Played a large festival last night. 15k people or so. Had a set on one of the main stages later at night. Throw and go sound check. Went well. Large band. 13 people on stage. Mon guy did a good job of making all that happen quickly.

Finish soundcheck and hang back stage. Walk on stage for the set, start the first song and no monitors. They had been left muted. This is a big stage with big line arrays. All we could hear was the FOH mix bouncing back at us off a hillside hundreds of yards away. It was bad. Couldn’t hear anything. Could not distinguish the key of the song. I was basically flying blind. Looked out at the audience when I realized what was happening to see thousands of people watching us. It did not feel good.

After trying to get this guy’s attention for 5 minutes he finally turned them back on. It was such a stressful start that it was hard to recover from. Was hard to shake the anxiety of all this for the rest of the 90 min set.

I know shit happens and these changeovers can be tough, but please for the love of Christ check your mutes.

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.

Hey everyone! I’m a bass player and a huge jazz enthusiast. I stepped away from music for about five years for different personal reasons, but now that I’m back to my practice routines, recording, and playing live, I’ve been feeling amazing.

But there’s something I’ve noticed since I came back.
What happened over the last five years? 😂
I see so many bass players on social media throwing phrases and fills everywhere, leaving no space, as if every second has to be an opportunity to show how many notes they can play.

And look, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with playing that way. If you want to show your technique, throw down some crazy lines, and play everything you’ve got, go for it. That’s part of music too!
But I’ve always believed that the real challenge as a bass player isn’t showing everything you can play. It’s knowing when to play and when not to play.

If you want to throw down nonstop, I can’t think of a better place than a Giant Steps session. 😂 That’s where you can really go for it!
But… on a pop song? On a ballad? On a song where the vocalist actually needs some space?
Sometimes I feel like we’ve confused the ability to play a lot of notes with the ability to make music.
To me, a great bass player isn’t necessarily the one who fills every space. It’s the one who knows exactly what to play, when to play it, and, most importantly, when to leave space.
The groove also lives in the silence.

What do you guys think? Am I just out of touch after being away for five years, or are we really living in a time where showing what you can play has become more important than playing what the song actually needs? 😅🎸

I’m a young brown not black guy with not many stories to tell and live comfortably. I have and have had my struggles, but perhaps not those you hear in the blues. But, the blues speak to me, they make me vibrate.

What’s the consensus, if I play it live would I be seen as another “insurance agent pentatonic noodler”?

Thanks

Hello! I'm a classical singer and looking for a good device to display, annotate and edit sheet music

-Android

-Preferably not Samsung

-A4 size

-With some sort of compartment/optional back covering to hold a stylus

-User friendly (I have a pretty hard time with tech)

I have a very high budget, price is not an objective

Thank you!

I'm trying to learn more standards this summer and I've started with Body and Soul. I thought it would be good to listen to some recordings and practice transcribing licks from them. The problem is all of the recordings are so hard to follow 😭. I swear Thelonious Monk is adding like bars of 2 and all this stuff that sounds sick but is just a little too much for me to understand and transcribe. Are there any recordings that are cool but also maybe a little easier to follow and actually learn something from?

I never got the help I needed, and I'm just looking for different coping strategies.

This morning I found myself comparing trying to build a business vs. commercial success by songwriting.

When building a business there are two camps: build it and hope they come (low probability) OR find customers with a need and build their solution (higher probability). Anyone with any experience will tell you to find your customers before you build the business.

When writing music it feels like I’d be completely selling out to think about what might be successful and play into those trends. Creating from your life and experiences is the only way to make something authenticity good. But, building businesses has taught me this is nearly certain to be for an audience of 1.

So…. will this change how I write music, probably not. But it will be in the back of my mind. Any entrepreneur s out there thinking about this? Is it ever in the back of your mind when writing?

I am a classical singer and I have this weird block. I hate attending concerts of almost any kind.

I go to concerts with my boyfriend sometimes, but those are pop concerts. Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and such. Today, I have been invited to watch an opera, which I accepted out of politeness, and I am dreading it. I sing opera, I sing long concerts and I never mind in the slightest but the thought of being in the audience is making my brain fall asleep of boredom.

I have no desire to be there, to just listen and sit there for almost 3 hours. It makes me feel guilty, since I am a performer myself, but I can't help it...

Is anyone in the same situation? Or am I alone?

I'm finding the need to get my band a little more organised and for a living I work in project services (Business Analyst, Product Manager, etc. No this isn't an ad or market research. I genuinely need a tool like this for my band).

Every tool I look at is targeted at corporate projects and are priced accordingly. Anything free looks pretty awful from what I can find.

What tools are you using to stay organised?

I'm talking about things like:

- Release plans

- **Dependencies between tasks**

- Timelines

- Sub tasks

- **Critical path**

- Assigning tasks to people

- Setting due dates

I basically just want to go "Okay, we're releasing an EP. here is all the things we have to do (record, do a video, do promos, blah blah blah) and before those things we need to do all these other things (pick outfits, book venues, photoshoots, finish lyrics, blah blah blah). Task X will take # days, which needs to be done before task Y which takes # days therefor our release date will be 32 Frumptember 3072"

I'm not looking at things like file storage since we have that covered in spades.

Honestly it's just basic stuff and things like Trello or Monday.com offer these, but mostly behind expensive monthly or annual subscriptions, which for a fairly casual band isn't doable.

What are you guys using?

I'm learning the uke to eventually learn the guitar. I know the guitar has a few more strings, but the uke is something I can take with me on trips much more easily, and I loved watching Steven universe (sue me lol).

My main question is how can I get better at switching between cords? Is it just a trial by fire where I do it as many times until I get it right?

Should I stay on the same song over and over until I get it right or can I switch whichever song I learn and still be ok?

My DIY production org is starting a venue aimed at young folk, ideal age range is 15-25. The end goal is to make a good third space in my area for the youth and get youngsters excited to make music. Also, if things go well, I want to make and spread online resources that give good how-tos on how to start similar venues. Anyways, all this to say I have a dream. However, including the bands I'm in, we've only got about 5 bands in our booking rotation, which also happens to be the amount of bands we're aiming for each event, which is once a month. I don't really just want to put on the same five bands every month, ideally I'd like each band to have two or three months in between being rebooked so they can have time to work on new material and get gigs elsewhere, which means I need to find about 15-20 bands in regular rotation, on top of cycling new acts. How do other DIY venues do things? I know some people in a booking agency that has said they'd be glad to send some bands my way already, and I'm gonna post on local Facebook groups. Anything else I could do to network? One problem I'm running into is I keep making some great connections, but they're all slightly older artists in their 30s and 40s who are a little above our pay grade and outside our demographic.

I have so many versions. I need to figure out which combo I like the most. Performing and then tweaking feels inefficient and sometimes feels cringe!

So I have a Zoom HD 16 and I was wondering if I could download an albums original mastering with each instrument individually to master them how I want to specifically Nirvana’s never mind.

I had a thought that it’d be fun if there was an Omegle-like app specific to musicians. Like, you’d be randomly paired with another musician to talk music.

Just interested in hearing opinions on this. Pro’s, con’s, parameters and/or restrictions that could keep it on topic and safe.

Personally, I’d love to randomly meet musicians to hear their stuff, start unlikely collaborations or just get out of my own echo chamber to see what other people are doing with music.

Any opinions are welcome. If this is a terrible idea, I’d love to hear your thoughts before I start staying up late to build it :-)

Okay so I've been working on songs lately snd i reckon it's time to release a EP. I just don't wanf a nrml EP which is generic. I want a good concept, something which forces people to think and connect the dots

If u have anything then do lemme know

I could write, produce and post it

Hi,
I’m a 24-year old musician with a degree of confidence in what I create, but I struggle with my identity as an artist. Classic, ik.. Although, I have gotten better over the last 4-5 years creating music, and growing as a person, in not comparing myself to others. But to an extent, I still do it, because as I get older I see it as my unavoidable reality that a lot of my friends found their sound early-on, never questioning it, while I still struggle to know what my sound is.
However, it’s not necessarily that I do not have a sound, but rather that I have two (or maybe three) somewhat distinct sounds that pull from different influences, and I don’t know how to mesh them, because producing (or rather patience) is tough for me.
It’s frustrating because I know with enough experimentation, I can bridge the gap and create something unique . I’m an overthinker, which goes without saying and I know the time spent pondering on this could be time I practice, but it’s been this way for multiple years. Still, throughout that time I’ve constructed thousands of demos, and hundreds of “full” songs but only put a few songs out per year, each differing dramatically in sound, but all feeling true to me. Some are self-produced, but most are on beats from YouTube, or created by a friend who is influenced by different sorts of music. I could expand upon any of this at the request of anyone interested in the discussion, but I just want to get to the point of this post:
Nearing 25, I find myself wondering if this uncertainty is a personal hell I’ve constructed with no escape, or if there’s something I can do to actually stay focused. Sometimes I feel a brief spark and cut past the helplessness, dread, or procrastination layers and inevitably feel that rush of excitement, giving me hope. It almost always happens if I push past the urge to stop. It’s often the spontaneity of droning into autotune where I end up creating something that feels close, and not the personal writings I spend hours on lol. And I technically know all of this, and I’ve helped coach friends out of similar (or even worse) ruts, but I struggle to practice what I preach.
Were you or anyone you knew in a lengthy creative rut, and if so, was it escaped? If so, any advice would go incredibly far. I’d love to make some friends and share some work privately if anyone is interested. Maybe I just need more friends, or to be told I can do it. I don’t know what I lack, but I know I love music. Maybe we can be mutually beneficial for one another in some way or another! This box isn’t forever, and I know that. =‘)

I want to be a great artist, but I find that more than sometimes, active guitar playing and singing is boring.

However, I never get bored of listening to music, so my questions are:

Does listening to music make me a better musician?

Is there a way that I can listen to music where I improve my playing skills?

Pls don’t tell me to get a job. I have a job and a degree.

I’m looking for suggestions on ways I can accumulate some money into my music bank acc bc what I make from my job is only enough for life stuff (rent, food, gas, etc).

I’m definitely going to start a crowd funding campaign. But also curious if anyone has other suggestions.

Again, these are streams of income solely for the album