CRAZY perspective I got from a long-time DJ last night

[two fingers]

ha ha i get it. respect.

what i meant by the “fine line” comment is:

i don’t care about what a band looks like, their light show or the words they use to describe how pro they are. i just care about the sound. are they sonically together? that to me is still the standard.

and you have just shared more about your life on the internet than i ever would. but i digress...

are you comfortable enough to share some (edit) “sound” clips of your recent bands/projects?

I don't to Facebook, so I'll have to ask some former members. Usually that would he the way to get the word out about a new video even if it's on YouTube. But I guess most are just doing Facebook videos now?

 

[MtManiac]

If it's learnable but people don't learn, how learnable is it?

For many the struggle is too much. Because of the difficulty most seem to have. Get some perspective.

Watch some American Idol auditions.

And the corollary, what’s the point in practicing if I’m either already as good as I’m gonna get or already great?

We all have barriers in our learning, some of which are insurmountable, and most of which are either self imposed or we give up too soon. Otherwise - surely I’d have heard of you, and you’d have heard of me, right? We’d be stars already.

 

[bonespatrol]

I don't to Facebook, so I'll have to ask some former members. Usually that would he the way to get the word out about a new video even if it's on YouTube. But I guess most are just doing Facebook videos now?

yeah i don’t really know. no facebook for me either.

i just take care about the bass playing, singing, guitar playing, writing, arranging, some booking and cat hearding in the projects i’m involved in.

i still hang up posters tho (good god).

i leave all the social media promotion to those who think that it’s not poisonous (yet).

 

[Brad Johnson]

And the corollary, what’s the point in practicing if I’m either already as good as I’m gonna get or already great?

Most seem to stop at this is as good as I'm going to get... and that typically isn't very good.

We all have barriers in our learning, some of which are insurmountable, and most of which are either self imposed or we give up too soon. Otherwise - surely I’d have heard of you, and you’d have heard of me, right? We’d be stars already.

No. The idea that you would've heard of every accomplished musician is silly. Which makes the perspective comment all the more telling.

Insurmountability is a personal POV. So how do you determine someone else's difficulty level in learning and assign an arbitrary reason for it?

I don"t look down on the skill level than many musicians achieve or consider them less "important" than a lawyer or doctor. From experience I can understand the investment most put in. There are many doctors and lawyers who suck... are they still held in higher esteem by you? From experience. I would've been better off with a drummer than some of the lawyers I've dealt with.


That's the self disdain I'm referring to. It's the kind of thinking that the arts are less important to a society that I find baffling. Music is an important part of many lives. It's a non-factor in others.

 

[Pbassmanca]

. it's TalkBass ... a place for (ostensibly) like-minded individuals to share their love of tugging the fat strings

Last guy that talked about tugging a fat string around here got banned......

 

[EdO.]

I play in one of those, 8 piece and we do get dancers, but nowhere near as many as decades before. We have a decent commercial set list, pretty solid pro players, and a great engaging frontman. That said, market here in central Virginia for corporate event/dance/wedding bands is about slim and nil. I think we had 4 gigs last year, and to your point some serious dancing happening. My point is it’s not sustainable. 40 years ago? Packed dance floors 6 nights a week. Glad you are doing well.

The 6 nighters went away a LONG time ago around here. I'm a weekend warrior just like pretty much all the good bands around here and sounds like we're in the same situations m/l. No, dancing still happens but it's Friday and or Saturday nights now. Weekends yeah it's still sustainable, weeknights no. So I guessing we're in agreement after all eh?

 

[Pbassmanca]

And for 99% of the people in nearly all cultures that make and perform that art over the centuries they have had to have a job to survive and have performed their music for no money for friends and family as entertainment.

I'd wager that you're right on this one @BAG , but given that the current upper estimate for the total number of Homosapiens to ever have lived sits around 100 billion, that still leaves around a billion people throughout history that got paid to make art and music......

 

[Wisebass]

hi Spidey

This was either a bad autocorrect

come on!!!

Wise can wrap a package, like it's nobody's business.

I hope so!

Every hiatus (from Latin) has a diaeresis (from Ancient Greek) and

every diaeresis has a hiatus (hi- atus = dia- eresis = the gap between two syllables ending (first syllable) and

beginning (second) with a vowel)

Now, tell me more about this diphthong.

No! I won 't show you pics of my diphthong (against the thread rules!)

When your language doesn' t allow you to form diphthongs it can be hard to digest.

poor animal won' t get ill with diaeresis.

In that case autocorrect leeds to .


Wise

 

[Teijo K.]

I don't to Facebook, so I'll have to ask some former members. Usually that would he the way to get the word out about a new video even if it's on YouTube. But I guess most are just doing Facebook videos now?

Older folks are in Facebook these days. Younger might have a Facebook profile for their parents, but they hang somewhere else.

 

[RustyAxe]

Last guy that talked about tugging a fat string around here got banned......

I must have missed that ... do tell ...

 

[Pbassmanca]

 

[MtManiac]

Most seem to stop at this is as good as I'm going to get... and that typically isn't very good.

So...most musicians are not very good, in your humble estimation. Got it.

No. The idea that you would've heard of every accomplished musician is silly. Which makes the perspective comment all the more telling.

I am starting to believe you are just here to argue, without having an actually valuable point to make.

is a personal POV.

Of course it is.

So how do you determine someone else's difficulty level in learning and assign an arbitrary reason for it?

Why do *you* feel the need to, Brad?

I don"t look down on the skill level than many musicians achieve...

Umm, yeah, you totally do, see your comment quoted above.

...or consider them less "important" than a lawyer or doctor. From experience I can understand the investment most put in. There are many doctors and lawyers who suck... are they still held in higher esteem by you?

I did not say anywhere that I hold all doctors and all lawyers in higher esteem than I do all musicians. Quote me, go ahead. Clearly to any reasoning person, the adequate practice of law and the adequate practice of medicine are more critically important to society than the practice of even *excellent* music. Fortunately, we don't have to choose, and never have had to choose, but if my kids are being threatened by my alcoholic ex-wife, I need a lawyer, and if my arm has been torn off, I need a doctor - not a virtuoso cellist or a bass player with 37 years experience in the Raleigh club circuit. And it doesn't mean that I hold your ex-wife's lawyer in higher esteem than I do you. I don't know either of you. He or she may be a total dirt bag.

From experience. I would've been better off with a drummer than some of the lawyers I've dealt with.

I agree with this. I've met some excellent drummers and have paid for some inadequate lawyers. It's irrelevant to the point I made that you seem to be taking issue with.

That's the self disdain I'm referring to.

Again, I have no disdain for either myself, or you, or for that matter anyone else on Talkbass. I save that fopr special people.

It's the kind of thinking that the arts are less important to a society that I find baffling. Music is an important part of many lives. It's a non-factor in others.

"The Arts" is a very broad term. What we've been discussing is "hack" bands of grown adults gigging for $500 or less, and whether that is "takin' ar jerbs" from the daintier professionals. Whether "The Arts" are important is not at question any more than whether proper use of English grammar is important to society - art is never ever going to go away, and neither is intelligible language. They are attributes of any society. However, grammar nazis are annoying af, and so are elitist musicians. So long as average Joes and Janes are making music while living their lives, live music isn't going away anytime soon - its death has been predicted for about a hundred years, ever since Bell and Edison. Even without paying gigs, people will be jamming and dancing in their kitchens and front porches like they still do in Cape Breton, West Virginia, Mississippi, and West Texas. The point I was raising is that people in "The Arts," professionals who make their living solely on "The Arts," have a vested interest in convincing others that "The Arts" are important-er than those people otherwise would have thought, and that seeing a bunch of dads jamming Tom Petty and Van Morrison tunes on a stage is *not* "The Arts" because it's not being done by elites. As a musician, in and of itself, you are entitled to literally nothing - no gigs, no pay - you earn these things, nobody is just handing them out. A bad lawyer or doctor are also entitled to literally nothing, except a malpractice suit - the very fact that those individuals can be sued for malpractice is indicative of the value of the integrity of those practices to society. No bass player is ever gonna be sued for playing the IV when they were supposed to go to the I. They just won't get the *good* gigs, like you get. Similarly, no pastor or priest is going to be sued for malpractice for not *actually* saving souls - maybe embezzlement, but not malpractice, and if they were all swept off the face of the earth today, people would still be praying and singing hymns tomorrow.

If you want to know what hurts "The Arts", it is elitism.

 

[Pbassmanca]

You know, there's been a lot of interesting discussion on this thread and a lot of good points made but there's something that really stands out to me. I've been playing live in bars and clubs and private functions since about 2003. Before that I only played in church circles. When I started playing in a four-piece bar band covering classic rock and roll ie: Zeppelinn, Hendrix, Cream, Stones, Etc - standard pub fare, the going rate for a 4-piece that we had no trouble getting was about $400 or about $100 per player. Now I imagine that others who have been playing gigs for much longer than me will chime in that they have been also making $100 a head for as long as anyone can remember, but I can only speak specifically of the 16 years or so that I have been playing out. I simply find it very strange that with all the changes in consumer musical consumption habits, entertainment venues coming and going, profiting and losing, drinking laws, smoking laws, various economic circumstances ; recession's, booms, busts, inflation, cost of living, cost of going out, Etc ; that in spite of it all, you're really pushing it asking for more than $400 for a four piece and that the price structure STILL seems to commonly revolve around players making $100 a head. Maybe someone with more of a head for economics than me can explain this, but the $100 per man price point has stayed remarkably stable against upward and downward wage pressures over the last 20 years.Thoughts?

 

[MtManiac]

Maybe someone with more of a head for economics than me can explain this, but the $100 per man price point has stayed remarkably stable against upward and downward wage pressures over the last 20 years.Thoughts?

I agree, that seems to be the case. Many musicians are still willing to do it, which is OP's point, but it is also the rebuttal point.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Man, all local venues having a house PA and some having a backline sounds like a dream.

Yeah, I was wondering about all that buying PA stuff too.

Around here, just about the only bands that own full-on PA's with subs and all are bands that run in the corporate-private party gig scene.

All the little clubs here that have live music at all, have a sound system, the larger systems with an engineer, the smaller ones, you have to roll your own as far as an engineer.

As I had mentioned earlier, my son worked for a corporate party band that had their own lighting rig and hired my son's PA, subs and all until they got there own which he also ran for them, until their demise (the married couple in the band got divorced). He and they made big money until then though.

Most bands that have a PA, it's a rehearsal PA at the practice place that they'll drag out for a private party or backyard bar-b-que...

 

[DJ Bebop]

And the corollary, what’s the point in practicing if I’m either already as good as I’m gonna get or already great?

We all have barriers in our learning, some of which are insurmountable, and most of which are either self imposed or we give up too soon. Otherwise - surely I’d have heard of you, and you’d have heard of me, right? We’d be stars already.

 

[MtManiac]

I think that makes my point - if someone wants something bad enough, they will find whatever ways there may be around whatever barriers they face.

No venues? Hm.


If you don't find workarounds - maybe there actually aren't any, but also maybe you just don't want it bad enough.

 

[DJ Bebop]

You know, there's been a lot of interesting discussion on this thread and a lot of good points made but there's something that really stands out to me. I've been playing live in bars and clubs and private functions since about 2003. Before that I only played in church circles. When I started playing in a four-piece bar band covering classic rock and roll ie: Zeppelinn, Hendrix, Cream, Stones, Etc - standard pub fare, the going rate for a 4-piece that we had no trouble getting was about $400 or about $100 per player. Now I imagine that others who have been playing gigs for much longer than me will chime in that they have been also making $100 a head for as long as anyone can remember, but I can only speak specifically of the 16 years or so that I have been playing out. I simply find it very strange that with all the changes in consumer musical consumption habits, entertainment venues coming and going, profiting and losing, drinking laws, smoking laws, various economic circumstances ; recession's, booms, busts, inflation, cost of living, cost of going out, Etc ; that in spite of it all, you're really pushing it asking for more than $400 for a four piece and that the price structure STILL seems to commonly revolve around players making $100 a head. Maybe someone with more of a head for economics than me can explain this, but the $100 per man price point has stayed remarkably stable against upward and downward wage pressures over the last 20 years. Thoughts?

My dad was a musician. He would hire sidemen at $75-$100 a gig, $100-$150 or more for NYE until his departure in 1996 and they would be happy to get it

It was Jazz though so...

"This is Be-Bop, even though you think it doesn't sound like that"

Here yah kids go...

 

[DJ Bebop]

I think that makes my point - if someone wants something bad enough, they will find whatever ways there may be around whatever barriers they face.

No venues? Hm.


If you don't find workarounds - maybe there actually aren't any, but also maybe you just don't want it bad enough.

Yep!

 

[Son of Wobble]

the $100 per man price point has stayed remarkably stable against upward and downward wage pressures over the last 20 years.Thoughts?

I know a concert violinist who has played all over the world (he's 80).
For years he was flying back and forth to play for sheiks and such.
He is currently gigging semi-regularly in Los Angeles for $100 per show.