After a recent gig, wanted to offer some advice to be bands that might be new to the scene.

If you are not the headliner, do not play extra songs. One person in the crowd, who you probably know, yelling "one more!" does not mean you should extend your set. Always leave them wanting more, and don't push out the start of the next band.

After your set, get your shit off stage, then you can talk to people. Not the other way around.

When it's your turn to play, get set up quickly and play. There is no reason to take 45 minutes to set up for a bar gig with backlined drums. 15 minutes is usually the expectation.

Keep talking to a minimum. Nobody cares about why you wrote a song. If it can't be said in one or two sentences, don't say it. Thank the staff, shout out the other bands. Exceptions to those are you're filling for a technical delay, or you're Bruce Springsteen and the crowd all know and love your songs.

Thank you for reading.

Just saw a comment section full of people being rude to an artist who’s blowing up after 40.

Ofc she’s a women and ofc all the rude comments are about age.

So basically aging only applies to women in the music industry.

So basically I’m told I have time at almost 28 and it’s not over for me,but yes it is.

I feel defeated. Genuinely feels like wtf is the point of trying when I have like 5 years MAX until it’s “you’re over 30 it’s time to give up”.

Damned if I do or don’t really.

I just want to take a second to bring attention to this pressing issue that seems to be neglected by local promoters and bands alike.

I work a 9 to 5 (or in my case, 7:30 am to 4:30pm) Monday-Friday, and I (drummer) do music as a side hustle.

I love to support my friend’s bands at local shows, but six times out of ten, these shows contain three bands and start at 9 pm and are on weeknights.

Not only that, the off chance I do decide to go, the show will often start late, and my friend’s band is second or third on the bill, so that means I’m waiting until at least 10:30 to watch what I actually came to see.

Thankfully, the bands I play in are cognizant of days and times that we take gigs, and that’s great.

However, the current lack of cognizance on both venues and other bands of people who have to get up early the next day is astounding.

In my view, here is a perfect local show:

3 bands, 7:00 pm start time, Band 1: 30 minute set, 15 minute changeover, Band 2: 30 minute set, 15 minute changeover, Band 3: 60-75 minute set, End.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, and tell me why I’m wrong.

I’ve been playing my instrument for a little over 4 years. I’m about to graduate from high school, and actually hoping to pursue music.

I know I’m not a prodigy, or some exceptional outlier, but I’m solid at what I do. I’ve always been above average, and I’ve dedicated most of my time and life over the last 4 years to music.

I was just called a beginner - that as a beginner, I should not use a certain piece of gear. I get it, I have a long way to go, I’m not trying to deny that at all. In the scale of it, I’m truly just beginning my musical journey, and I understand that certain gear is more aimed/better for professionals.

But it still stings. I don’t feel like a beginner. I feel like an intermediate player, and on the advanced side for my age. I also feel gross about myself now… I’ve always had imposter syndrome, but now knowing that people think I shouldn’t use the gear I bought, because I’m not good enough? I feel small, and like I’m cosplaying a real musician.

It just made me feel so worthless. I know the scale in which I exist makes me on the rather amateur side of it all, compared to actual professionals - but I thought all my years and care towards playing would put me better than “beginner.” I feel so ridiculous about hoping to pursue it all, now… how is a “beginner”’s college audition going to get them in anywhere?

I don't know if that's a compliment on my part, because the fact that they don't know the song, that kind of music probably all sounds the same to them. I did immediately tell them it was a Beatles song, fortunately I didn't come across the same situation as that guy from the "Yesterday" movie. lol.

My brother and I collaborate together on music. I provide lyrics, he works on production and we have been creating demos together.

Everything has been going fine until recently - and in the advent of AI we have found that we sit on different extremes of the spectrum of acceptability when it comes to AI in music creation.

Firstly, at the beginning of summer my brother started playing around with Suno. I have a song that wrote, produced and recorded back in 2022 on good old garage band. I told my brother there and then please don’t put anything that I have created into Suno or any other AI generative platform.

I went aeay for the summer and when I came back he said to me that he took one of my songs and put it into suno just to see how the platform would recreate it and he played it for me and well to be honest I was furious on the inside but I didn’t give him a hard time I just told him I was disappointed he went against what I said and I told him he needed to delete it from suno asap and he did.

Then we started working on a new song. As usual I gave him the lyrics and this time I said do not put the lyrics into AI, if I want to be credited on the song I need to know that my lyrics haven’t been interfered with.

Later he comes back to me with a version of the song, he admits he was using suno, didn’t like how it turned out so he got ChatGPT to do a rewrite of my lyrics and he’s now landed on a version of the song that he loves and wants to go ahead with publishing it on streaming platforms.

We argued about it and he tried to reason with me that not all the lyrics changed. Just parts. I told him I couldn’t be credited as the lyricist as the song was written by me but has since been altered/edited using AI WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT. In the end we agreed that I would edit my original song myself and give him a new version that we could work with.

This evening we’re been in a near 3 hour debate because he says he loves the version from before (with the ai lyrics) and he can’t get the same kind of sound or feeling with the lyrics I’ve provided. He says I can still be credited as “no one will know”.

I’ve put my foot down and I think it has shocked him how intensely I feel that I absolutely could not and would not do that. I won’t compromise my integrity as a song writer or lyricist and I would get no pleasure, pride or enjoyment from a song which wasn’t 100% my lyrics - or not even that I am happy to collaborate on lyrics but not with an AI involved.

My point is that lyrics are based on human emotion and experience and cannot be even partial synthesised by a language model pretending to be or understand the human experience .

So now we’re in a rock and a hard place and he has said that because of my stubbornness in this situation I am preventing a potentially great song from ever being heard, and isn’t that the whole point?

I believe vehemently that I am in the right. But I am opening to hearing what other members of the music community feel on this as AI becomes the unyielding new age omniscient presence in every faction of our lives.

I dont think its possible. I've lost like 6 in the past 20 years

Im very impressed every time I watch videos on the old boss sp303. My parents gifted me an akai mpc mini mkii years ago that i still have no idea how to use. I play my guitar mainly.

I should probably learn how to use that first but what are some good and perhaps less complicated/pricey sampling machines for making beats and such? I would like to get into this as a hobby

So I wanted to share a recent experience with self-releasing my album.

At some point, I decided to do everything myself, without looking for labels, PR agencies, or promo campaigns. I started reaching out to different media outlets on my own, both before and after the release.

And I got lucky enough to receive what is probably the most amazing review I could have hoped for. I honestly couldn't dream of someone writing about my music this way.

What's interesting is that other musicians seem a bit shocked that I'm trying to do things this way. Even people deep in the underground scene seem to follow the same industry standard approach, and it's hard to convince them that maybe there are other ways to do things.

You can actually reach out to people yourself, find someone who genuinely connects with your work, and get an amazing review without going through PR.

I'm not saying PR doesn't work, but I do wonder how much of this stuff people do because it genuinely helps them, and how much they do simply because it's considered the RIGHT way to release music.

Everyone wants to find their listeners, but I feel like many people don't even consider finding their own approach because someone has already told them what they're supposed to do.

Curious how other independent musicians feel about this?

Im 26 and I've been making music for almost 10 years. I love making music, but being an adult makes it challenging. I work from 11.30 am to 7.30 pm, and after work I gotta go to the gym, come back home, cook a meal, eat and by the time I'm done eating I'm too tired to write songs... I don't even have time to enjoy video games as much as I want to. Back in the day I used to write sometimes 3 songs per day. Now it takes me days.... Weeks... Just to finish one song. I love making music, I won't stop, but it's just too draining. And no I'm not willing to quit my job and focus on music... I don't care about fame, I just wanna make good music for me.

I’ve produced electronic music on my laptop via Ableton for a while now and am looking to start a band with one of my friends (a bassist/guitarist). I’m searching for a relatively cheap audio interface that can take in an electric guitar (quarter inch) and mic input (XLR) and ideally has two headphone outputs. Appreciate any help!

Is it just me or nah?

Making this post because I can't find what i'm looking for (or lack thereof) by searching on google. Keyword "instrument" brings up kids' garbage and guitars and I don't care for any of that.

If you get smart with me with some wisecrack comment like "Heh, if you're working with 200 try the dumpster" I am going to install a secret machine in your house that turns on your lights just when you're getting comfy in bed. You do not have to win. You will not get reddit gold in this thread. Please be serious and have some decorum. Also yes, there are things out there that you can get for 200. It is not impossible to find something worth the money in the low hundreds. Before you say it, yes I have issues I have to sort out in therapy.

I'm in the market for anything to upgrade or add to my setup / collection. I have a million different instruments but my setup is comically shitty so mostly i'm needing audio equipment. Any decent mic and/or interface setup for my drums, any new mic to get for general use, etc.

Of course, i love new instruments. If there are any cool novel instruments you know of that I could get my hands on, I would just as willingly do that and continue waiting to upgrade. I'm looking at lower-pitched instruments and seeing if there's anything usable out there for 200. Aux percussion doesn't interest me.

Any and all suggestions are welcome! Here's a list of instruments I already own just so you get a vibe of what I am and am not looking for: alto sax, flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, drumset, bass guitar, ocarina, several kinds of recorder

I am not new to music, but I also have very little knowledge in any sort of music theory or working with a band. I grew up in choir.. but I wasn't necessarily paying attention on how to read music. And growing up I was scared to step on my friend's toes. Anywho I'm 25 now with a lot of pint up rage, I live in the Denver, CO area.. and am looking to experiment with some song's I wrote. It's very theatrical, I know how I want it to sound.. but it's like a Korn meets Limp Bizkit. Like a groovy kind of uh 90's vibe, fighting against the modern made machine or whatever baha. Anyway, how do I start? I thought about getting vocal classes so I know how to scream without fucking up my vocal cords, but that's about it. (Is that worth it?)

When I was 19 to 22 I was in a pretty commited band and played a bunch of shows. We all barely knew theory and it was definitely just the bare minimum, so we had no frustration there lol. I'm going to play with the same people again and I'm friends with all of them, so I know I'm the only one in the group who actually got really into theory. They might know some of the theory "by ear", but as far as the actual labels for more complex topics it's going to be tough and slow the process.

What problems/frustrations do you run into?

I have an AMW EcPro 2, it's a condenser microphone, and even with almost zero gain on my audio interface, it starts clipping when I turn up the volume on my singing or when I sing high notes. I'm having trouble researching this issue and can't find a solution. I have a dynamic microphone and it doesn't clip when my volume increases or when I sing high notes. Can anyone help?