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Follow That Dream

Sam
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Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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thanks guyssss.

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when I used to play the clubs in the early days it was always live backing eg drummer and organist.Then came backing tracks and after a few years live backing disappeared Im afraid thats progress for you.frankie


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Sad yes Sam, but nothing new. Remember we had a long discussion about this last year? I gave you numerous examples and personal experiences. Trying to make a true career out of music is practically impossible outside of teaching. Music as a sideline with a real job that actually pays the bills, maybe. That article talked about the top 3 colleges in New York graduating 500 people a year. Want to talk about LA and the UCLA School of Music, USC, Grove, how about Boston University and Berklee, U of Texas at Austin, the schools in Nashville and all the conservatories in Europe? Thousands and thousands of highly skilled music grads a year chasing what, 200-300 studio gigs and 100 orchestras worldwide? Everybody else plays coffee shops and private parties or some local bar for a hundred bucks twice a week if they're lucky. If you can marry the girl singer and double the family income, that can work.
It's a cruel joke on kids spending tons of money and time for squat.

Bob


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Very much reminiscent of the motion -> Save Live Music ...

And then there is -> The Cost of Broadway Orchestras as a Portion of Ticket Prices.


Martin
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I've made a career out of music since the 1960s. It's possible, but it's getting more difficult. Clubs that used to hire bands 6 nights per week are down to weekends. Smaller clubs that used to hire weekend acts are down to one night a week. And because fewer people are going out, the entertainment purchaser is strapped for cash, so the bands have to get smaller (enter backing tracks). Now I see single people playing private clubs buying karaoke tracks and singing along while not playing any instrument at all.

To me the big culprit is TV.

I was talking to my mother-in-law a couple of years ago, and she remarked how in her day, first it was radio, and then black & white TV. She said the sound was terrible and if you wanted to hear good musical entertainment, you just had to go out to see it live.

Now people have giant TV screens with 7.1 surround sound and a monthly Cable or other subscription bill that can easily run into the hundreds of dollars. There goes the entertainment budget right there.

According to the pollsters, the average American watches 6 hours of TV a day. Add that to working hours and the monthly subscription fee and who has the time and money to go out to hear live entertainment?

Plus, TV is the most abused, and biggest drug habit in the US.

Drug you say?
  • It's habit forming. Try turning off the TV for a week, I guarantee you will get withdrawal symptoms
  • The drug needs to get stronger and stronger - it was "Our Miss Brooks" in the 50s and "Sex In The City" by the 90s
  • The drug user (TV Watcher) can't tell the difference between the drug (TV) and reality. Just ask any actor/actress who plays an evil person on TV. If they go to the grocery store or anywhere else in public, people shout verbal abuses at them is if they were actually the character they are portraying on TV

So if you want to contribute to the demise of live entertainment. Stay home and watch TV.

If you want to do something to help keep live music in your community. Go out every week to hear live music -- and not just the headliners, go to the local clubs where local musicians are playing.

Just say "no" to TV.

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When I was younger we'd go to a blues club or other club at least once a week. Dingy, beer stuck to the floor, smoke laden, downright nasty places. Have 5 beers and drive home. Now you can't have 2 beers and drive. And I have cataracts, I don't drive at night. And the noise level, I couldn't take it now. 30 years have changed a lot.

I still go every other Saturday for Saturday at the Opera (Met) high def broadcast in Surround Sound at the Deluxe Adults Only Cinema with big leather seats, drinks serve'md before and at intermission, a martini and shrimp cocktail anyone? I still give a bit every month to the Canadian Opera Company, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and try and get there once a year. Locally I support the Jazz Society, once a month a 'meet' and concert for about 300 people at 'my' club. (Shriner's Hall, I'm past pres), though they just rent the space from us for Sunday afternoon.

I'm trying to convince more groups that weekend afternoons would solve a host of problems. The wife and I used to put together 3 songs and go to some open mics. Got some good gigs that way. I'm too disabled to do that at the moment, but I'm not staying up to 10 to start of a Thursday and come home after midnight. I hope to be asleep then....


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<<Now people have giant TV screens with 7.1 surround sound and a monthly Cable or other subscription bill that can easily run into the hundreds of dollars. There goes the entertainment budget right there.>>

It's even worse than that. It finally recently dawned on me that I could have movies and other shows via wifi for $8 per month from Netflix. The movie theaters will suffer from this as well as the local clubs. But, I agree that TV has taken a huge toll. The "broadway" shows that come to our town have very few musicians since they rely on sound equipment. I would rather see (and play with) live musicians but the times are what they are.

Stan


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The so called "love" for live music has been a myth since the 40's or 50's imho. The only reason young people liked live bands back in the day is that was the only way they could get some loud music to party with. You couldn't ask Dad in 1963 to haul his huge Hi Fi stereo system down to the garage or dance hall for a party so the band was it. Young people never cared about live bands except for the huge concerts, they just wanted to party. Now that they can using a DJ, they're fine with that. In the 80's the sythesizer/prerecorded stuff started coming in. Miami Vice was the watershed. I remember reading in Keyboard Magazine at the time an interview with Jan Hammer and he was talking about his 200K Sinclavier sampler and how he did the whole soundtrack for each weeks show in his house. Little or no live players needed. Even with the cost of his equipment it was way cheaper to do that than hire 20 musicians every week in a studio. At the same time there was a musicians strike in Vegas over using tracks for the big shows. There was a compromise of some sort reached but the casinos won the right to use tracks at least some of the time and it's gone downhill from there.

Bob


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I guess I'm below average in T.V. usage, although I am above Bob's usage. I watch maybe 6-8 hours of T.V. a week. The thing that kills me is that I do pay $200 for my cable bill, which is T.V., internet, and phone. I have all sorts of channels that I never watch. In fact, I watch about five channels, the History Channels, the Military Channel, The Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. I have a very nice 40" plasma in my living room with a 5.1 surround system, and a 26" LCD in my bedroom. Guess which one gets watched more.

I don't go to concerts. Mostly, there's no one I want to see, and if there is, it's $50-75 a ticket, plus $20-30 for the parking, another $30 to get to Seattle and back on the ferry. I can buy a lot of DVDs for that which are going to sound better anyway. Plus, I won't have to fight traffic.

We do have an open mic night around here, but it's during the week, and I'm usually in bed by 9-ish, so I don't go. I try to attend some of the free open air jazz concerts in the summer, but they're often local musicians who get paid by the city to come out for a concert series.

We used to go to some of the local bars where small bands played, but you don't find too many of those any more, at least not a 4-5 piece band. Plus, not too many places will advertise that they have live bands any more.

Gary


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The irony is strong with this one.

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Eightstring, (aka Yoda),

Quote:

The irony is strong with this one.




If you aren't a Star Wars fan, you may not "get" EightStrings comment and my response.

We are "lamenting" the very thing we're taking part in, and promoting. Replacing "live" musicians with a computer program.

The thing we love, (aka, live music), is being replaced by the other thing we love, (aka BIAB and other programs).

It's not PG's fault. It's our own. We are getting what we asked for.

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I so rarely watch TV - only for good films.


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The question really is, ….. does musicianship really matter to anyone besides musicians? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

TV’s not the problem …………. It’s just one of many diversions that we have today. I’m not gonna list them because we all know what they are.

As musician’s, we wanted to be able to practice our songs when the rest of the band wasn’t around. We eventually got “mutitrack”.

After that, we wanted to be able to write songs and have a backup band for our arrangements. We got that. Then, cover songs. We got that too!

Then we said it sounded too “fake”, because of the MIDI. Then we got MIDI devices to make up for the deficiency in sound.

After that, we were still complaining about the sound, so then we got got actual instruments in a variety of styles and variable tempos that sounds great.

We were ecstatic! Even though the whole band could be replaced, (besides us), everything could else could be replicated electronically.

Then we recently find out that a 3D “hologram” could replace a lead singer and fill stadiums with thousands of devoted fans, and that program is available for purchase in various languages.

So for us to complain about being replaced by electronic media, and for us to be surprised that the public is willing to accept it, is extremely ironic, especially on this forum.

After all, …………… we asked for it.

Last edited by bobcflatpicker; 12/09/10 12:35 PM.
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Quote:

So for us to complain about being replaced by electronic media, and for us to be surprised that the public is willing to accept it, ………….. sorry, but it’s the height of hypocrisy, especially on this forum.

After all, …………… we asked for it, and we're asking for more!




and yet, life moves in pendulum cycles. The ability to automate music makes music available to more people, but it also makes it less special. People naturally gravitate toward that which is special, so in a roundabout way it is just a matter of time before the pendulum swings the other way and people start making distinctions between those who actually have musical skill and those who simply use music software.

Already many in my son's generation (which has never known a time when there WASN'T music making software) puts more value on real human performance than on automated music. I hear them mocking one another if they learn that somebody's song was created in Garage Band instead of being humanly played into a recording program.

I predict that the current availability of music software will lead to increased interest in music, which will in turn lead to the development of some serious human talent, which will lead to a resurgence in live music.

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Regarding the comment about hypocrisy... I'm not so sure I'd go that far. Our generation came in on the other side of the pendulum swing, when live music was everywhere, all the time. Much of it was horrible, because the market would bear it. Unprofessional behavior was the rule more than the exception. Many of us wished for a way to make the kind of music we wanted to make without being drug down or forced to follow in the footsteps of people whose vision was different than ours... and music software allows us to finally get there. Unfortunately, a million other people got there at the same time, so it didn't make us as unique as we'd hoped.

For those who have lived a full musical experience (playing both in bands and then also in solo acts) it is natural to mourn the decline of live music playing opportunities. Our parents mourned the end of music as they enjoyed it, but their music never died, it just became a niche in a larger, more diverse body of musical styles and types of performance.

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Well some of the blame has to go to the Musicians.They are no then the average American worker. They want everything and don't want to give anything back. Case in point. I have a very good friend in NH, were I'm from, that has a solo show.He does all his own backing tracks,harmonies everything. the stuff is right on. Plays 100% Oldies Rock & Roll. Up there the Animal Circuit is still very busy. He has a rotation of about 12 clubs. The Bands get $300 he gets $450 per night. You no why? Because he gives 110%. Plays what the people want not what he may want. gets on stage and has a good time. Doesn't just get on stage and play obscure tunes and look like he's bored shirtless.


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"We were ecstatic! Even though the whole band could be replaced, (besides us), everything could else could be replicated electronically. "

I'm not ecstatic about it, but I think show producers and performance venues may be--at least for pop music. My wife and I play duets for retirement homes, etc.. We would like to have a live pianist, but none are available. Same thing for church. We have a couple of good pianists, but their schedules are too tight to have rehearsals during the week. We've had a very difficult time finding a pianist for another band we are in. That band will cancel performances rather than use "canned music." We don't cancel and hence BIAB, which we are very thankful for. The folks in the retirement facilities appreciate live music as do the schools where we play. I just bought tickets to see the Glenn Miller Orchestra in a week. It's a sell-out.

Stan


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Quote:

I predict that the current availability of music software will lead to increased interest in music, which will in turn lead to the development of some serious human talent, which will lead to a resurgence in live music.




Of course it will but that doesn't mean anybody's going to be able to make a living at it except for the rare "winning the lottery" scenarios or the exceptional one man show person which is the point of this thread. Realize I've been making the same $100 more or less for a gig since 1980. There's been no overall increase in pay, why because as the years go on more and more good players are available chasing fewer gigs plus a good DJ can be hired for $3-500 so why would someone pay more than that for a 4 piece band, hence $100 a man. I just did a gig at the Manhattan Beach Country Club last Saturday. MB is millionaire central, Beverly Hills south, it costs $30,000 to join after you wait on the list for years. 5 piece jazz band, $75 each and the new Food and Beverage manager loved us. Great, try doubling the budget. At least it's only 5 miles up the road from me. Did another one earlier this year, West LA Sports Club, in Beverly Hills. They had to valet park my car after I unloaded my gear in front of literally a Ferrari, a huge black Rolls Royce and a whole platoon of Porsches. At least my old but nice Mercedes S class didn't look completely out of place. That one was a full $500 for the band so I made my $100 average. Wow. The appetizers were great though.
Three of those gigs per week is $1,200 a month and I haven't done that since the 70's. Double it, $2,400 a month that's still below the poverty line here.

Bob


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Shastastan you have a PM.

Later,

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Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: VST3 Plugin Support

Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® now includes support for VST3 plugins, alongside VST and AU. Use them with MIDI or audio tracks for even more creative possibilities in your music production.

Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Macs®: VST3 Plugin Support

Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: Using VST3 Plugins

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