicians as they have less investment and years of training
- Sports Bars - almost free entertainment for the club, and people like them
- And the biggie - HDTV with 7.1 surround sound, hundreds of channels, on-demand content, and a Cable/Satellite bill that can easily run over $300/month (there goes the entertainment budget right there)
What can we do?
Take a lesson from evolution. It's not the strongest that survive, it's the ones who can adapt to the changing environment. When psychedelic music was the rage and nobody wanted to hear saxophones, I played bass. In the 1980s when other musicians were saying, "You are going to put musicians out of work with those computers." I said, "I'm putting two musicians to work with these computers." We don't play in venues that ever hired large bands, we just had a leg up on other duos and got hired. When we did cruise ships, we noticed the Disco next door didn't take breaks, so we skipped our breaks. We ended up breaking all-time revenue records for the lounge we were playing in, and our 3 week contract lasted 3 years and we could have stayed longer, but we missed land things and didn't renew. Plus we got a double sized crew cabin with a porthole - a valued perk on a ship. When the MADD people and DJs started to erode the night club business, I moved into the yacht club, country club, retirement community and private party end of the business, because that's where the work was around here. We don't do set lists, but instead call songs on the fly by feeling the pulse of the audience and calling what we think will be most appropriate. When the dance floor is full we go from song to song with no dead time - just like a DJ. If the particular audience needs mic banter, we provide that between songs. We learn songs that are requested and I sequence them myself. Buying Karaoke tracks is not for me. Recorded music and live music need a different balance of instruments and different energy level - especially at moderate volume levels. Plus I can extend them to a nice 4 minutes for the dancers, play my own solos (I love improvising), put it in our best key if needed, put a real ending on it, re-arrange it so the hook comes quicker (for better audience recognition), change the tempo a bit, rush the B parts a bit if needed, and end up with something I think sounds better than a K track. Plus I'm blessed to have a great singer for a partner (I'm good but not great - but I am a great sax player - took first sax in the all-state band each year I was in school). I also learned wind synth, flute, guitar, bass, drums, and key synth so that I can add variety to the gig. We practice hard and do the best job we are capable of, and we are capable. There are better musicians out there and there are worse, but we hold our own quite well. Plus we play to the audience, no Coltrane licks, we don't refuse to learn and play requested songs as long as we can cover them well, and we have a good time performing - and that's contagious. So what to do? Assess your local situation. Who is listening to live music? What kind of music are they hiring? How can you be better than the people already playing that market? Adaption to the changing market and working hard to do the best job you can is the key. We may belong to the union (or not) but in reality, most musicians are self-employed businesses and we are in friendly competition with our peers. Don't cheat them, out-compete them honestly. Insights and incites by Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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That was definitely a poor choice of words on my part. I wasn’t trying to show contempt for anyone, especially since I don’t have any.
I was trying to exemplify that even if I met the requirements for the textbook definition of a luthier, I still wouldn’t actually be one.
My bad.
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...But only a fool or someone who’s totally ignorant of what the term actually means would call me a “luthier”.
That same principle applies to anyone who would call a DJ a “musician”. However...probably a large majority of the population, 60,70 maybe 80% (90%? ah, I'm trying to be generous) are fools and ignorant when it comes to this subject and a population base that large gets to make the rules as far as cultural perception goes. Again, my posts here are not agreeing with this definition or advocating it, I'm simply saying it is what it is. What we're talking about is gradually getting pushed into higher and higher levels of academia and it's becoming less and less prevalent in the general population. Your point is a very good one, how many people including casual musicians would know the difference between you and a luthier? "Good ole Bob over there has been building guitars since the 60's, he's a heckuva of a whattyacallit, a luthier". This same subject was discussed on a piano forum talking about how many piano stores are closing and the extreme slowdown in new piano sales. Same principle. Pianos require expert craftsmanship too and with the advent of cheap little keyboards being sold everywhere nobody is willing to pay that price so it too is becoming a very exclusive art only for the very rich. People think their kid who's playing a $100 Casio is a "musician" or keyboard player or worse yet he's playing a $100 controller through his iPad playing all sorts of crappy screeching, thumping stuff and mommy walks around thinking her kid is making music. This stuff is beyond huge in the marketplace, just Google some iPad interfaces and synths and then listen to the demos. This is the generation of "musicians" that's coming up behind us. Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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But only a fool or someone who’s totally ignorant of what the term actually means would call me a “luthier”.
That same principle applies to anyone who would call a DJ a “musician”.
Well you're the same kind of a luthier as I was a musician as a DJ in the 1980s. Back then my job in a discotheque was spinning records. I announced them and played them as they came of the shelf; just like a narrow gauge Wolfman Jack. (I don't know if this translation of the German idiom "Schmalspur-" fits in the English language.) Some of today's DJs are musicians, they create something new, using premanufactured tracks, they combine and mix them in a new way (actually more like a conductor of an orchestra). They are not the DJ hired for a wedding party. At such a party almost only danceable and well known songs are required. Just what a cover band would play, nothing what the general public or age group doesn't know. If you take components that were not meant to be put together and create an instrument with them you're much closer to the trade of a luthier than if you bought a kit from IKEA that you just assemble. E.g.: There are always two types of painters, both types know colors and how to swing a brush. One creates walls painted white with a dab o yellow, the other pictures that are high in demand. One is an artisan the other an artist.
Last edited by GHinCH; 01/15/15 11:42 AM.
Desktop; i7-2600k, 8 GB mem., Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
Laptop: i5-2410M, 4 GB mem, Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
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I'm working on a weaponized virus that only targets DJs. Will keep you posted. 
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Funny. I was going to come up with something funny as a reply like "Yeah, the WestNileDJWhooodie virus" or something so I just did a quick search for anything funny that might fit. Instead I happened on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_JunkiesNever heard of them yet they're big international stars who've been around for 22 years. 22 years! Time flies. Remember how we knew all that about our favorite bands as in "Yeah, man I saw the Allmans like 20 years ago in Chicago, they were great". This talks about the International Turntabilist Federation. The what? In the first sentence there's a reference to "Turntableism". I clicked on that link and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurntablismHere is your Wikipedia definition of the difference between an old style DJ and the new guys. New. Right. 20 years isn't new. Like I said earlier, there's a whole other world out there we've never heard of and it's not even new either, it's been around for a long time right under our noses but because our noses thinks this stuff stinks we've paid zero attention to it. Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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"Like I said earlier, there's a whole other world out there we've never heard of and it's not even new either, it's been around for a long time right under our noses but because our noses thinks this stuff stinks we've paid zero attention to it." Your nose might have missed it, Bob, but not all of us have.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
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Band-in-a-Box® 2024 German for Windows is Here!
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