PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Some times you have to pay for it

Ok, you guys want to hear it like it is? I'll tell ya like it is.

Years ago in a previous life I did things that would make most of you go wow, you played there? You did gigs with who? You traveled all over North America for 6 years, and was booked by the head man at the 3rd largest agency in the country? Yes I did.

The band came off the road in Richmond VA in 1974. We decided we were done with touring, we were going to sit down and write the best stuff we could and really go after a recording contract. The bandleader is from there and had good connections including one with the biggest studio in Richmond at that time. I was sitting in the control booth for many session watching the process. I saw keyboard players come in there who were absolutely awesome players. I mean real killers. They could read fly crap on sheet music in one try with feeling. They had chops for days. They were so damned good I felt like a 5 year old noodling on a kazoo. This from a guy who's played the big casino's in Vegas and worked some of the biggest nicest clubs in the country at the time.

Most of the guys in the studio were graduates from the UVA music department. One guy was so hot I found out he had a band that was doing Chick Corea/Keith Jarrett type of stuff in a local club and I went to check him out and was blown away. I'm decent, I have lots of experience, I can play but I'm nowhere near that level.

I started to think if these guys are in one studio in little ole Richmond VA who's in New York? Who's in LA? Who's in Nashville? Absolute transcendental virtuoso's that's who.

Get a grip guys. If you really, seriously think you have a half chance of making any kind of mark in the music business then Dan you need to walk your butt right over to the University of Chicago's music department and sign up for the next 4 years. And that's just the start. After that you still have to be the best player there to even get somebody's attention out in the real world.

That's the fact, Jack. You're up against people who treat this as their whole lives. A lot of them come from families with enough money they can support them while they learn their art. They've been playing with good teachers since they were 6 and then went to college. And they're still starving and going nowhere because the competition is so incredibly fierce.

I can go on like this for days, I have so many examples I know about personally and other's I've heard about.

I swear most of you have no idea of what I'm talking about here but I'll keep trying to get through. The top music schools in the world are cranking out unbelievable monster players by the thousands. Add them all up for the last 30 years since the schools started expanding their music departments and there's tens of thousands of musical killers walking around who would make you burn that guitar and take up knitting.

Treat it like the fun hobby it is and forget about doing something that's going to impress somebody working at a big studio in NY, LA or Nashville. I mean forget it, man.

How do I know none on this forum are that good? Because if one of you is that good you wouldn't be writing the stuff you post here. In other words you would be way above us mere mortals.

I haven't even touched on the music production schools. You think you know anything about recording, mixing and mastering? There's 4 year degree programs in that too where students get to play with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the very best equipment there is at the biggest universities and colleges in every major city in the world. Us guys here with our little hundred buck interfaces and hundred buck mic's and stuff like that will make grads of these schools just laugh. Sure they'll have a nice home studio so they can lay down some tracks using Pro Tools that they can then email back to their main studio and finish it up there.

And just like the musician side of things, these wannabe recording engineers are absolutely starving. If they're lucky they'll find an unpaid internship at a working studio, do that for a year or two, nothing comes of it and they finally get into used car sales or something.

Music and studio production is FUN. Who wants to be stuck at a nondescript desk somewhere doing paperwork when they can be with the stars, getting the girls, traveling the world and having a blast? Everybody digs it, everybody envy's someone who's successful at it. Everybody want's to be that guy so what happens? Gazillions of people keep trying. Guess what? Everybody can't be that guy and that's it.

Final thought, whatever profession anybody here is in required education and experience. What makes anyone here think music and studio work is any different? These people are true pro's guys. You all know what that word means. It means professional, ya know? It's their lives, it's their world, they have the education, skills, experience and connections they made along the way to make it work.

Bob