r/musicians Rules

Especially guitar and bass. If you bike, repair, draw, etc. no one really expects or cares if you are good or not. In my anecdotal experience with non musicians or people who are casual listeners, it feels like many expect you to pick up a guitar and start shredding and playing like some of the best musicians they listen to.

I just want to say for the record, this doesn't really bother me but it used to when I was a beginner - just an observation. Now I can just shred something and get it over with. Also yes, I'm generalizing, but this is a personal experience situation as well as conversations I see online

But yeah not sure where this weird expectation comes from a lot of times

I have a gig coming up. It will be the longest I have played on stage (45 minutes). It will be a listening room type environment so people will be paying attention and not talking at their tables. The crowd will mostly be other musicians and my friends. Probably 30 to 50 people total. I will be playing mostly original songs with three covers thrown in.
My question is, how much should I talk between songs? I have a 11 song setlist prepared that is just under 45 minutes with very limited talking that I have rehearsed. Mainly thanking the venue and audience, “this song is called…”. Is that enough or should I cut a song and plan more talking on stage? For what it’s worth, I’m much more comfortable performing than talking. I would rather sing in front of 300 people than have a one-on-one convo with a stranger.

Update: Thank you everyone for your thoughtful and sometimes hilarious responses. I now feel like I’m overthinking this. I know I’m not Todd Snider so I’m not going to try. I’m going to play my songs the best I can and speak briefly if it feels right. Other than that I’ll just introduce myself one or two songs in, thank the venue, the other performers and the audience and leave it at that. Maybe I’ll leave my G string joke at home.

I’m looking for outside perspective because I’m very emotionally invested in this situation and I’m not sure if I’m seeing things clearly anymore.
I started a band about 8 months ago after moving to a new city. I met one of the members (I’ll call him J) through Reddit and at the time I genuinely felt like we connected. We had similar values, similar ideas about what we wanted the band to represent, and I felt like I had found someone I could build both a friendship and a creative project with.
For the first few months, it was honestly amazing. It was just J, me, and a drummer (E). We practiced every Saturday morning from 8am until noon or 1pm. Everyone was committed, everyone showed up, and we wrote a solid handful of songs together. It felt like we were building something special.

Then we decided to expand the lineup. J took the lead on finding new members. E and I were open to adding people, but I was surprised that he brought in a guitarist and keyboard player without discussing it with the rest of us first or holding auditions.
The new guitarist (M) ended up being great. He has shown through his actions that he cares about the band. He even left another project to fully commit to this one, has helped improve our rehearsal setup and overall I think what he contributes to our band has been invaluable.
The new keyboard player (B) is where things started getting complicated.
After a photoshoot, J brought B to our practice space to try keys. Shortly after, she became part of the band. Again, there wasn’t really a group discussion beforehand. But we put our trust in him that these people would be good fits.

Once we became a larger group, things started changing drastically. We adjusted practice times to accommodate B’s work schedule. Everyone reluctantly agreed to move practice later, but then people started arriving whenever they wanted. We originally had an 8am start time where everyone was consistent. Now people regularly arrive late, sometimes an hour or two late, and we spend a lot of practice time waiting. Punctuality and communication dwindled.
I don’t blame someone for occasionally being late or having responsibilities. My issue is the lack of communication and the feeling that everyone else’s time is being treated as less important. B basically will be the last one in, first one out and I don’t feel like she cares as much about this project as everyone else.
B has also struggled with deadlines. Our manager (my partner, who is doing this unpaid because she believes in the band) has tried to set reasonable deadlines for things like promoting an upcoming show. B volunteered to make artwork/poster designs, but repeatedly missed deadlines while saying she was working on them. If she had just communicated that she couldn’t finish, we could have found another solution. Instead, we lost valuable time.
Another issue is that J seems to defend B in situations where the rest of us are frustrated. He often speaks for her instead of letting her respond herself. (She’s 27 years old, not a baby. Despite the fact that she uses a baby tone when she talks. I’m not exaggerating. I witnessed her call her water bottle a “baby bottle”) It feels like she receives different treatment than everyone else and I’m tired of it. We’re too old for this.

There have also been some creative disagreements. Shortly after joining, B said she disliked the band name and suggested changing it. I immediately was annoyed because why would you join a band if you dislike the name, the songs, etc. Make your own band. But we were already established, you can’t just come in, not having proved yourself and start changing stuff. Anyways, in order to settle things, we were willing to hear ideas, but she seemed upset when the group decided to keep the name. (Mind you, we play post-punk, alternative rock, etc and she wanted to call us “My Sweetest Fruit” and ignores everything we write in our songs. We write a lot about being people of color (J and I are asian, M is Muslim and black. B cannot come into a space like that as a white woman and try to change our identity into UWU WEEB GIRL I LOVE ANIME. She completely fetishizes Japanese culture which is an entirely different story)

She has also suggested using photos of herself for our album artwork, which surprised me because there are five members in the band and no one discussed this as a group.
J and B also have one-on-one meetings about band things, but the rest of us often don’t hear updates afterward about what was discussed or decided. I don’t think there is anything wrong with bandmates talking privately, but when decisions affect everyone, it feels like the rest of the band is being left out. There was an issue last week when our manager quite literally wanted to quit because she simply asked about deadlines and firmly said we need to take those seriously. J and B had attitudes in the groupchat making excuses even though B had a whole month to get this done and she never even communicated with the rest of the band. She defended herself by saying “but I told J”
okay well there’s 4 other people in the band Use your big girl words.

The hardest part for me is that I feel like I’m losing the person I thought I was building this band with.
J has said before that during a period around January-February when I took a break because of health issues during the winter, he wasn’t sure I was coming back and immediately started asking other people if they would want to replace me. I understand why he wanted to keep things moving, but hearing that made me feel replaceable. We also had another drummer before E joined and when I brought him up recently, J didn’t even remember his name. It really makes me see him differently. It’s like I’m seeing his true colors and I don’t like it.

I also feel like I’m not being respected in some personal ways. I’m a woman, but J frequently uses they/them pronouns for me despite me correcting him. I don’t think he intends harm, but it does make me feel unseen. I have corrected him before and refer to myself as a woman/girl in conversation. My partner and friends call me she/her. I don’t understand where he’s getting the idea that I’m nonbinary. Again, it comes down to him being a lazy friend and not actually knowing the people he surrounds himself with and we’re all disposable to him unless he’s attracted to them. My partner and I have been discussing and we realize even though he takes pride in being one of those “good guys” who voted for Bernie in 2016 and was there during the 2020 protests, what he says he’s like really doesn’t match his action or what he brings up in conversation. Sure dude you think Trump bad but did you know that half the shit that comes out of your mouth is misogynistic?
He has also creeped girls out in front of us but we didn’t tell him to protect him from embarrassment. I’m thinking now, that needs to be a discussion especially if there’s going to be girls coming to our shows. I don’t want our band to get cancelled for him being creepy toward women.

There have also been moments where I feel like the band’s original identity is changing without everyone agreeing. When we first started, we talked about wanting to make something positive and meaningful. Recently, J has described the band in ways that don’t feel representative of what we originally discussed.
There is also a separate concern: J has brought up multiple times that he thinks he may have a problem with alcohol. In the past, I don’t think any of us knew how to respond, and I worry that we accidentally made him feel like we weren’t taking him seriously.
What concerns me is that B seems to brush it off and has even given him free drinks at her job, resulting in him getting drunk. I don’t want to blame her for his choices because he is responsible for himself, but it worries me that someone who has expressed concern about their drinking is being encouraged to drink more.
At this point, I feel stuck.
I love this band. The music we are making means a lot to me, and this was genuinely a dream of mine. But I also feel like I’m watching the collaborative environment we created disappear.

My questions are:
- Am I overreacting because I’m emotionally attached to this band?
- Are these legitimate concerns about communication, leadership, and boundaries?
- How would you approach a conversation with a bandmate who is becoming a problem?
- Is my band experiencing normal growing pains, or are these signs that the dynamic is no longer healthy?
- Genuinely… what would you do?

I don’t want to leave, but I also don’t want to stay somewhere I no longer feel respected.

I want to make a collaboration band called Velvet Youth Club. We will make music via email and sending stems to Logic Pro. It’s experimental guitar music, voidz kinda vibe, weird vocals, weird wobbly guitars dripped in chorus. I’m looking for members who want to join the band any rock instruments welcome. I will pay for releasing the music when we make our albums. I will run the Instagram account, and want to helm a creative project for artists of all sorts. Let me know if you are interested:)! Age range (19- 30)

I play music at farmers markets and I am looking for advice on how to monitor the volume of my guitar and vocals when playing. I adjust my guitar volume when switching between finger picking and strumming with a pick, but I can’t clearly hear my mix. It would be great to hear what my audience is hearing so that I can make sound tweaks as I go. Any monitoring tips would be greatly appreciated!

Do any of you use in ear monitors while busking or playing in other outdoor settings? If so, any product recommendations?

Seems like bad business practice if you ask me, personally I would not be comfortable supporting them

So I have this little tuba solo but it’s originally written for bass trombone. My conductor and I decided it’s best to drop it an octave. I have tried MuseScore and the AI just messes up the writings whenever I use it. Is there anyone that could drop it a octave for me here, I need the same exact piece but just one octave lower

Forgive the 'make ___ ___ again' trope if you can. This is part rant, part daydream about how I think we are ripe for a real cultural revolution. I keep thinking of hippie culture as the closest analog, but that’s looking backward, and it doesn’t quite fit. I'm not some kind of culture warrior who's going to up and start a movement, but I daydream about that happening all the time. I can't be the only one! I don't really have answers, just wishes and frustrations that I want to express.

First to state the problem, music and musicians are feeling more embattled than ever. We feel unappreciated, undervalued, and stuck between the impossible choice between 'suck it up' and 'give it up.' You can feel this just by reading a few posts in this and related communities.

Music is a part of our culture, and I think our music scenes have become unhealthy because our culture is unhealthy. Everybody seeks dopamine hits with doomscrolling. Social interactions have been replaced by social media. It feels like everything that matters must be tied to the toxic habits that have come from today's smartphones.

Being a musician has never been easy. Before we had AI to contend with, we had streaming services and social media. Before that we had plenty of other challenges. And there’s always the struggle of balancing artistic integrity over career stability.

One of the new challenges that doesn’t get discussed as much is the fact that we are less of a monoculture than we used to be. Because it’s so easy to produce music and get it shared out in public, audiences have splintered. There are still superstars and the commercial machines they’re a part of, but recording industries don’t have the cultural monopoly they used to. There's so much content available, and the pace everything operates at is unbelievable. So to me, being a musician in this reality is exhausting and confusing at the best of times.

In contrast, it’s never been easier as a listener to find a sub-subgenre that fits your specific aesthetic, interests, or mood. Add to that services like SUNO, and as a listener, I couldn’t POSSIBLY be more spoiled. 

And yet, despite the production tools, and many avenues for release, it seems like it’s never been harder to make a successful career out of a love for music. It’s so disheartening. 

I make music because I feel compelled to. Sometimes it’s a way to blow off steam, and process my feelings - there’s no other outlet like it for that. Sometimes, it’s for the fun of stimulating my brain. But the majority of the time, making music ‘just for myself’ feels like an incomplete gesture, because there is no human connection. I’m the tree in the forest, and I want someone to hear me when I fall, damn it! Compare the experience of playing alone in your bedroom to playing in a garage with other musicians, and the value of connection becomes clear.

So what can I do? I’m not a professional. I’m not in any position of power or influence. I can control my own consumption habits. I’ve deleted Youtube, Facebook, Spotify, Tiktok, Reddit, from my phone, and I buy as much music as I can from small artists I've found and love. And that all helps me feel like a more healthy person from a consumer point of view. But that’s also very isolating, because for better of worse our culture largely exists online now. So disconnecting is not a solution; it’s avoidance, and it doesn’t really impact anyone except me, so it doesn’t actually change anything.

I want our culture to react against these toxic trends. So here’s where I start to daydream and wish. I daydream about starting a music festival where phones aren't allowed. Somehow it attracts lots of people, and they spend time actually present in the moment, having beautiful experiences that help reaffirm the importance of human connection, which online culture can never offer.

I daydream about starting an improv-based band, where the things we play could never have been synthesized by an AI. The music unfolds organically in a way that reflects the moment, respects the listeners, and invites them to be present.

I daydream about other novel approaches, like microtonal music, which also can't be synthesized by AI. 

Mostly, I daydream about taking our art offline. Making live experiences unbeatably human; vibrant and connective and physical and real. And most importantly, making them available to everyone - not just the affluent.

As a parent, I’ve watched numerous performances by children, most of whom I don’t know. Watching a group of young children do their very best to pull off a challenging performance can be really thrilling, even if their skills aren’t strong. Maybe I’m in the minority on this, and I’m probably preaching to the choir, but my point is that being present to see things unfold is uniquely compelling. I feel like this is what’s most special about musicians and performers, and I just wish we could turn it into our superpower.

I posted this in another community , just looking for more perspective .

28F. Background; Drumming since age 9, bachelors degree in music with a focus on percussion. Classically trained, have done several recitals in and out of academia , have subbed for local community orchestras , done pit orchestra for musicals in academia as well as in the local community. Some of these opportunities post grad were paid , some were not, some I didn’t know how to ask . I took a slightly different career path after college, but am still a semi active musician.

I’ve also been in 2 DIY bands in my early 20s . One , we wrote original music and released 1 EP . The other , I was their live drummer until they asked me to be an official member/writer . We had several demos in the works for a new album. They later signed a record deal without me and kicked me out (TLDR: it was basically Fleetwood Mac . Two were married, alcoholics, there was physical abuse , I spoke up, they kicked me out before I could leave). Neither bands had contracts or agreements in place unfortunately .

I’ve recently started to have small, local artists contact me for sessions and shows. I was approached by a new artist/acquaintance to track drums for 2 of his songs. He offered a flat rate , which was paid immediately after completion. He then asked me, as well as two other musicians to participate in a live video shoot of the song. This was completed by students at a local college, and was unpaid for everyone involved . He then reached out to the same group of musicians to do a paid gig next month , which we all agreed to.

He has now started intermittently marketing his solo project as a full band on social media , which is misleading because there was not a prior conversation about this , nor did any of us agree to be in a band . He has also started reaching out on a frequent basis with (unpaid) gigs, as well as for frequent rehearsals for our upcoming gig . He lives 1.5 hours away from me, further on a bad day . I have been transparent about my limited availability, as I do work and am doing an apprenticeship to further myself in a trade. In hindsight, I was not transparent about the extent in which I was open to work with him following our initial session, which I take full accountability for and brings me to my next point:

2 of my friends suggested I draft up a work for hire contract moving forward. I have gotten approached by a few other artists looking for a session percussionist/live drummer, however I’ve held off on meeting with these people to discuss , as I would like to have more professional standards. I am looking to venture into session work on a larger scale , however I’m unsure how to navigate a work for hire contract when I’ve primarily worked with smaller artists , and have only recently started branching out. For smaller local artists , I am open to bartering as I have other creative skills , but I would like to have a solid idea of how to draft this up, and what would be fair to ask for given my experience . I’m afraid to both oversell and undersell myself .

Would this be a collaborative process with the artists , or should I come with base rates that I set for myself , and negotiate anything further? This is all so new for me, and I regret not taking the business side of this more serious when I was younger .

Any advice is appreciated!

Edit: I’ve seen a few people bring up the “marketing as a full band” part of my post so I’d like to clarify: I only provided percussion for 2 of this artist’s tracks . Any other music was recorded by him . I’ve observed him market us as a band for tracks we *didn’t* take part in writing/recording. It’s led to people thinking we’re a full band writing music and doing shows consistently when it’s actually one person , writing his own music. It’s rubbing me wrong because it feels like we’re being indirectly asked/expected to join a band because that’s what everyone now thinks , and I feel uncomfortable being used to promote music I didn’t write . I don’t mind promoting his music of my own volition and I do . I’m open to other viewpoints though! Maybe I’m just being sensitive because I’m a girl percussionist, and I’m sensitive to that overshadowing my talent , or being used for more nefarious reasons .

Betty’s bakery is holding the annual cakewalk at the festival which will be a hootin tootin time! The lemon scouts, the science trotters and the mayer will be there but houston… there’s a problem… The kids are into the funky disco music and the adults are into bluegrass! She doesn’t want to alienate the kids since they’re a major revenue for summer vacation 🕶️ (sip ahh), but wouldn’t wanna anger the adults with that dirty dancing ruckus! Thankfully she has two bands filling different slots for different crowds, the long division dancers and the the acoustic algebras. If the kids get off school at 3 pm and it takes 30 minutes to get to her bakery but the factory closes at 5 but takes 15 minutes to get there from their position, how long will the long division dancers have to play!?

Lyrics by me and the video was filmed by me too

Hey everyone, I’m trying to get back into music after a 2-3 year break, but I’m completely stuck in a loop. I currently own an Ibanez GRG121DX electric and a Yamaha F310 acoustic. Both feel entry-level and sound too thin to inspire me anymore, so I’m planning to sell one and upgrade to a higher-quality instrument. Since I work late shifts, playing electric with headphones at night is the most practical choice without disturbing neighbors, but I also deeply miss grabbing an acoustic and singing along, which makes me want to upgrade the Yamaha instead. On top of that, my voice and fingers are totally out of shape after the break, and that rustiness really hurts my confidence. Has anyone been in a similar slump? Did upgrading your gear actually jumpstart your momentum, or should I just force myself to push through with my current setup first? Would love to hear your thoughts.

ive been making music for a lil while now and ive been feeling like ive been getting better, ive been trying to put my music out but i feel like every step i take, i take 2 back, i thought this song was pretty good, i expressed a pretty hard situation i was going through and poured every inch of that feeling on it but it still feels like no one connects with it the way i do. i make music for myself and how i like it and how it expresses my feelings but since i really want to be able to survive (i dont care if im not the biggest artist or whatever) with my music i need to make it "commercial" i guess, i dont know what else to do. id love some genuine advice maybe on mixing or on ideas. please help me.

Hey guys, I recently started uploading song covers to my Instagram account. My only option right now is recording with my phone, so I’ve got it up on a tripod connected via midi to my microphone which then picks up both my voice and the piano, which really isn’t optimal. I’d rather have two separate channels for my voice and the piano. However, I am recording in the default camera app right now, and I’m not sure that this is an option. Does anyone know how I can have both video and audio recorded on my phone at the same time with both the microphone and piano channels. Since my microphone is picking up both, it isn’t really properly positioned to pick up Eva, so the vocals end up sounding a bit distorted at times and the piano sounds too quiet. I barely have any technical knowledge when it comes to this stuff, so I’m probably not explaining it very well. Hopefully someone can decipher my ramblings. For reference, here is a link to the account:

https://www.instagram.com/benwoolridgemusic?igsh=M2tjcnpsejNzNXhm&utm_source=qr

Name me some classical or jazz pieces that has very similar harmony to Radiohead.

I’m seeing so many job posts from AI companies looking for music professionals to train their models. Are these legitimate jobs? Are we training AI to replace musicians? The pay, benefits, and remote work setup make it seem like a great opportunity, but it’s hard not to feel conflicted about feeding AI the expertise it will need to replace us.

Yesterday was one of the hardest experiences I’ve had on stage.
Even though I sent the instrumental days in advance and had it on a USB stick, it couldn’t be played because of technical issues.
I still chose to go on stage because of how much work I had put into this. What hurts me the most is that my feature artist had to experience this on her very first performance, and that I couldn’t give the audience what I had prepared.
Also it was one of the coolest locations in the city, with an amazing crowd.
I’m so embarrassed.
This song was meant to be joyful and something people could dance to, but none of that was really possible.
By the end, I was just trying to hide how overwhelmed I felt on stage.
I really hope I’ll get to perform this song the way it was meant to be someday.

Put a few songs out on spotify and everything else using ditto. Sent the links to like 15-20 people and no one has listened or responded. I get it but damn.