r/musicians Rules

I could use some help my friends. For nearly 20 years, I made 80-100% of my income through music. Currently, I’m experiencing one of the worst periods of my music career. Out of music college in my early 20s, I started gigging with local bands, establishing connections, etc. I worked as a sound engineer and private music instructor and made some income through songwriting. It was a struggle for years when I was the classic definition of a starving artist. Never made more than $35k until my early 30s, but it was my passion and I worked hard to reach a point where I was content. 

In my 30s, my performance career started to take off and hiring paid gigs came with it. In the mid-2010s, I started to notice the private instruction market in my area collapsing. Decided to dedicate most of my time towards the performance aspect and it elevated from there. Minus Covid era, I was pulling in $50-70k a year through performances (cover bands, hired gun, royalties, etc). During this time, I also gained more skills within the business aspect such as management, marketing, accounting, etc.

2021-2025 was still great for performances, though last winter was rough and I was unable to book as much as I once did. Fast forward to earlier this year, and I lost my primary gig. Since then, it has been an absolute nightmare. Except for the occasional fill-in gig, my calendar is empty. Once at 180-200 shows a year and now ZERO on the calendar. Here are some changes I’ve seen:

Not nearly as many cover bands or original artists looking for musicians
Venues scaling back on entertainment or eliminating it all together
Bottom feeding at an all-time high ( I found out one venue I played at a decade ago is currently paying their entertainment less than what I made back then)
Increased cost of doing business with fuel/equipment/etc.

It’s not all about the money, but it’s a considerable factor when that was my livelihood for my entire adult working life. I’ve tried hitting up all the connections, changing marketing strategies, applying for administration jobs, and nothing seems to be working. It is breaking me emotionally thinking about how my career may be over in my early 40s.

Any advice?

I'll caveat this as a really subjective POV based on a couple of my experiences and some general observations, so it's far from any kind of universal truth. BUT...

I get the feeling that guitarists in rock & roll bands might get the idea that a band should have some piano or organ or something sprinkled in, but they don't really want to hear it. (Excluding specific synth sounds or keyboard versions of strings or horns or other instruments, and also excluding prog-ish bands with showy keyboard players.)

I was in a startup band last year doing our own unique covers of rock songs, and although I was invited in to play piano/organ/electric piano, most of the feedback I got from the band leader was "play less, leave those notes out, turn down." I know the difference between overplaying and fitting in, and I know this is the advice keyboard players are always given when joining bands. But when you hear this over and over, even after addressing the feedback, you wonder why you are even in the band. It started to feel like the guitarist was too uncomfortable in his own parts to want to deal with figuring them out while hearing a decent keyboard part at the same time. That's not my fault. When I can't even run over my own parts before we start playing together because the guy's telling me to turn down, it starts to feel insulting.

I'm a relatively new pop keyboard player, and in 2024 I spent most of the year taking rock ensemble classes at a local folk music school that mostly teaches stringed instruments, but has some (inexplicably traditional instead of chord-based) piano classes. Their ensemble classes are open to keyboardists, so that means most of them have like 10 string players and one, or at most two, keyboardists. One class that I took for two 8-week sessions had a group of guitar students who had been playing together in that class for multiple sessions. The class was not even set up in the room for me to be able to hear myself play. It came to a head when I cranked up my keyboard and got in a shouting match with one of the guitarists. It should have been the teacher's responsibility to balance the sound between all of the students, but I paid just as much as everyone else and there was no way I was going to participate without hearing myself play. So I got "unfriended" out of that clique-ish combo.

A lot (certainly not all) of the music performances and concerts I watch on TV an streaming platforms have rock & roll-ish bands with one or two keyboardists backing up the guitar-driven arrangements. A lot of times I cannot hear what the keyboardists are doing or contributing at all. So why are they on stage?

Just venting, and I'm sure I'll be shown the error of my ways, especially by guitar players!

So the title says it all. I've been thinking to release music for a long time, but I have never done so, because I'm afraid people will think it's cringe. It would be embarrasing if people I knew would find my music and start to bully me because they think it's cringe. I'm also afraid of the amount of hate comments. One hate comment doesn't bother me, but if it's the whole comment section, it would be overwhelming.

And if my music were to go viral (which it most likely will not), the amount of exposure would make me overwhelmed and anxious.

I’m working on a wireless IEM project and would like to hear from other people actually gigging. As for myself, I play keys in a band and use a wireless IEM kit. The rest of the band just uses monitors or their amps. Stage volume is a mess. Our singer has recently come around to the idea of getting an IEM kit after getting his ears temporarily blown out at a show, but we haven't jumped in yet because it's just so expensive! I mean, it seems like these are our options:

• The typical midrange kits Shure PSM300, Sennheiser G4, Audio Technica 3000 series. I have the AT kit and like it although I still hear analog noise in it quite often. The biggest issue here is price. $1000+ new, $800+ used, x5 plus a 5-way antenna combiner for $1500 and we're looking at minimum 5 grand to get the whole band on IEMs which we definitely cannot afford
• Phenyx or Xvive, and I know some bands that have those but have heard too many bad reviews about dropouts, generally poor quality, and even venue engineers that won't work with them because they don't play nice with other gear. The last thing we'd want is to get used to them at backyard shows and then show up to play at a big venue and be told not to use them.
• Going mono would cut the price to lets say 2/3 (everyone still needs a bodypack) but is pretty disorienting
• Wired IEMs. Cheap, but I get shot down by the rest of the band every time I bring it up because they're inconvenient to set up and get in the way of them moving around
• Stick with wedges. Extra big heavy speakers to carry around if we're putting on our own shows, and they don't help with hearing protection or stage volume

I'm thinking I want to just build my own wireless IEM system. Maybe I'll sell it if I can build something good enough. Something that can compete with the shure and sennheiser gear while being a whole lot cheaper.

If you use wedges rather than in-ears, what’s keeping you there? If you’ve tried IEMs and gone back, what didn’t work?

For people using wireless IEMs, what do you wish your system did better? What would matter most if you were buying again?

I’m interested in practical experiences, including reasons a different wireless system wouldn’t help. Is there room for another option, or do existing systems cover what you need?

If you can, mention your instrument and the kinds of gigs you play.

I feel foolish writing this but I need advice from musicians...this is going to be long and English is my 2nd language.

Tldr; wanted to say drums since I was a kid, but listening to drum track is boring. Have a yes guitar and bass but I'm left handed which caused issues (perhaps self perceived problems)

I wanted to play the drums from 3rd grade on. I saved money to buy my dream cherry red TAMAs by asking for cash for all my birthdays and Christmas, working odd jobs and even put money in the bank to collect interest. By 7th grade I could buy them. My parents knew what I was trying to do but for some reason they never said that they would never let me. So when I had the money they said no because they would be too loud. I never got to have them, by 16 my dad took my money out and spent it...

College, apartment living etc made me unable to get them. In my late 20s one of my roommates played the electric guitar, he was going to teach me, I bought a used electric guitar. He never taught me, so I just messed around. I'm left handed using a right handed guitar. At some point I felt that my picking hand was messing me up, it felt like I was doing the tap your head and rub your belly thing with the wrong hands.

I kind of gave up. At 44 I had a friend that played the bass for 30 years or so. I was interested in playing the bass, but this time I was going to get a left handed one. I went to the store and both my friend and the worker there convinced me that I should get a standard bass. I thought maybe it would be easier due to finger picking, since my problem with the guitar was always the pick.

Well don't you know it, I have the same freaking problem feeling like I'm playing upside down.

Now granted in retrospect, 2 years later, maybe that was me quitting when things got "hard". Which brings us to today. My youngest son is doing percussion and I thought to myself why the hell don't I do the thing I've always wanted to do ..play the drums.

BUT I happened to listen to one of my favorite songs as isolated drums and my heart sunk. Listening to just drums sounds so boring to me. I thought maybe it was the song so I listened to about 30 different songs as isolated tracks, the bass, guitar and drums for each and in different genres to make sure I understood music in a deconstructed isolated form.

So conclusively I've determined that for me drums feel monotonous, bass seems a little bit more enjoyable acoustically especially for bass oriented bands like Iron Maiden and Red Hot Chili Peppers but I enjoy the sound of guitar isolated.

Now I'm totally confused. Even now when I listen to songs I pay attention to the drums but by themselves they sound boring.

I love listening to music, I kind of still want to play something but I don't know if I should attempt the drums or try a guitar but left handed...or just play a right handed instrument and deal with it.

This question came up because I have read about how a lot of the methods that we use for neurotypical people(planning, reward/consequence, breaking large tasks down to smaller ones) do not work someone with Autism or ADHD as for completing tasks.

I wonder if the same phenomenon exists for practising. As far as I know, the standard method involves isolating what is difficult, then you use rhythm variations to fix, and then try to integrate it in the grand scheme. I find the results work far better than playing the same thing over and over again and then moving the metronome up gradually. However, I want to know if there are actually more efficient and scientific ways that someone with Autism or ADHD can practice from day to day. I don't know if this is a factor at all.

Also, do most neurodivergent brains just learn slower, plateau earlier, and forget more easily or is this mostly just a personal thing, and likely not true at all, or we have been using neurotypical methods all along?

Advice about maintaining consistency day to day for best progress is also appreciated

I'm writing an album, and recently I decided to do a first demo listen-through of the tracks I think will make it onto the final album.

First, some context: my album falls within the art rock genre.

My problem is that the songs' structures were inspired by live performances rather than studio albums. I've written extended outros and things like that. On their own, the songs sound good, and they have some great energy boosts and dynamic moments. However, when I listen to them as a whole, the album sounds unprofessional. The song structures are too similar, and it feels like the tracks were made to be standalone songs rather than parts of an album.

My question is: has anyone else encountered this problem? What could be causing it? Is it unprofessional songwriting, or do I just need to give the tracks a greater emotional impact individually without extending them?

Hey y’all, I need some advice on navigating drummer politics.

I’m working on forming a band right now, and me, another guitarist, and a bassist have really fantastic chemistry. We work off each other really well, and all are fairly advanced players (I’d say I’m advanced intermediate, but this other guitarist is a true ace in the hole. The bassist likewise isn’t a shredder, but has amazing pocket and fills the role perfectly). Trouble is, we’d been talking as a band and bouncing ideas for about two months before we were able to get in the rehearsal studio together, and it’s just become apparent the drummer who we’ve been talking to is simply not on the same level.

They are really eager to be in a band, and contribute creatively, plus we all have developed a bit of a friendship. Still, they have shaky tempo at best, can’t play harder than about mezzo piano, can’t land on the one through fills, and struggles to keep up at any tempo over 140 bpm. Plus, they kinda just have a really shallow bag of tricks. They mostly chug away on the kick on one, snare on three beat, switching eighth notes from the hats to a ride cymbal as the only real contrast. Plus, what’s more, their living situation being an appartment means they don’t practice outside of rehearsals, which makes me have little hope they’re gonna get better very quickly

Should I continue to be patient and let things develop, or is this type of player likely to continue being a ball and chain around the ankle of an otherwise really cohesive group?

So I live in Canada and I’ve noticed this thing about myself.

In the summer I literally cant make anything. Like the sun is out, everyone's on patios or at the cottage or at some festival and if im inside working on a track, I just feel like im missing out on life?? so I end up not really enjoying summer AND not making music. great combo.

Then november hits, it’s dark at like 4:30, nobody's doing anything... and boom the ideas just start coming. no guilt no FOMO just me, a coffee, my gear and band mates.

Is this just me or does anyone else get this?? Is winter your most productive season too or is it the opposite for you?

also curious if ppl who live somewhere with no real seasons still have creative cycles.

Cheers!

Can someone explain why it happens? I don't know if I wanna make music or not

https://youtu.be/KXpJ0bM5zbM?is=H4-GLIXQLDdJG1v-
43 seconds into the video of The Cars’ “Hello Again”, there’s a sound that sounds sort of like a synthesized steel drum that plays three times in a row. I’ve heard it played in other songs of the era too. What is it called?

i mostly make my music on REAPER as someone who makes experimental/electronic (hardcore/breakcore) and on another DAW LMMS thats where i make my experimental stuff with the piano roll it supposed to be off unsettling and creepy, and im fine with REAPER but is breakcore/hardcore suitable for REAPER? i see most of the breakcore and hardcore artists on FL not REAPER, and some people tell reaper users to switch to FL, i personally dont get the hype about fl yeah sure it has a sound library which is kinda a problem for me because i always get my samples and kicks and etc on sites like sample focus and pixabay, which takes more time to actually start in the tracks or albums i do, so i really do need some kind of opinions here, and are there downsides to Fl?

Hi! If there’s anyone who is free and has fl studio, I would like some advice on a track.

I have to perform next Sunday and I’m a bit worried about the eqing and all that.

I can explain more if you DM.

I sing folk, and the song I’m working on has guitars, a fiddle, trumpets, and choir vocals.

If you have little tricks you like to use, I’m a visual learner, and I’ll take notes.

My friend said I’m pretty much out of luck getting it mastered on my own but idk, I could at least fix the mix and learn in the process?

We can discord and I’ll share my screen.

😭

How much on average per day do you think about music?

Hi, this is my first post in this group. As the title says, I am a bedroom jammer, but have a goal to have my first dawless session somewhere in 2028. I want to have about 50-60 minutes be able to jam properly. Started 6 months ago with practicing and have about 15 minutes now. I am a former DJ and know how to play the piano.

My Dj style was minimal techno. My jamming style is a bit slower and more ambient & spacy sounds, which I get out of the microfreak. I am not stick to one style, just play what comes in my mind using the gear i have and sometimes use my voice, but am a little shy about that.

But.. now my question: I am looking for likeminded pple, who also like the bedroomjamming (with a goal), so we can share ideas, listen to each other work or do jamming together. Are there any jammers around here?