PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic The pandemic effects on the music industry

Ahhhhhhhhhh, young ladies saying your the best man . . . . I'd like to leave a 12 noon wake up call please. Now where was I?

ZZZZZZZZZZZ

My usual day in retirement is to get up, have a coffee, watch the news, read what is on the forums, go for a walk, go to my main computer and fiddle about with some music. A couple of days a week I’d play lawn bowls and or organise the bowls club (of which I’m president). Maybe go out and have a coffee occasionally.

Now I’m forced home I still occasionally sneak out for a coffee but bowls is out. All of a sudden life is boring nothing to do. I suppose I could do nearly everything I normally do but what’s the point.

What I did do, because I’m not spending my normal allowance is purchase the full version of Kontakt. I decided I really wanted to learn this inside out (pretty much what a do with all my tools). I put a number of samples I made of my old Telecaster years ago In Kontakt. I had made SFZ files for it but thought I’d try it in Kontakt. Then made adjustments. Then started to learn the scripting aspects. Make buttons and knobs to use in Kontakt. Boy, I have not been so busy for a long time. There are suddenly not enough hours in the day.

I had to find something to do. It is that simple. Look for something you would like then go for it. Will I end up really using Kontakt? I don’t know but it is already serving a purpose.

Sorry if this is not the right track.

Tony

Well, I am respecting our governor's "no Kontakt order", so that shoots that.....

Oh dear, and I thought I was in Komplete Kontrol.

Eddie, I agree moving the gear isn't the best part of being a musician, and I don't have roadies to schlep things for me.

Adding to that I play guitar, sax, flute, and wind synth on the gig and Leilani plays guitar and synth plus we both sing. That's a lot of gear to lift.

The heaviest piece are our speakers, 38 pounds each. They tell me lifting heavy things is good for a person my age. Some people pay big gym memberships so they can lift heavy things, I get paid for it.

With as many trips back and forth to the minivan, I get my 10,000 steps in too!

OK that might border on rationalization, it's not fun, it's not drudgery either - - - it just is. And it's a lot less work than some of the regular chores around my house

The 3 to 4 hours of bliss between set up and tear down are definitely worth the price. I get to be in that place where there is no space or time, just the music, the joy of making it with my partner, and the love coming to us from the audience.

When I'm at home I get to learn new songs, create backing tracks for those songs where I can use my drum, bass and keyboard skills. I am rewarded with a sense of accomplishment when they turn out right and the joy of playing new material on the gig.

As a bonus I also can use my arranging and music theory schooling to make aftermarket style e-disks and fake e-disks for Band-in-a-Box and have happy customers in over 100 different countries on this planet.

All this gives me a feeling of self-worth. I identify myself as a musician and have done so since my first gig when I was in junior high school.

For me that beats fishing, golf, TV, crossword puzzles, bike riding, tennis, bocce, shuffleboard, sailing, and just about anything else I can think of.

I am downsized. I no longer play on cruise ships, I no longer am in the opening act for major stars in concert, I no longer play in huge upscale clubs, and I no longer play in convention halls. I play smaller, more intimate venues where I actually enjoy being closer to the audience, being able to react with individuals and playing venues where there are fewer demands on me.

As long as there are people who want to hear me play music, I have no plans to retire.

The idea of sitting around the house all day or fishing or playing golf, or watching TV sounds like boredom to me. I want to keep my mind active, my hands busy, the bliss of music flowing through me and the sense of being wanted, needed, and appreciated by others.

But that's just me. What is right for me isn't necessarily right for anyone else in particular.

Insights and incites by Notes

Your own idealic Shangri-La. Sounds pretty damn good to me. Who would want to give that up

I used to leave a "12 noon - Go to bed" call.....

Notes, you hit on several extreme differences in our personalities. You like the intimacy of the audience. That makes me anxious and nervous. I don't surf the crowd during breaks, I don't mingle.... None of that. I am so extremely introverted that people exhaust me. I am just an extreme loner. I have been in my house 15 years and I think in total I have not had 35 different people here. Some come and go from time to time, but anything like cookouts, dinner parties, poker games.... nope. Nobody is allowed on the ground of Came Eastside, and there are signs posted telling them what happens if they enter without having been invited. Last fall a salesman had to learn the hard way. I walked him to the "No Solicitation" sign, asked him if he could read, and when he said yes, lifted my short to show him what was gong to happen to him if he was not off my property in 5 seconds, and started counting. Fortunately for everybody, he left. That's just how I am.

Funny you mentioned cruise ships. I worked one 7 days cruise and it was the worst week of hell I have experienced in my life, and I was in a war. We had to play an hour at 8. 10, 12, 2 and 4. Our rooms, because we were "employees", were not on the "Promenade Deck". Oh no no no. We were down in the bowels next to the engine, and this is back before the cruise ships of today with impellers or whatever they call them now. This is when there were 2 big engines the size of a small high school. We would work, eat, sleep, and work again. There was no "cruising" for us, ironically in a band called "Cruisin'." I was against taking the gig saying "What if it sucks? Then we are trapped on a ship for 7 days with no escape." I got outvoted 4-1, so we did it, and I got to say "I told you so" because everybody hated it.

Auditorium shows would really fit me well, because we are "up here" and the people are "down there". Unfortunately I fell WAY WAY short of the talent level necessary to do that. I mean like WAY short. I was just always pulled in way too many directions to excel at one. Academics, computer work, sports. music.... and with the glorious naivete of youth I thought I could pull them all off. Then many wives and kids started coming....

Make sure you understand I am not putting anybody down for their choice. I just don't know where the line is that people have enough money. When I have more than I can ever spend it's time to let the young bucks have it. I had a contractor in here 4 or 5 years ago who was at the time 66. He said that they had $875,000 in the bank and they would not retire until they had 1 million. And I had to ask. "Why? So you can die and Ohio can steal it in probate?" I am far from wealthy but I have enough money to pay bills, buy toys, and live quite comfortably. All the things that people say they find boring are the exact things that I enjoy.

Thanks for sharing your stories Notes and Eddie and the others. It's very interesting to see how each of us have lived our lives, nice reading.

Yeah, but no drone.....

The guy that owns the shipping store near me bought a drone about 2 years ago. He and his pal went out one evening after he closed the store, likely after way too many beers, and they played with his drone.

I was in the store a few days later and asked him about how the learning curve was coming with learning to fly the drone. (He didn't buy the mondo-mega model where you program the start and end point. He bought the $100 special at Walmart and it's all hand flying.) And he laughed and said "Last I saw it, it was somewhere over the Giant Eagle store across the street." And I told him he should just go into the store and ask if they would look for him. He said he'd be too embarrassed to do that and he will just chalk it up to experience. And I said "Or you could buy another drone and fly it over the Giant Eagle and see if it's up there." He laughed and said "You know, I never thought of that."

Or maybe you could fly yours the 10 hours from your house to my house and look!!

We all got large caliber hand guns down here in Florida. That guy will not hang around long. lol

Eddie, we are way different, and there is nothing wrong with that.

When we started on the cruise ships, we had our own lounge, 6 nights a week, and one additional afternoon set.

We saw the kind of music that was lacking on the ship and leaned that.

We were supposed to play strict hours, and by the second week we noticed a pattern so we talked it over with the cruise director. We started playing long, no-break sets on the nights when we had traffic, and on nights like the passenger talent show when no one was on deck we sat in the promenade and drank coffee.

The result was we started breaking all-time revenue records for that lounge. The brass in Miami looks at bar receipts figuring where the people are spending their money is where the best entertainment was.

The reward was 3 years of work on a 3 week contract with paid vacations and a passenger sized room with a porthole.

We still often play 3-4 hours with no break. I'd rather talk to the audience from behind the mic than go table to table during breaks anyway. Before and after the show we do visiting time with our extended family of friends.

We play songs we know they like, tell jokes, have running gags, and generally just make a party atmosphere.

We have been invited to parties on one guy's yacht, a couple from Montreal told us if we ever visit Quebec again their house is our house, we get hugs, kisses, and a lot of love from our audience. We like that.

While performing we get applause every 4-5 minutes, we see smiling faces beaming at us, we see dancers on the floor having a great time, and we get people bringing new faces and asking us to play particular songs for them. It's a party, and we are the life of the party.

I've never had stage fright and don't get nervous. Perhaps because I started at a young age. I look forward to each gig. Instead of saying I have to go to work today, I say that I GET to go to work today!!!

My first paying gig was in Junior High School. I was in the school band and after school I was in a rock band. We were terrible, but back then everybody was. We got our first gig playing for a school dance. There I was on the stage with my best friends in the world, playing the music we worked so hard to cover, and to my surprise, that cute girl who wouldn't acknowledge my existence in English class was looking up and "making eyes" at me. And at the end of the night they paid me for that experience! That's when I decided that this is what i want to do for the rest of my life.

There is more than one right way to live one's life, and this is my way. I'm following my bliss.

And VideoTrack, you are correct. I see no reason to give this up. I'm having a good life.

I'm concerned about live music when we all get back to work, but I'll take things as they come. Right now in isolation we are working on 2 new style e-discs, 3 new fake e-disks and revising an old fake e-disk with newer styles.

Insights and incites by Notes

Notes, I see where we have the same philosophy when it comes to playing out. I did the same but in a wedding band. We saw an opening in the wedding band field and filled that void causing us to have gigs every weekend and sometimes 3 times in a week. They were happy and we were happy.

" We play songs we know they like, tell jokes, have running gags, and generally just make a party atmosphere."

That is exactly how to stay in business.

It's interesting in that we were offered a gig on a couples yacht here on Lake Ontario.

PS - The little girl who was making eyes at me when I was on stage in high school has been my wife for 52, soon to be 53 years.

Notes, you and I are working from the same page. I don't gig much now, but when I did, we always worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday, often Thursdays, and many times during the more popular seasons we worked between 20 and 25 nights each month (I recall that one November broke the record with 28 nights worth of gigs). We had a residency, which helped, as there was rarely a requirement for set up/pack up. The management knew us and liked us, and fed us too.

I had a great team of musicians to work with, we knew our material, we had a dance floor full of people all having fun, and at the end of the night the management wrote us a check. It was good, really good, no question. It was the good life. I looked forward to every show.

Any Mexican styles in there? Tejano, Tex Mex, Mariachi? Real Band has like ONE of them.

I have an entire Latin American style disk here:

http://www.nortonmusic.com/style26.html

Notes

Congratulations. I hope you get 52 more happy years!

I married one who was making eyes at me when I was on the road in a rock band, and it didn't work. We were too young, and although we knew what we wanted, we didn't know what we didn't want. We're still friendly.

Then I decided if I do it again, it won't be a groupie but someone else in the biz.

But I really wasn't looking, I was enjoying being single and the company of a few who made eyes at me. Then I met this singing guitar player who was in another band, we hit it off from day one, and on Tuesday we celebrate our 42nd Anniversary.

She would have been my dream girl if I only knew what to dream for. In other words, I got really lucky the second time around.

Notes

Wow. 52 years. 42 years.

I have been married 13 1/2 years of my life and it took me 3 wives to do it!

I have been told that I am a great boyfriend but a really awful spouse. I concur. Let's go out, have fun, but at the end of the night, you go home to your house and leave me alone in mine. A woman I dated some maybe 8 years ago commented that I pay way too much attention to my dog. My reply was "That dog will be with me LONG after you have come and gone."

Funny. I never saw her again....

Notes, congrats at 42 years.