r/musicians

My dad took his own life when I was very young, but I was old enough to have watched him play the cello every day of my life. I tried to learn the cello after his death but it made me too sad so I picked up piano instead. I’ve been playing for like ten years, I do recitals and competitions and it has become my entire identity. I took out a loan from my mom to go to a private high school focused on the arts. My entire life is music, I have no other hobbies, I never get bored of the piano.

But in the past few weeks my hearing has become really bad. I was born with a lot of problems. I forgot that becoming deaf was one of the risks I’m always at. Doctor confirmed that I am indeed going deaf. I’m so fucking miserable, Spotify has been playing on my computer nonstop since I found out because any day now I’ll wake up and be completely deaf. I have spent hours trying to memorize every detail about every one of my favorite songs but there’s no point because I’m eventually going to forget it. Oh and im also going blind but I don’t give a fuck about that, if it was just blind I could deal with it because I don’t need to see to be able to play. But what about I supposed to do now??? I feel so miserable and depressed. I wanted to go Juilliard. My dad went to Juilliard. Now I’m going to go nowhere because I don’t have anything else and I love music so much I don’t want to live in silence for the rest of my life

I've had pretty severe anticipatory anxiety before important events since I was a kid. Before exams, dates, interviews etc. I'd always get so anxious that I'd vomit.

I'm now a DJ and it's happening before gigs. The weird thing is that once I actually start playing, the anxiety completely disappears. I'm confident in my sets and have played well, but the hours leading up to the gig can be brutal. I'll have to shit 8-10 times, feel extremely nauseous, and occasionally actually vomit. Once I start playing, I'm completely fine.

I'm looking into speaking to my GP about propranolol/valium for occasional/as-needed use before gigs, mainly to reduce the physical adrenaline symptoms. I'm not looking for something to take daily, as I only play occasionally.
I'd love to hear from anyone who's used propranolol specifically for performance anxiety, especially if your main symptoms were nausea, GI issues, or vomiting.

Did it actually help with the physical symptoms?
What was your experience like taking it before performing?
Did it affect your energy, focus, or performance?
Did you find it better than something like Valium/benzodiazepines?

Obviously I'll discuss it with my GP and won't take anything without medical advice. Just interested in people's firsthand experiences.

I was really keen on it and begged to buy one, but then something and something and I couldn't go to a course at that time, and so on and so forth. Lately, I've had some free time, but the lesson prices are too high, like I have to spend a mid high phone amount of money for 3-4 months. Can I learn to play the violin at home by myself? I watched a few videos, but they said you can't learn on your own you can't play if you hold it wrong, etc., or yes I did it and I can too. while some people were sharing videos claiming they learned it themselves. At this age, going to a conservatory and becoming a great musician is a difficult task in this world; people start these things when they're in diaper , I don't have my eyes set on such dream yet, but I love sound of the violin.

Anyway, what would you recommend for someone at the hobby level? I love stringed instruments like the violin, cello, and viola; they melt my heart.

im fairly new to music production so im just learning, i have a basic understanding of piano but i dont really play any instruments so all sounds are made almost entirely through my computer on logic pro. everything i try to make always sounds so messy and uncoordinated and i just cant quite figure out what im doing wrong :/ maybe i just need to study up on music theory more idk. anyone on here have any advice?

This is a two piece grunge band that was blossomed out of a ton of use of this substance. It’s just a 15 min ep that was intended to be a whole album called xylem and phloem. I hope you enjoy!

i grew up listening to classic rock like led zep, acdc, cream, and growing up opened up to artists like marvin gaye, nina simone, nirvana, joy division, but i want to broaden my horizons and listen to music that you'd say shaped a whole generation of musicians, or shaped even how music is written and recorded until now. i just want to have a broader pool of music to pull from as a musician creating their own original music as well. any recommendations are welcome. thank you

most the time me and the musicians around me think 'that was shit' or 'it was okay'. very rarely are we genuinely happy with the gig and when we are, its only one or two people.

Recently I've been trying to play with a group of amateur musicians who can't read music and don't have a theory background. It's been tricky! It got me thinking on some questions for the musicians​ from that type of background, recognizing that clearly this can work (e.g. Beatles):

When you compose, how do you determine chord progressions? Do you simply say "I like the sound of this chord followed by this other chord"?

How do you notate your composition, specifically the timing of chord changes? How do you notate the different lines for different instruments (like the melody versus the second guitar playing a counterpoint)?

How do you communicate what the other performers need to play at each measure?

How do you ensure you get a consistent performance each time you play your piece? Particularly when there are complex harmonic structures

When in rehearsal, how do you get everyone to start at the same place within a piece, without being able to ​​say "pickup to bar 24, second time through"?

I got together with a friend who wanted to play drums in my band and a bassist that I found online that lives very close to me. For context my drummer friend is a lead vocalist/guitarist in another band and this will be his first time drumming in an actual band. The genre is ska-punk so its pretty bass heavy. For me I am the rhythm guitarist and vocalist, but I also play bass decently well.

Anyways, we jammed together around 5 times for a total of 5 weeks (1 jam per week). No band name yet and literally just 1 song that I’m kind of iffy about without lyrics.

The drummer is consistent with giving things to work with, but is pretty disorganized when structuring riffs and his recordings are hard to play with. I figure this will improve with time as I tell him to lock in with the bassist with the kick drum. Another huge issue I have with the drummer is he plays so loud in such a small space we practice in that he drowns our instruments out and it’s genuinely frustrating to jam and create music thats sounds even halfway decent.

The bassist is good, and I taught him a lot of things about the genre and how to play it, but they have not sent me ANY material I can work with. I have to listen to our jam recordings and guess what he’s playing (I can’t play by ear yet). The couple song demos we have recorded and polished with software have their basslines written by me because the bassist send any. Not only that, but I can’t even get the bassist to learn the world’s easiest basslines for songs that are only about a minute long. What’s gonna happen when he has to learn something more complicated?It’s extremely frustrating and I know he can play bass better than I can, but we have to stick with my basslines because I’m not getting any bass material I can work with. It’s also frustrating because the bass is extremely important in this genre and my band cannot function without them.

We haven’t done anything together for 2 weeks now. No one’s saying anything in the GC, and I tried setting something up this week and there have just been excuses to not show up. I even tried proposing working on just 1-2 songs instead of creating 10 messy concepts in a session, no response to that either.

Any advice? I kinda just want to keep writing the bass and guitar parts and just find a new bassist that will actual put the work in to learn them. Or maybe I should just give up on this project.

Since this is obviously anonymous for us all I'd like to do a little research. I know the economy is not the best right now so I'm truly curious what people are charging right now to appear in public places or private events. Fairs, festivals, weddings, restaurants. Just anywhere you could play. Musician or DJ. I feel like for my experience level my rate has been pretty reasonable but as costs get higher it's harder to justify. I typically play by myself but sometimes I bring someone else as well. Thanks for your input.

Context, basement DIY venue so pretty low stakes, I'm just curious though how many of u guys messed up during ur first or early performances (I'm guitar and vox)

So I’m in a psych-garage band and we’ve been going for about 2 years. And while I’ve had great fun with it and being surrounded by amazing musicians and writers, I’ve found myself getting tired of it - over summer, I’ve gotten a load of 90s alternative influences that wouldn’t fit the stuff we usually do and I’ve been reflecting on how we haven’t communicated that well as a band in recent months. It would suck to leave but I can’t help but think that my musical interests are in a different place at the moment - should I leave?

My Main Points

1. We need a band agreement

I think we need a written agreement that clearly establishes how the band operates and what applies to everyone.

Most people I know who play in bands think it is strange that we do not have one, and in general, band agreements are recommended to avoid conflicts in the future.

For me, this is a prerequisite for continuing to record in the studio. Therefore, I will not participate in any further studio sessions until we have an agreement in place.

2. Everyone who contributes to future songs should receive some form of rights share

I want us to find a model where all band members receive a small share of the copyright/rights to the songs we write going forward.

The reason is that our work does not only happen when we are in the studio. We spend a lot of unpaid free time learning the songs, developing our parts, and making our performance as good as possible.

I therefore think it is reasonable that this should also be reflected in the rights.

3. Financial contributions and rights need to be connected

We all pay the same amount to produce the songs.

If I am expected to contribute financially to a recording, I also want to have a defined share of the rights to what we produce.

Otherwise, I end up in a situation where I pay as much as everyone else, spend my free time and contribute musically, but receive no financial share if the song becomes successful.

Therefore, I will not contribute financially to songs where I do not have a defined share of the rights.

4. My role should be documented

I also want it to be clearly documented what role each person has had on each song.

For example: songwriting, arranging, instrumental parts, production, and other concrete contributions.

This makes things clearer both for ourselves and legally/administratively in the future.

5. This is a boundary for me

I want to be clear that this is not about wanting to create problems or take anything away from anyone else.

I simply want our financial and creative contributions to be clear and fairly regulated.

If we cannot agree on these basic terms, I am done with the band.

Update nr1: Also, I do have some songs that I have full copyright to but it just doesn't feel fair to the rest since they also contributed their money and time to my idea.

Update nr2: I decided after all comments to wait for an appropriate time but definitely before hitting the studio again to bring it up, when these issues and some minor personality clashes are put side, I kinda like hanging out with the band even though many times I feel like the outsider

I was a working musician back in the early 90's. Got a job opportunity and took it. 30 years later, I'm retired from that job. I always had instruments in my office and would occasionally jam with friends or play around the campfire. That said, I've started wood-shedding again and building my chops back up.

Back when I was college age, getting a gig was as easy as posting on (believe it or not) real message boards. Not the digital kind, but regular cork and tacks.

I'd love to get back into playing with a band/bands again. When I worked, I played bass, but I'm comfortable on a range of instruments.

Where do people look for bandmates these days?

This has happened to me several times, and I call it "songwriter brain", but I want to know if some of my fellow writers have experienced this.

Hey everyone! Very quick backstory, I (19M) started my band in 2023 and in those past three years, I‘ve only managed to pull together four gigs (hard to find gigs when your band is a revolving door of broke early 20-something’s) and only one of them was at an actual venue. In short, my band has close to zero recognition in my city’s local music scene, and I really want to make up for lost time, especially with how big some of the other local bands are getting now.

The problem is is that I‘ve heard a ton of conflicting advice on what do to gigging-wise. For years I‘ve watched videos and been told by my musician mentors about how a lot of really successful bands used to play gigs every other night and working their asses off to make a name for themselves in their early days (Beatles, Rush, Ramones, Metallica, etc). However, I’ve also heard newer musicians online say that you should prioritize only 1-2 gigs a month and market the hell of that one show so as to not oversaturate the market. So currently I’m at a bit of a crossroads: my gut tells me it’s better to do a shit ton of shows, follow in the footsteps of successful rockstars, and make up for lost time; but I wonder how much truth there is to the 1-2 gigs a night method, and that my lack of experience here might fuck me over by doing the opposite.

Any thoughts? Currently the band is solid and rebuilding itself so we’re headed for playing gigs relatively soon.

I'm not sure if this is allowed here, but I'd like to know if anyone has experienced something similar and how you got through this?

I feel so much guilt for picking up my guitar again. I stopped playing and writing much about 15 years ago, when my drug addiction got really bad. Ive been clean for about 5 years now, and I got another guitar a few years ago... thinking I'd like to start playing and writing again. Now that I'm over 2 years away from my ex, and living alone. It seems easier, yet I feel so much guilt and rawness when I try to play or sing.

Music was my first love, and I feel so far from it. There is something in my heart that is so caged. It's as if I was to unleash it, I would just feel too raw to function.

I am trying to make myself practice for at least 10 minutes everyday now. I just started this a couple days ago.

I am extremely self-conscious, even when playing by myself. I critique myself for having to essentially relearn do to my finger strength not being the same, and my vocal range being not as broad. Idk why I'm so hard on myself. I know anytime I've played in front of others, they've been impressed, but that shouldn't be what music is about anyway. What did I lose? How do I get this back? Do I need to become an alcoholic to let myself loosen up enough to be real? (Partly joking)

I’ve been so curious about this
I know a lot of retail and line cook workers that are musicians but I’m so curious to see what other jobs yall have or had

Also bonus question- what age did you start making music ?