Music has been a huge part of me getting better mentally the past few years, but I’ve found pretty much nobody is that interested in hearing me play, and I’ve further noticed that nobody is interested in hearing anyone play anything outside of music they’ve already heard a gajillion times the exact way they’ve heard it a gajillion times, and that does not interest me at all.

Doesn’t hurt that I play mostly French and Spanish songs in the United States (guitar, naturally).

I’ve been to a few open mics. The “best” one was just really cliquey. Another one was really isolated was just heartbreakingly isolated–that is, people would sit at their tables, go up and play, and then sit down again alone at the tables, and maybe someone might come up and say, “nice set.” Why bother?

I also haven’t run into much possibility for collaboration. Everyone once in a while, I might run into sax player, but basically everyone is playing guitar or maybe keyboard and just wants to play and sing solo, unless they’re dating someone that wants to sing. I keep dabbling in clarinet and lap steel just so I can eventually have something else to offer musically, but don´t know who would take me up on it.

Music used to be a social pursuit, I understand, but I’m kinda coming to grips with it being an almost absolutely solitary pursuit at this point. Like, I don’t think about performing anymore, I just play for myself, and it just makes me a little bit sad.

Any ideas or suggestions?

  • TotallyNotSpez@lemmy.worldBannedEnglish
    7·
    8 days ago

    I used to tour a lot when I was younger. The people I toured with used to play in another quite well known band before they split from their old band and started a new project. Needless to say that they already had a loyal fanbase waiting for them after they announced their departure from their old band. I was the only new member, never played live before, pretty inexperienced, and I knew no one of the other bands we toured with while all my band members were already friends with some of them and on very good terms.

    I experienced stage fright before every concert and just focused on not trying to screw up on stage, ignoring the audience entirely. Until our lead singer took me incognito into the crowd of some bands who played after we did. No more make up, last row, people still recognised us, told us how much they enjoyed our gig that night, and then I understood they did like us a lot and that boosted my self-confidence quite a bit.

    From then on I enjoyed chatting with fans online, but at gigs I still kept to myself. Mainly due to anxiety issues and chronic depression, but I openly spoke about it during an interview and pretty much all fans respected that. Afterwards it was only a thumbs up, a smile, a pat on the back from them when I went on stage and I loved that, knowing they understood my situation.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      Yeah, well, I think for bands it’s more specifically that people are coming to hear you play, so that’s good even if you hear zilch from them–they showed up and that’s something.

      Wish I didn’t suck so much musically. People hear me play, think I sound good, then want me to get together with a drummer and a bassist to jam and I literally have no fucking idea what to do. I hate it and so I avoid that shit as much as possible.

      • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        8 days ago

        People hear me play, think I sound good, then want me to get together with a drummer and a bassist to jam and I literally have no fucking idea what to do.

        So yes, that’s a skill you need to work on, playing with others. It’s quite a bit different from playing solo.

        But, if the guys with experience playing in a band are telling you that you’re doing well and you’ll be totally fine when you improve a little, then trust them! You don’t have the experience, they do – it’s totally normal because you just don’t know that much about it yet to have a different conclusion than them. T

        That’s where you have to swallow your ego and tell yourself “these guys know what it takes to succeed in a band, and they see it in me! I have little experience with a band, so the fact that I can’t see what will make me successful is totally logical and to be expected. But the guys with the experience do see it, and I should trust them.”

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          2·
          8 days ago

          Yeah, no, I think they were just crazy. My ear isn´t where it needs to be for me to feel comfortable, and I’m just not very creative musically… it happened once and it was such a horrible experience I don’t want to do it again until I feel like I have something to offer. And it’s easy enough to know when–if I can just noodle on my own or to a backing track alone, for instance, something that is deffos NOT part of my current routine. And when I can hear chords a little better than I can now. Still running to chord sheets for almost any song outside of I IV V7 and sometimes even then.

          • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            8 days ago

            Fair enough – i will say im reminded of this victor wooten video where he had a student who was only trained to play off sheet music and wasn’t creative didn’t know how to improvise. Wooten told him, “just play it wrong, like just play what you feel like playing and if it’s wrong that’s fine this is just an exercise.”

            And that was what the student needed to become a better musician.

            • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              1·
              7 days ago

              Yup! I think that’s great advice; start with the music in your head. I sometimes try to sing a line before I play it, to make sure I’m playing music and not just muscle memorying scales and arpeggios.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      2·
      8 days ago

      I think the language barrier is huge for a lot of people, which I guess I don’t get because I find most of the English lyrics I hear might as well be nonsense syllables. We get it: you’re in love. For fuck’s sake. And I find I usually can’t really understand any of the French songs until I sit down and read the lyrics with a dictionary next to me, but I still fall in love with the songs, so I guess I feel like I’m not asking the audience to do anything I wouldn’t do.

      I have a friend who tells me I should just translate the songs, but that’s not the way songs work! Listening to a Billy Joel interview with Rick Beato and Joel is talking about writing Honesty. He said he knew the song has to be “something-something-ee”–that is three syllables ending with ee–and he drummer immediately offered, “sodomy” as a lyric. In a panic, because he knew “sodomy” would get stuck in his head, he came up with “honesty” immediately, despite him acknowledging he was a lying sack of shit that should by no rights be writing a song about honesty, and the song was by force of phonetics born.

      That sort of gives me SOME support for words-as-music-not-meaning, but I’m afraid it’s a dead letter with most audiences.

      But language trips me up constantly. Like I have a cover of a 70’s folk song, but I feel like it needs a spoken introduction in Spanish. I can’t help it. If I want to be authentic and true to myself, that’s just how it goes. I’ll play around with adding an english chorus or a spanish verse to some songs, too.

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          2·
          8 days ago

          The advice I’ve heard from troubadours is nobody is there to hear you talk, but I’m guessing those are guys that make their living playing Hall & Oates and other songs everybody knows (I love Hall & Oates btw). Not a bad idea to try to make a personal connection with the audience so they can make a personal connection to unfamiliar music.

  • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    8 days ago

    Like, I don’t think about performing anymore, I just play for myself, and it just makes me a little bit sad.

    I’m kinda the same, I love singing so much, but deep down inside I’m not interested in singing for other people. But some people think I sing well and they ask me to sing with their band – you have to take them at face value. They’re not pity asking you to play with them; you’re legitimately a better musician than any alternatives they could get. Whether that makes it worthwhile to you or not is a different question, figure out the price that would make it worthwhile for you and be a professional.

    But more generally, that’s the advice I’ve gotten that helped me the most – if people say they want to work with you or hang out with you – they genuinely mean it! You’re not some charity case, and there’s a lot of competition. There’s a lot of other people they could ask, and they chose you!

      • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        8 days ago

        I’m sorry I misread your post – i don’t do popular music either but trust that there’s a community that is going to love what you’re doing, you’ll find them – just going to take longer because it’s not the mainstream radio crap that 95% of people listen to. Idk, i love spanish guitar, i think Paco de Lucia is the greatest musician ever, am curious about what your music is like.

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          1·
          8 days ago

          I think most of my music is popular somewhere, just not locally.

          Tell you what: if I find an Peertube instance to host, I’ll start recording stuff.

          I was big into Leo Kottke for the longest time, but one of my musical struggles is that I’m not musically gifted enough to straight-up copy anyone yet, nor am I sure I even want to. My ear is just getting good enough I can transcribe vocal lines, and maybe some day I can do some Sidney Bechet solos, but once I hear a second note, I completely lose the thread.

          I was able to get my hands on some Kottke tabs and learn it that way, but I just feel like a huge phoney because I can’t actually hear most of what I’m playing and I’ve mostly forgotten how they go at this point.

            • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              2·
              7 days ago

              Nice! I have a whole rant about the music education system. I think most “educated” people just learn to read music exclusively, then they "graduate"to “jazz” and suddenly they have to improvise when they can’t even play by a simple melody by ear. No problem, says the education system! We will teach them all the RULES of improvisation! Two years into jazz programs and students are just spitting out scale after scale after scale and the teachers are BEAMING with pride because of EVERYTHING that student has LEARNED!

              “This student is masterfully mixing dorian and mixolydian modes here.”

              “Because they can hear them in their head and it’s effecting an emotion they’re having or is it because they know they are playing from a ii minor to the dominant fifth and just randomly playing notes from the modes?”

              “It doesn’t matter.”

              Thing is, teachers have to teach something to get paid and convince students to keep paying them and to convince administrators to continue to hire them. “Play what you hear and practice hearing every day” is something anyone can tell you, but so many people HATE hearing that because it is SCARY to face how fucking terrible you are at music when you get started. And it’s scary because we’ve convinced ourselves that music is about TALENT and that if we don’t have talent, we’re fucked.

              And the reason we think its about talent is because the music education is not designed to teach you music, it’s designed to teach you to play an instrument and to READ music. And what’s worse, music education viciously selects for people who’ve already managed to teach themself music, that is to say, “If you can teach YOURSELF music, then you can join our music program.” But music programs don’t see it that way. Instead of saying, “Why isn’t this student getting it?” they’ll say, “well, that person just has no aptitude.” And where would they have gotten the aptitude from, deafly note reading scale after scale after scale all day long? The system is DESIGNED to fail students, and then BLAME the student!

              Anyway, my life changed when I decided to never look at another piece of sheet music to figure out a song and just play by ear, so that’s what I try to do every day: just find a melody somewhere, usually one that I already can sing, and pick it out on an instrument.

  • one_old_coder@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    8 days ago

    I’m only an amateur musician whatever that means. I play for myself, to improve, and to make my brain happy. If I ever played on a video, it would be like a blog: for myself, to record my improvements. And not to show it to anyone in the first place.

    I just play for myself, and it just makes me a little bit sad.

    Do you like playing? It’s all that counts IMHO.

    Last but not least and very important:

    I play mostly French and Spanish songs in the United States. Mostly acoustic guitar, but I’m learning clarinet and lap steel.

    I would absolutely love to hear what you do whatever your “level” is. PeerTube preferred, but YouTube is fine too. Music is also about connection with people you know (I know you on Lemmy), and that’s another good thing.

    Edit: I would never play lap steel guitar or clarinet, but it’s fucking awesome if you do.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      How is the PeerTube musician experience? Could I find community and inspiration there? Been thinking about it.

      I went on an acoustic guitar discord, maybe it was a fingerstyle, but it was just non-stop people promoting their videos and nobody watching. I mean, I guess I can’t complain because I don’t really watch anyone elses stuff either.

      • one_old_coder@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        8 days ago

        I know nothing except that it’s not YouTube, and YouTube is broken for me because I have too many blocking systems on my computer. I haven’t watched YouTube for years, but I would use PeerTube if I ever wanted to show anything.

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          1·
          8 days ago

          I guess I’ll throw it out to Lemmy, then: any peertube instances you’d recommend for amateur musicians?

          I don’t want to get involved with the YouTube ratrace or censorship, but just looking into Peertube’s main page, selecting “music” and it’s returning instances with between 0 and 20 videos a lot of the time…

            • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              1·
              8 days ago

              Hm. How would I transfer my account from dalek.zone to makertube? Tried to create one and it said it already exists, and when I try to log in with the email or @dalek.zone, it’s “incorrect.”

              • trem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                1·
                8 days ago

                Oh, hmm, I’m honestly not sure, if it’s worth moving to Makertube, if you’ve already got a PeerTube account. The social features on PeerTube are unfortunately not too great, so I think, most of the interactions happen on other platforms anyways…

                But well, did you go through their “Request an account” form?
                https://makertube.net/signup

      • trem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        8 days ago

        For community, I would recommend posting your videos to Mastodon as well. You can upload to PeerTube and then just “boost” the post from your Mastodon account. Of course, also make ample use of hashtags.

        Mastodon is more focused on people and what they’re doing, unlike Lemmy which is more focused on news and discussions. That’s why I’m recommending it here.
        Like, it’s not just a technology thing. Folks on Mastodon are actually interested in getting to know people, whereas on Lemmy, they’re generally not.

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          1·
          8 days ago

          I’m learning people exist as persistent entities on Lemmy, an experience I only had on the very tiniest of subreddits… this might be fun! thanks for the tip!

          • trem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            2·
            8 days ago

            Yeah, Lemmy is much better for that than Reddit. 😅

            But yeah, Mastodon is actually built around people being the persistent entities that you follow, so it’s like a magnitude better still.