Amastacatious
12-04-2007, 11:24 PM
I messaged Janek on myspace, and he suggested I post the message here to share with everybody.
Here are the questions I asked, and the answers I received.
Feel free to discuss and expand on these topics.
Gray,
thanks for your email.
the short answer to your question I think might be this:
Attending Berklee gives you a network of people that you will work with for the rest of your life no matter where you end up living. So in that sense yes, it was easier to make the transition to NYC having studied at Berklee. Looking back I would have done a lot of things differntly with the way the industry is changing right now. I would have studied way more of the technology side of things, and perhaps gone to class a lot more than I did. Which was never. I basically played sessions in school from 6pm to midnight every night with all the cats. That was where I got my **** together besides my shedding time alone at home, and then after three semesters I got bored and moved to NYC.
The pop gigs have come a number of different ways. I knew JEM from back home in the UK and ended up becoming her Musical Director and bass player for the 2005 world tour, and will continue to work with her next year with the release of her new album. Pop gigs in NYC come from churchgigs. All the cats that play in church on sundays are the cats out on tour playing with the likes of Usher and Mary J Blige etc...
there are various hangs in NYC that you can get into and if you have your **** together gigs will come.
They pay way less than what they used to, and as far as I'm concerned it's not really something I aspire to do anymore at all. They're normally a lot of hard work. 5% playing and 95% ********, and you're not being featured in any way. You might pick up a couple of endorsements and get free gear for as long as the gig lasts, and you might even get an article in bassplayer magazine, but that's about it. As far as actually making music, it's a dead end job. There are of course the few exceptions where the music is incredible, and you love the people you work with, and you get to be creative with it.
I'm fortunate enough to have worked my way into being the musical director on a number of gigs and have been able to hire the band I wanted to work with. But you have to pay some dues to get to that point, and it's not always pretty.
Berklee is well worth the money for the resource that it is in terms of a facility, and also in terms of the netwrok it provides.
Jazz musicians generally don't get big pop gigs. There are a handfull of exceptions, and they normally seem to end up with steely dan/sting/peter gabriel and other such incredibly creative "pop" acts. And not with britney spears or justin timberlake.
If you would like to post a topic on the talkbass forum about this, I would be more than happy to talk more about it, and let everyone else who might have similar questions get something out of it too.
Easy,
Janek
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Gray Robertson
Date: Oct 25, 2007 10:17 PM
Hey Janek, I've just recently gotten into your playing. For the past few weeks I've been watching your bassplayer.tv clinic, listening to your music and podcasts, and checking out your forum on talkbass. It seems to me like your career, is similar to what I would hope mine to be similar to. You get to play jazz and creative music, but also play "pop" gigs, produce, and program, etc...Anyways, I went to Berklee for a semester, but dropped out mainly for financial reasons, and I took some time off of school. I'm now enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, thinking I would want to give Nashville a try. So far I'm not really feeling it and I don't feel like this is where I want my life and career to be based out of. I am heavily considering going back to Berklee next year to either finish my degree, or go until I run out of money, whichever comes first. Would you say that attending Berklee made making a transition to NYC easier than if you had not gone to Berklee? I really love NYC and would love to be able to live in the city and make a career in music there. What advice would you give to someone(me) who wants to eventually make the move to new york to make music? And as far as pop gigs though, how did you find yourself getting those phone calls? Has it mostly been through other musicians, who are more jazz/creative based musicians who get pop gigs because theyre monster players, or would you say that is a whole different group of people?
Basically, is Berklee and the debt that comes with it a smart choice, how do you pop gigs, and what is the best way to move to nyc?
Here are the questions I asked, and the answers I received.
Feel free to discuss and expand on these topics.
Gray,
thanks for your email.
the short answer to your question I think might be this:
Attending Berklee gives you a network of people that you will work with for the rest of your life no matter where you end up living. So in that sense yes, it was easier to make the transition to NYC having studied at Berklee. Looking back I would have done a lot of things differntly with the way the industry is changing right now. I would have studied way more of the technology side of things, and perhaps gone to class a lot more than I did. Which was never. I basically played sessions in school from 6pm to midnight every night with all the cats. That was where I got my **** together besides my shedding time alone at home, and then after three semesters I got bored and moved to NYC.
The pop gigs have come a number of different ways. I knew JEM from back home in the UK and ended up becoming her Musical Director and bass player for the 2005 world tour, and will continue to work with her next year with the release of her new album. Pop gigs in NYC come from churchgigs. All the cats that play in church on sundays are the cats out on tour playing with the likes of Usher and Mary J Blige etc...
there are various hangs in NYC that you can get into and if you have your **** together gigs will come.
They pay way less than what they used to, and as far as I'm concerned it's not really something I aspire to do anymore at all. They're normally a lot of hard work. 5% playing and 95% ********, and you're not being featured in any way. You might pick up a couple of endorsements and get free gear for as long as the gig lasts, and you might even get an article in bassplayer magazine, but that's about it. As far as actually making music, it's a dead end job. There are of course the few exceptions where the music is incredible, and you love the people you work with, and you get to be creative with it.
I'm fortunate enough to have worked my way into being the musical director on a number of gigs and have been able to hire the band I wanted to work with. But you have to pay some dues to get to that point, and it's not always pretty.
Berklee is well worth the money for the resource that it is in terms of a facility, and also in terms of the netwrok it provides.
Jazz musicians generally don't get big pop gigs. There are a handfull of exceptions, and they normally seem to end up with steely dan/sting/peter gabriel and other such incredibly creative "pop" acts. And not with britney spears or justin timberlake.
If you would like to post a topic on the talkbass forum about this, I would be more than happy to talk more about it, and let everyone else who might have similar questions get something out of it too.
Easy,
Janek
----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Gray Robertson
Date: Oct 25, 2007 10:17 PM
Hey Janek, I've just recently gotten into your playing. For the past few weeks I've been watching your bassplayer.tv clinic, listening to your music and podcasts, and checking out your forum on talkbass. It seems to me like your career, is similar to what I would hope mine to be similar to. You get to play jazz and creative music, but also play "pop" gigs, produce, and program, etc...Anyways, I went to Berklee for a semester, but dropped out mainly for financial reasons, and I took some time off of school. I'm now enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, thinking I would want to give Nashville a try. So far I'm not really feeling it and I don't feel like this is where I want my life and career to be based out of. I am heavily considering going back to Berklee next year to either finish my degree, or go until I run out of money, whichever comes first. Would you say that attending Berklee made making a transition to NYC easier than if you had not gone to Berklee? I really love NYC and would love to be able to live in the city and make a career in music there. What advice would you give to someone(me) who wants to eventually make the move to new york to make music? And as far as pop gigs though, how did you find yourself getting those phone calls? Has it mostly been through other musicians, who are more jazz/creative based musicians who get pop gigs because theyre monster players, or would you say that is a whole different group of people?
Basically, is Berklee and the debt that comes with it a smart choice, how do you pop gigs, and what is the best way to move to nyc?