r/musicians

I'm a female lead vocalist in a cover band.

I don't know why I did. I guess I was still riding high on a lovely comment someone posted a week ago. Several months ago a rando wrote something very mean and a kind rando stood up for us.

Well I looked at some comments today because I'm promoting our Saturday gig and it was a clip of a song we did. Three comments were not kind, not even constructive. Sure there are nice comments but the ones that sting are the really cruel ones.

I'm in the unfortunate position of being a small musician whose next show has no support act, so ticket sales have been very sluggish, and with the show just over a week away I'm wondering if it isn't worth just cancelling? I've made some social media posts, got my shows on a couple events websites, put posters up in shops and around the local area, but to little avail.

A show I did last year had only one ticket sale a week before the date, and ended up with a fairly healthy turnout. Do I cancel this one or just hope for the best - if the latter, how do I keep promoting?

School band rehearsal. Practicing We care a lot.

I have a band and I’m the principal song writer. Unfortunately I am drumming and singing as there’s nobody else available. My friend who is a phenomenal player and seems excited to be there completely loses rhythm and can’t seem to get the songs dow well after everyone else has. Anyone have that experience? He can play really complex rich stuff but suddenly seems completely inept with my songs that are a bit weird but nothing crazy

Any advice is a appreciated

I’ve been the drummer in a rock band in France for five years. We’ve had a bit of a complicated history: the band’s founding guitarist left in 2022 and committed suicide in 2024. He was first replaced by a very good guitarist who lived too far away, and then by a second one whom we “fired” a few weeks ago. 

Why did we fire him? Because things just weren’t clicking, especially with our singer. Actually, my bassist and I are pretty laid-back people, and even though we weren’t friends with this guitarist, as long as things were going smoothly, we were fine with it. The singer, on the other hand, goes by gut feeling; if he doesn’t instantly click with you, he shuts down, and from there it becomes hard to build a relationship with him… and even more so as “bandmates.” 

So we’re back to looking at applications… and we figured, well, actually, you’re the one who’s going to handle the first meeting, since you’re the one causing the problem with your criteria. 

And of course... well, he doesn't get along with anyone. Too talkative, not talkative enough, committed but too strict... In short, nothing suits him. You should know that he’s admitted to us that he has a big ego, and that he’ll have a hard time having a “rivalry” with anyone… BUT, at the same time, he wants someone with leadership skills! 

I should point out that we’re doing this out of passion—it’s not our job. Personally, I’m starting to look elsewhere because I’m tired of this playground drama. I think my singer should just see a therapist for his issues with self-worth (and I’ve told him that—he agrees but isn’t doing anything about it). 

What do you think?

What would you do?

An artist in the same niche genre as I covered one of my songs on their album a handful of years back. I know the artist but we're not buddies or regular contacts.

When the artist recorded the song, I simply advised them to take out a mechanical license when delivering the album to streaming services. The artist has a small label who handles distribution, so I emailed them the same instructions.

They released the album without a license and left the songwriter credit blank for my song on the streaming services.

Finding that out, I emailed again and the label promised to amend things but again failed to do so.

A couple of years ago, I noticed they had reuploaded the song again; this time they credited their own artist with writing the song.

I wrote to the artist about this, and the label incorrectly added me as a co-writer (and not even my full name as registered with my Performing Rights Organization).

The song has had probably 200,000 streams. No one's getting rich from that, but a principle is at stake.

Would you file takedowns with the streamers and just wipe it once and for all? That's what my gut says I should do.

Whether it's incompetence or disrespect, I feel that being nice about it achieves nothing.

EDIT: Submitted legal notices to Tunecore and Distrokid. Thanks for being real with me. If it were the other way around and I'd covered a smaller artist's song, people would chase me up for compliance and remittance and take it down.

I tried to record a song I wrote and just couldn't get a simple line to work. So I put it aside and was just trying to learn new music. During that, I realized the complexity of some songs that sound simple and I know I'll never be able to write like that. Ugh.

I know that perseverance is key and I'm not giving up, but guys and gals, I straight up suck.

I'm a guitar player. I saw Whiplash, loved it. I got partway through Bohemian Rhapsody and had to do some other things, but i loved it from what i did watch and i still have yet to finish it. Does anyone have any recommendations on any other music-related movies, or musician biopics?

I’m a singer songwriter. Whenever I play my songs when I’m high, it’s so much easier to connect with it all; engage with the vulnerability and emotion but also my voice totally opens up and singing feels so free and flexible. I’m thinking it’s because the little analytical part gets silenced in my head and i just let it come out, if that makes sense. When sober, how do we let ourselves (and give our brains permission to) fully engage and be in the music without that little voice.

Looking for ways I can clearly monitor the input of my voice when playing live with my band.

Almost every experience I’ve had with wedge monitors my vocals have been severely drowned out by all the other instruments, even when I ask them to turn up the volume of my vocals they are just “cloudy” and not clear enough to be able to hear my every note.

We’ve played primarily small stages where the drums are right behind me and the other guitar and bass amps are pretty close to me, only one instance where the stage was quite big and we were spread out could I actually hear myself after asking for my vocals to be turned up.

I don’t think we actually play THAT loud, so regardless, I’m looking for your ways/gear recommendations that I can use personally to monitor my vocals and not have to rely on the chance of hearing myself through the wedge. Thank you

I love both music and literature equally. I will never give up either. But I'm wondering: which should I pursue more seriously? Or, at least, how do I decide? I'm heavily inspired by people like Lou Reed, Ian Curtis, and David Bowie who blended literature into their music. But even those people are first and foremost musicians. However, I feel that writing comes a bit more naturally to me. I'm young so I have time to decide but the clock is ticking. Any advice would be great!

Im making music for 10 years, and idk if I burned out from it, or just lost interested, but Im thinking to quit... with all the bs in the world (wars, nationalism and etc) - i cant concentrate on music. And it just sounds more and more sad and depressing... but deep inside i know if ill quit - ill regret it later, and eventually become an old unhappy person))) I've tried to take a break already, but I dont think its helping...

So... idk what to do... well... I do, but I want to hear other people's opinion who actually went through somwthing similar... or quit and now regrets it.

EDIT: oh wow, I didn't expect that many comments... to all of YOU - thank you!!! I thing im just going to take a break and get my head clear. seems like its the best thing!! my apologies for not replying to everyone ! thank you again - you are all just save a musician feom quiting ✊️