Earbrass

I don't think there's a simple answer for me. Different musical activities fulfill different needs. I think there's something special about making music with other people - when it comes together well and you have the sense of the sum being greater than the parts, that can be quite magical. There's also the social aspect to that - sharing an activity with others, all pursuing a common goal, can foster a sense of companionship - I imagine that's similar to the buzz some people get from playing team sports. I'm not so bothered about the performing per se, but it does provide a focus for our efforts, and we do have a lot of fun when we're out and about. Then there's the satisfaction to be derived from learning to play an instrument, even if you only ever play it at home to yourself - the same satisfaction that can come from learning to do almost anything well, seeing yourself improve, mastering things that once seemed difficult or impossible. When it comes to my recording / composing /arranging projects, it's more about hearing something in my head and wanting to get it out into the world and make it a reality. I don't always enjoy the process of making it a reality - recording can be a very frustrating experience on occasion. Success here is measured for me by the extent to which what I finally produce embodies my initial vision. Whether anyone else likes it, or even listens to it, is far less important.

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1367318091' post='2064027'] Sounds like you are wanting employees rather than band mates. [/quote] [quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1367319232' post='2064052'] I have to say - does not sound fun to me. And if it's not fun, then the pay needs to be good. [/quote] This. An ego-free zone in which everyone else has to conform to your precise requirements?....hmmm can't see a problem there

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1367302421' post='2063795'] Ohh bugger now im flapping.... No one mentioned i had to be a real musician when i agreed to to this....now i'm getting worried.....i thought the concencus was i had to spontaneously combust before anyone would notice the bass player! Many thanks for the advice gentlemen, much apphreciated ......no mention of hats? [/quote] Relax...if you can't do a Bilbo, a good hat [b]will[/b] get you through.

One (busy) band and a solo(-ish) recording project is about all I can comfortably combine with a full-time job.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1367230002' post='2062724'] ...nailed the details by a mixture of musicality, vague/subconcious familiarity with songs we knew of, hard-listening, reading signals, bluffing and our innate familiarity with idiomatic cliches. Mostly, familiarity with the role of your instrument and knowing the damn thing inside out. [/quote] ...otherwise known as being a "real" musician. A state we should all aspire to, but not all of us manage to reach, or reach consistently. [quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1367230002' post='2062724'] In short, you just gotta be ready to play. 'Knowing' the tunes is great (although, in my experience, no two musicians 'know' something the same way ) but, without that, you just need to be match fit and ready to blow. Some of the best music I have ever played has been under these circumstances; it can bring out the best in you. [/quote] Truer than a true thing on national truth day.

[quote name='RandomBass' timestamp='1367221932' post='2062605'] Referring to a post above, what does 'rawk' stand for? Am I going to kick myself? :-) [/quote] Rawk = Rock + silly accent. HTH.

[quote name='Lowender' timestamp='1366662293' post='2055756'] I have to say, I never got what was so great about Prince...... ..... he sure knows how to sell it. [/quote] I think you may have answered your own question.

Thought I was immune to bass gas these days, but I've recently started a new job dangerously close to the West End music shops, and found myself looking at semi-acoustics the other week (I think this was partly the result of spending some time with my 6 string 335 copy and loving it, as much for its looks as for the feel and sound). My golden rule is never buy at once - wait a few weeks and see if the urge is still there. Spending some time with my trusty but unglamorous old bass reminded me of how much I like it, and how "at home" I feel with, and this has dissipated any remaining gas...for now at least.

An impossible choice for me. Piano is the instrument I have most skills on, and is also the most versatile of the instruments I play. On the other hand, I've had more fun, played more gigs and made more friends playing the melodeon than all my other instruments put together, though it's the one I've been playing the least time and is the least versatile (it doesn't even have all the notes on!). Bass and guitar come somewhere in the middle. So I really couldn't choose - but then again perhaps it's indecisiveness that makes us multi-instrumentalists in the first place!

If you have a pair, they can double as book-ends when not in use.

[quote name='seashell' timestamp='1365419477' post='2039161'] Everything you say is true, and I really like your attitude to this. [/quote] +1

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1363944951' post='2019803'] Things may well change in the future. As technology becomes cheaper and with traditional pub venues closing all over the place could we see a time where bands play from a room which has cameras installed and the sound is streamed live to pay per view type audiences sat at home watching it on their computers? Without that audience interraction it wouldn't be the sort of gig I'd find much fun to play personally but it would change the whole dynamic of bands going 'out there' to play live. Bedroom players forming bedroom bands and playing bedroom gigs to millions of bedroom fans. All a bit weird but it could happen one day. [/quote] I've already done this. In my last band, the guitarist was well into Second Life (virtual reality open-ended role-playing net world type thingie if you've not heard of it). He set us up with few gigs "in" Second Life. The sound was streamed live from the singer's lounge, where we all were, so it was rather like playing a gig on the radio. People in Second Life could "go to" the virtual venue and listen to the music while watching our avatars perform some unrealistic jerky movements more or less in time with the music. We got feedback in the form of online messages. All a bit odd, really.

Sounds about right. I'm no lawyer, but even if you did have a legal right to stop them using your image (and to be honest I think that's unlikely, unless you all signed legally binding contracts to that effect before the pictures were taken), it would cost you a small fortune in legal fees to enforce, and, if they refused to roll over, by the time the case came to court the band would have folded anyway. Just forget it and move on. In my experience, when ordinary people (no offence - I mean as opposed to big business etc) turn to the law to get these kinds of disputes settled, the only winners are the lawyers.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1363807649' post='2018039'] Which of course raises the question 'what's wrong with being an actor?'. One acts in one's music videos, so what is the problem with 'acting' music on stage? [/quote] Nothing at all against acting - some of my best friends etc... but the post I quoted referred to miming and the question of musical "worthiness" or some such. I can't see how pretending to make music can be as [i]musically[/i] worthy as actually doing it, however worthy it may be in other terms - to me it's like asking why an actor who portrays a sportsman in a film isn't as deserving of a sports award as a real sportsman. Both may be good at what they do, but they are different things.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1363802784' post='2017942'] Seems miming is viewed as appalling, disgraceful, cheating. Why, since we are entertainers, is miming your own originals seen as dread (you played on the recordings and wrote the song, right?), when playing live cover material is perfectly fine? Why are we caught up in this musical worthiness trip? [/quote] If you are miming, you may be entertaining, but you are not entertaining by being a musician - you are doing it by being an actor - pretending to do something you are not actually doing. Your musical skills are largely irrelevant, and it is entirely possible that a non-musician, or someone with only rudimentary musical skills, could do the job better than you. Especially if they have bigger [s]t*ts[/s] stage presence. For me, the interesting question in the covers v. originals debate is why there is this sharp divide in the world of rock/pop while it seems to be more or less irrelevant in other genres. Go to a jazz or folk gig, for example, and whether it's a top performer or a band in your local pub/club, you are very likely to see them perform a mix of originals and tunes written by others.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1363684845' post='2015623'] I'm writing an album at the moment, and when it's done, hopefully by the end of the year or early 2014, I intend to put a band together to play it and get some gigs. However, I am not going to be in it, I just want to watch the band playing my music, so in that sense I am both gigging and not gigging at the same time I think [/quote] [quote name='Wil' timestamp='1363685219' post='2015635'] That's a genius idea. All the satisfaction of hearing your music played live, while being able to sit down with a drink and enjoy it [/quote] I used to get a similar buzz from the theatre/film/tv soundtrack work I used to do. All the buzz of being "part of the show" without the hassles of performing

[quote name='JamesBass' timestamp='1362606922' post='2002191'] I had a few mats who used to charge £30 for an entire gig between 5 of them! [/quote] Well, they're just letting people walk all over them. (sorry - couldn't resist)

I remember [i]The Green Leaves of Summer [/i] being played a lot on the Dansette when I was a nipper. I am also reminded of an edition of [i]I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue [/i]in which Humph was explaining the rules of a "spot the connection" round - "For example, if I said Alan [b]Ball[/b], Kenny [b]Ball[/b] and Johnny [b]Ball[/b], the obvious connection is that none of them has ever fully mastered the trumpet". RIP to them both.

[quote name='steve-soar' timestamp='1362610902' post='2002279'] A pop song is a popular song in the charts, or, a pop song written by someone/people, who want that statment to be popular. Pop is U2, Beethoveen, Beatles, M, Radiohead, Steely Dan, Black Sabbath, Rennie And Renatta, Wings, Piolet, etc, etc, etc, ... [/quote] As opposed to all that music created specifically to be hated by everybody.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362574134' post='2001469'] Who told you you ought to respect pop music, or any music for that matter? [/quote] Without wishing to get into an unseemly semantic hair-splitting debate, I think you did: [quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362521181' post='2000865'] I don't think pop gets the respect from musicians that it deserves. [/quote]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362572960' post='2001439'] I LIKE IT! However, do you think there are ethical problems with mass market music production? I don't. Can anyone say with any real integrity that Destiny's Child are more or less worthy than Weather Report? [/quote] Depends whether they are battery-reared. I have no problem with pop music - I don't bother it and it doesn't bother me. I have a problem with being told I [i]ought [/i]to respect it and its creators simply because it's commercial successful.

[quote name='lurksalot' timestamp='1362531152' post='2001064'] Intriguing........how many bass parts were written in medieval music [/quote] In a lot of early music scores, instrumentation is not specified - the idea was that you used whatever you had available. So you could argue that bass guitar would be a perfectly reasonable choice for a bass line (check out my soundcloud in the link below for an example of this approach - apologies for shameless plug ).

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1362521181' post='2000865'] I don't think pop gets the respect from musicians that it deserves, it is not easy, and it's usually misjudged by the cognoscenti. [/quote] Do Bernard Matthews Turkey Twizzlers get the respect from chefs that they deserve? Creating a commercially successful product that reaches a mass market undoubtedly requires skills that most of us don't possess - many try and only a few succeed. But we should understand that those are not necessarily the same skills required to create a quality product. Most people with a love of cooking are not trying to emulate the success of the mass producers, they are engaged in an entirely different project for entirely different reasons, and to tell them they should have more "respect" for the creators of successful mass-market food products would be just plain silly. It's no different with music. The public are in general no more discerning when it comes to consuming entertainment products than they are with food or anything else. Is the Sun a better newspaper than the Independent because it sells more copies? Producing a paper like the Sun takes a lot of skill - these people are very good at what they do and it would be wrong to suppose that anyone could emulate them and achieve similar success. But that doesn't make it great journalism, or mean that people who are interested in quality writing should respect it or try to emulate it. In the field of creative endeavour, it's a great mistake to confuse commercial success with artistic success. Neither is easy, neither is something that just anyone can achieve, but they are different things.

A lot of it is inevitably about promotion - and having the contacts and influence to plant stories in the press and elsewhere, get the right people to talk about it in the currently favoured media, and generate the required "buzz". Same as in the movie bizz. There will always be the unexpected outsider that grabs the public mood and bucks the trend, for whatever reason (Crazy frog?), but the big payers will always have the advantage. When it comes to understanding what makes mass sales, focusing on the quality of the songwriting, production, performance etc is missing more than half of the picture.

Hmmm, let me see...not counting the "just at home for fun" stuff.... Played bass in avant-garde free jazz ensembles and a couple of rock bands (one middling originals/covers, one heavyish pagan originals) Played piano in jazz/blues duo (with female singer) Been a composer for theatre/dance/film/tv Currently playing squeezebox for border morris. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?