How far away are you from the best that you can be?

[theBadger]

Musically I mean.

Firstly: What is your goal? What are you hoping to be able to achieve in your musical world?

More importantly: How much progress have you made towards achieving that goal? Is there more you could do to achieve your aims?

I've always wanted to play in a reasonably good live covers band. I know that's not a high musical goal to set myself but I've been doing it for fifteen happy years and it brings me pleasure.

Tonight I watched a few youtubes that showed me how I could maybe improve in this simple task.

So.

You.

What do you do; and how are you planning to do it even better?

Just asking?

tB.

[Watson]

This is a good thread Badger.

I'd like to think I'm on a musical journey and hope that this week I'm a tiny little bit better at doing what I do t(whatever that is!) han I was last week. If that makes sense?

I've played in bands (as a guitarist) over the years and those experiences improved me as a musician. Until last year I had never sang publicly but now do regular low profile 'gigs' at a life drawing class. This allows me to knock out some interesting covers but also to showcase some of my own songs. I wish I'd done this years ago!

After teaching myself everything from being about 15, I took up piano lessons earlier this year. I'm MILES away from where I'd like to be on the piano but make a little bit of progress each week. The piano lessons and theory have helped me with my guitar playing, bass playing and arranging.

As for how far away I am from my own goals, I'm not sure. I just see making music as an adventure, a personal and spiritual journey. I want to become better at mixing and mastering because I know that this side of things lets me down but then again I'm having to work within financial and technical limitations too.

I hope this response doesn't come across as pretentious. It's a great thread and made me think. It's good to think sometimes


Thanks,




Scott

[r00n]

well mr watson... its not so elementary...
if you have decided to play 2 instruments then you are only going to give 1/2 the attention either deserves. Sooner you will say to yourself that you want to play the drums. They all sound so good. Then after practicing them for every spare hour of the day you will be diagnosed with lateral epicondylitus and not be able to move your elbow for 3 months because you have hammered all the tendons in it with fine motor movements required to play all these interests. Your cello will sit on its stand for 3 months untouched, your grand piano will remain unplayed, and your flagship roland electronic drum kit will be idle because of the agony in your elbows. There is no possible way to get a sound out of the stratocaster.

Now thankfully this elbow disorder that i have suffered with is subsiding... i am really starting to think of some relaxation techniques before playing any instrument. I dont thiknk i will ever be at a stage where i can say i have made it. The artist always will see the mistakes and ways to improve.

[Watson]

You sound a bit like me r00n! Your post made me laugh. I've always wanted a cello too

[moose]

I agree that when learning an instrument it is useful to have "goals". Goals help to keep things into perspective and having some aims can be a boost to the learning process and also a guidance to the techniques needed to achieve such goals.
Making music is a different story. For me at least. As a guitarist my goal is to be today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today. How good I could be I'll never know unless I'll hit the "no-more-progress" wall, which I hope I'll never do.
When I make music (compose, create) I don't have goals. It just comes out. Sometimes I like it allot, sometimes I don't. Sometimes others like it allot and other times they like it less. That's all there is to it.

ps: thanks for the tip r00n.. now I am sure I'll never pick up drumming!!!

[Audi01]

Firstly: What is your goal? What are you hoping to be able to achieve in your musical world?

More importantly: How much progress have you made towards achieving that goal? Is there more you could do to achieve your aims?

+1 great thread tB



Goal?
My goal was to be able to (a) produce the music I hear in my mind and (b) to be able to remix other people's tracks, and get paid for it so I could do it allllll day long every day. To do this I've had to largely abandon my druming and guitaring and learn the keyboard. I've now learnt the keyboard enough to do what I need, however there's always more to learn there.

Progress?
I've come a long way in both of these things and while I'm content to a small degree, as r00n says the job of the musician is never over. What's left to do? Make more tracks.

Side note: My goal has changed since starting. Initially I wanted to become a producer...an elite-pro-hax producer that would be sought after by the DJs. Since starting in techno in 1991, I have found the love-motivation in the scene has been taken over. As usual, something cutting edge appears in humankind, it goes mainstream and they turn it into a vice. So with the techno industry feeding off this love while the mainstream DJs/etc behave like greedy banker assholes, I've chosen to leave behind the producer goal. My goal now is to produce tracks for myself and others to listen to. If this manifests into a producer paid job great but those DJs/producers/labels (that are part of the techno-vice scene) need a slap in the face for what they've done imo.

@tB - proper covers bands are awesome. There should have been many prime time music shows based on this imo. They use covers in X-Factor and Idol TV shows all the time but there's no real recognition of the whole scene imo. Props to covers!

@Watson - I've tried singing while playing the guitar but it's not easy I find! Seems like I need to be able to play the song from muscle memory only so I can focus on singing? lol

@r00n - how many years you been playing your instruments for? (list them all pls )

@moose - do you have any tracks to upload in the Stage section?

[moose]

I have, highqf. Thanks for asking.

Was waiting to be a little more acquainted with this place before flooding it with my acoustic crap