General Music Chat

yeah ive used this site for about a year now. When i lived in IL, i got a decent ammount of feedback from the only crap recording i had up there (nowadays i have nothing to record on so I will play guitar over the phone haha) and I only got together with 2 people for an audition and none of them ever contacted me again afterwards (they couldnt really play anyways so it didnt bother me too much)

now that I live in NH, i'd be lucky to even get one email.

I'm pretty successful on this site at getting half my posts deleted...

Ive been getting a lot of responses and auditions from criagslist in my area. I think Ive met a couple of folks thru bandmix. One bass player I met thru here actually joined a band I referred him too. I didnt join but it got him a gig so I guess all is good.

I posted a bunch of original stuff I did for kicks, but as far as gigging for money I know I have to go the cover route. So far I havent gotten any good cover band leads from this site.

I would think if someone is serious about meeting other musicians to play music thru here they should have some music up.

Some of my best leads thru the years have come out of music stores. If you are a young musician, go hang out in GC and just listen for people playing in the store. If you hear someone you like introduce yourself and set something up. The internet is great but you cant expect someone to raise you out of obscurity thru here. You are going to have to put more effort in than punching a keyboard. If you are looking for a guitarist or bass player ask the tech guys in stores for referrals. The dude that works on my guitars has found people to fill in for gigs when not everyone could show up or get sick. Another place to go is get out whereever bands of the genre you like are playing. Get out and network with them. Get a little business card made up with your name, phone number e-mail and maybe what genre you are playing in.

Finding musicians takes time and some effort.

I've had great success: I've met lots of great musicians from all over who I now consider friends. The better your network the better your chances of success.

Ive been getting a lot of responses and auditions from criagslist in my area. I think Ive met a couple of folks thru bandmix. One bass player I met thru here actually joined a band I referred him too. I didnt join but it got him a gig so I guess all is good.

I posted a bunch of original stuff I did for kicks, but as far as gigging for money I know I have to go the cover route. So far I havent gotten any good cover band leads from this site.

I would think if someone is serious about meeting other musicians to play music thru here they should have some music up.

Some of my best leads thru the years have come out of music stores. If you are a young musician, go hang out in GC and just listen for people playing in the store. If you hear someone you like introduce yourself and set something up. The internet is great but you cant expect someone to raise you out of obscurity thru here. You are going to have to put more effort in than punching a keyboard. If you are looking for a guitarist or bass player ask the tech guys in stores for referrals. The dude that works on my guitars has found people to fill in for gigs when not everyone could show up or get sick. Another place to go is get out whereever bands of the genre you like are playing. Get out and network with them. Get a little business card made up with your name, phone number e-mail and maybe what genre you are playing in.

Finding musicians takes time and some effort.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Getting to music stores, and gigs and networking with people who are actually doing it really beats fishing online. I'm going to change my strategy a bit going forward.

The music stores in my area ? You might as well hang out at wall mart.
But hang in their a few years and I will open a nursing home just for us musicians And as we wont be concerned with feeding the wolf any longer we can sit around and do heavy metal depends ads Probably get a multi million dollar contract two days before I die.

Went and played with some guys last night.

Met them thru CraigsList, supposedly blues/rock needs very little woodshed time to get out and gig. They want another guitar and vocals, so I find all the lyric sheets I still have from my singing days. I probably brought in 100 songs. Im told, lets just jam. So away we go in G, I love soloing in G for 10 minutes. So I say lets play Redhouse, I wind up holding the rythym for the bassist while the other guy plays lead and I sing the song fairly good considering I probably havent played it in a couple of years. So then we go into Hey Joe, I pull the solo and then do the little chromatic walk thats kind of the signature riff of the song to me. I do this over and over for a couple of minutes, the bass player never picks up on the riff. I just closed up my lyric sheets and just play along in whatever key they want to jam in.

We get done and the bassist says. "You can see we lack focus, but all we need is a songlist and we can be out gigging in no time".

There seems to be this huge void of musicians out there, and I seem to be standing in the middle. Im serious about getting out and making some extra money playing but Im not going to go out half cocked, thats like bringing a slingshot to a gunfight. I dont need hrs of sitting in a room playing songs over and over again. I did that 25 yrs ago. I just wonder how many of you guys run into this? At my age its so hard to find a group of people that want to do something. I have my old band lined up for some future gigs but we dont need to practice except maybe once before a gig to make sure we are on the same page. I decided the first of the year I would get off the couch and make the effort to get back out in the music community, but so far Im not finding what Im looking for.

Oh well I feel better now, just needed to get that off my chest.

The people Ive met off this site have generally had a lot less musical ability than they advertised. But I have met some great people. I do enjoy the forums and some of the interchanges in ideas.

As I stated in an above post if you are really serious about getting with some musicians you are going to have to get out there whereever they are and meet them face to face.

I hope at least you had a little fun out there John: I dont understand why folks have to exagerate on their skills. I just put it out there like I am a beginner and learning fast, If you want to play lets play if you feel like its a waste of your time then OK. If they feel like they are wasting their time then they are wasting mine for sure. I played for a short time last night with a Gent I just met. He is a good player it seems but we really never got on the same page. He gave me a CD of some stuff he likes I gave him a CD of some of ours. ( I really have o interest in learning a bunch of covers) And he asked if he could sit in with the band next practice. Thats cool. One step at a time. Right?

No success for me.

George, I did have fun. Thats what music is about anyway, just having fun with it and I got to practice my blues chops.

When I talked to these guys, they told me they practiced upstairs and I said man I hate to lug my 4x12 up another staircase. They said no problem weve got an extra Peavey Classic 30 there that you can use. Well I knew it was going to be blues so I took my Strat and a Tube Screamer, Man what a blast that amp was. I turned it up and then just adjusted my volume up and down like I always tell you and it sounded great. I may have to keep my eyes open for one of these. I think I would rather have the 50 watter, but it was one cool little amp. The weird thing was it didnt have a standby switch.

An extra note, someone else contacted me off of craigslist and asked if I wanted to play some prog rock Zappa, Floyd, Zep, Rush, Genesis, Crimson. I said sure, I might get my doors blown off on this one.

My point in posting is that you have to put yourself out there if you want to play with other people, I have had a lot of responses off of craigslist, so some of you other guys should try it.

One thing I will add if someone contacts you, at least show enough respect to respond back and if it doesnt sound like what you want to do tell the other folks up front. And if you get there and its not up to your expectations go ahead and have fun and make the best of it. 6 monthes to a year from now you might want to get back with these folks so dont burn any bridges, I had one band contact me on bandmix and when the guy and I started talking he remembered me from way back and said you know I always thought you were an asshole and you probably still are so I dont think this will work. Who knows it could have been the next big supergroup. Hey an old man can dream cant he.

Tube Screamer?
Asshole, I resemble that remark.

As I was reading your messages, I kinda felt the frustrations too. I have had no luck in finding people in this site for the past 2 months now. I sent out emails and messages, but nobody ever replied. Oh, sorry, 1 person replied but unfortunately he wasn't looking for a female band member. oh well, I guess I'll hang in here just a little bit more, and see what happens!

Welcome & best of luck, maria jennifer.

I've had some wonderfully educational & entertaining conversations with fellow musicians. And that's worthwhile, too. I got some new stuff to listen to, & some new ppl to talk to, & perhaps even meet if I get in thier neighborhoods.

All in all, I'm glad to be here even if there's no one in my area to play with at this time. If it happens, great. If it doesn't, I have a couple things that might work out anyway, or I might even go back to doing a buncha solo stuff for awhile.

(I'm gettin' a lil antsy! I think it's that ol' spring fever.)

As I was reading your messages, I kinda felt the frustrations too. I have had no luck in finding people in this site for the past 2 months now. I sent out emails and messages, but nobody ever replied. Oh, sorry, 1 person replied but unfortunately he wasn't looking for a female band member. oh well, I guess I'll hang in here just a little bit more, and see what happens!

The people in my area generally, for the type of music I'm looking to play, don't have any samples of their work, no contact info and or, haven't been logged on in a month. Maybe the site needs to promote itself a little more.