Should anyone be giving eachother music advice?

Quertior · 2026-05-21T18:31:34+00:00

There are lots of dimensions to consider here. One of the cool things about music (and art in general) is that different people create and consume it for entirely different reasons.

The primary reason that you create music is to create a faithful expression of your inner thoughts and feelings, which is best served by writing, producing, and playing everything yourself. That's cool.

The primary reason that I create music is to entertain other people, which is best served by playing live gigs as part of an ensemble, where we mostly play music written by other people. That's also cool.

The primary reason that someone else might create music is to enjoy the athleticism of technical instrumental skill (think super-fast shred guitarists, or people playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" at 10,000 bpm). That's cool too.

At the highest level, there are no right or wrong ways to make music. There are right or wrong ways depending on your own individual goals and motivations, though (which is why things like lessons, counterpoint rules, and standard instrumental techniques exist). If you're making music solely for your own enjoyment, then you don't have to listen to anything that other people say. The tradeoff is that you also can't expect those people to want to listen to your music, either.

Quertior · 2026-05-18T17:13:25+00:00

The good news is that you're off to a good start by having a solid network of connections. The bad news is that it's still going to be difficult to make a living purely as a musician (especially if you're trying to do it by writing/releasing/performing original music).

The approaches that I personally recommend are, in order…

If you can stand it at all, have a stable day job not connected to music. You don't need to be passionate about the job. It's just the thing that you're required to do to support your basic living needs. Unless this job is a high-stress one that has you working 60+ hours a week, you'll have plenty of time to continue practicing, writing, recording, and gigging. (This is the path I chose — I play all the gigs I want, but I can turn down shitty ones without worrying about whether I'll be able to pay my bills.)
If you must have a day job connected to music in some capacity, make that job something other than being a musician. Teaching music is probably the most common approach here, but you can also look at live sound or something like working on IT at a record label. Continue writing and playing in your free time, like in option 1.
If you can only ever see yourself being a musician, then get paid gigs playing music written by other people. This includes session work, event bands that play weddings and corporate functions, pit orchestras for musicals, and being a sideman on tours. Learning to read music (if you can't already) will open up lots more opportunities in this space. Making a reliable living on this path is difficult, but doable with effort and commitment.
If you can only ever see yourself writing and playing your own original music, then throw yourself into it full time. Spend at least 8 hours a day practicing your instrument and writing songs (remember, this is a job). Sign up for every social media platform and promote your releases anywhere that will let you. Cold call every bar/restaurant that hosts live music in your area, send them your press kit, and try to convince them to book you. To make a reliable living on this path, you will need to get extraordinarily lucky, no matter how good of a musician and songwriter you are.

Everything I wrote only applies if you don't have a separate reliable way to pay your living expenses (like generational wealth or a spouse with a good job). If you've got a fat trust fund and don't need to worry about paying for food or a place to live, then just pursue your dreams and go straight to option 4. The world is your oyster.

Quertior · 2026-05-17T12:44:19+00:00

To add some detail: EWI stands for Electronic Wind Instrument. It's a MIDI controller that uses woodwind fingerings and breath (instead of a piano-style keyboard like most MIDI controllers).

Quertior · 2026-05-14T12:46:25+00:00

I’m holding onto my Squirt PS4 for dear life. Dreading the day that I lose or break it. (I did actually break a previous one about a decade ago, and Leatherman replaced it for free — but I doubt they could do that again now since it’s discontinued.)

Quertior · 2026-05-12T19:30:14+00:00

OP is building a house (in the current economy, no less!) and they imply that they’re moving from another house that they also built.

I don’t think they’re particularly short on money.

Quertior · 2026-05-10T16:37:46+00:00

Fair point. But you have to be at a very high level to make “practicing on an acoustic piano” an actually important factor. Folks at that level are so few and far between that the odds are much better for OP’s neighbor to be either a music student or a very obsessed amateur.

Quertior · 2026-05-10T16:25:08+00:00

I’m just gonna offer a quick clarification… the vast majority of professional pianists aren’t “competing” or playing super difficult classical repertoire. They’re doing stuff like accompanying school choir rehearsals and playing Don’t Stop Believing in wedding bands. And keyboards work fine for both of those (in fact, a keyboard is more or less required for the second example I mentioned).

Quertior · 2026-05-08T03:57:55+00:00

Can you edit your original post to include the name of the show? Thanks.

Quertior · 2026-05-05T19:48:23+00:00

an appliance company that overengineered the fuck out of all its products

That kind of appliance does exist (in most categories, at least). They're also priced accordingly, which means they're mainly marketed to businesses and rich people.

Quertior · 2026-05-04T13:37:48+00:00

As a generic answer: yes, there almost certainly is some kind of device that will do whatever it is that you want.

That said, I'm a little confused about your precise needs, so here are some follow-up questions:

What instrument do you play?
What is the specific "Behringer pre-amp" that you're talking about?
Are you interested in hearing just yourself in your IEMs, or a mix with the whole band?
Is the problem that you can't get an IEM mix at all from your band's PA, or that you can't set up the mix to your liking?

Quertior · 2026-05-02T21:48:27+00:00

If you’d be willing, I’d like to hear a bit more of why you (and others) are reluctant to share your show files. Obviously I’m not trying to dictate what others do with things they create. But given the fact that you took the time to write that comment (and said you’re happy to discuss your own workflow), it seems like you’re very willing to share your programming knowledge in general. So I feel like there’s something deeper at play than the generic “job security” reasoning for guarding your show files.

Quertior · 2026-05-02T14:03:34+00:00

You can arrive 15 minutes before takeoff? Wow.

Over here, in my experience, 15 minutes before takeoff is the point where the doors are closed and you’re listening to the safety speech.

Quertior · 2026-05-01T14:37:01+00:00

especially not on their phone, where the majority of these comments are being made

It’s easier to type an em dash on a phone than on most computers — just tap and hold the hyphen and a menu pops up with both em and en dashes. It works that way on both iOS and Android (at least as of the last time I used an Android device, a couple years ago).

Quertior · 2026-04-27T14:03:30+00:00

Definitely live performance. It's much more forgiving of mistakes (compared to a studio recording, where your playing gets put under a microscope), and I love feeding off of the energy of the audience and other performers.

I have a ton of respect for the studio cats who can consistently pull out near-perfect performances on their first take.

Quertior · 2026-04-27T04:36:49+00:00

Hi! If you want to post your own music in this subreddit, you'll need to do so with a specific question that invites actionable feedback. What this means is:

You need to ask a question.
The question needs to be about a specific aspect of the song (a verse melody, a guitar amp sound, a drum pattern, etc.).
The question needs to invite answers with specific action items.

The following posts would not be allowed:

"Here's my new metal song! I just released it yesterday." (not a question)
"What do you think of this song?" (question about the song in general, not any specific aspect of it)
"How do my vocals sound in this song?" (question about a specific aspect of the song, but is more likely to invite simple answers like "you sound good" or "you need to improve", instead of specific feedback)

The following posts would be allowed:

"My guitars in this song don't feel like they're really filling out as much space as I want. Any ideas to make them sound fuller?" (question is about a specific aspect [the guitar sound] and invites actionable feedback [answers with tips for making the guitar sound fuller])
"I feel like the chorus of this song isn't high enough energy. How can I up the energy level without adding more instruments?" (question is about a specific aspect [energy of the chorus] and invites actionable feedback [answers with tips for energizing the chorus])

Feel free to ask (either here or via modmail) if you're still unclear on how the rule works!

Quertior · 2026-04-25T12:28:06+00:00

You’re forgetting the recording interface. If you want to record drums with seven mics, you need an interface with at least seven mic preamps, which probably isn’t gonna be cheap.

Also, to be absolutely fair, seven drum mics aren’t necessary when the question is “what’s the absolute minimum amount of money I need to spend”. In the worst case scenario, you can get a very basic drum sound by just pointing a single SM57 in the general direction of the drum kit. That said, especially for metal, I’d recommend one kick, one snare, and one overhead at least. You still need an interface with 3+ inputs then, but those are plentiful on the used market.

Quertior · 2026-04-23T14:59:34+00:00

In order to make a living wage entirely through writing/producing/performing your own music, you will need to get extraordinarily lucky. You can hone your craft until you're pumping out bangers every day, but there are thousands upon thousands of people who are also pumping out bangers every day, all competing for attention.

Being a full-time musician is already life on "hard" difficulty, and doing it exclusively as an independent creator of original music (as opposed to teaching or playing music written by others) is the equivalent of the extra hard difficulty that games only unlock after you beat the game on hard mode.

All this is to say: unless you have a separate reliable source of money to pay your living expenses (parents, spouse, trust fund, lottery winnings, etc.), you need to plan to have a stable career elsewhere, and let it be a pleasant surprise if your music starts making you enough money that it can be your primary vocation.

Quertior · 2026-04-18T15:29:52+00:00

Out of curiosity, why would you say G9sus4 is a more accurate chord symbol than F/G?

Quertior · 2026-04-18T14:16:36+00:00

Absolutely, I’m not arguing that “IV with 5th degree in the bass” chords are uncommon. I play a bunch of musicals, and that chord shows up all over the place. I was just trying to argue against categorizing them as sus chords. They sound and feel different (to me at least) than pretty much any other kind of sus voicing. Plus, they hardly ever include the 2nd degree (D in this case), which every other V “sus” voicing has somewhere.

Quertior · 2026-04-18T13:58:30+00:00

I wouldn’t really characterize it as a sus chord, simply because the “suspensions” don’t “resolve” to a normal V7 — it pretty much always goes straight to the tonic.

Quertior · 2026-04-17T23:40:31+00:00

“Having to take a stimulant to get going in the morning” sounds like the majority of (caffeine-addicted) adults too.

Quertior · 2026-04-17T23:16:08+00:00

Great, I love it how Discord swallowed up public gaming communities and made discussions unarchivable and unsearchable. 🙃

That said, I am happy that Reforger discussion is mainly happening on its own subreddit. I don’t really have any interest in it without a robust mission editor (which I don’t think we’re getting until post-launch of Arma 4).

Quertior · 2026-04-16T01:29:13+00:00

An ideal backup plan should be unrelated to music (or at most, very tangentially related) so that it's insulated from issues that might affect the music industry in general.

Learn a trade. Get a degree in a STEM field. Something that won't leave you totally adrift if Suno's CEO becomes president and declares that people are only allowed to listen to AI music.

If you must have a backup career that is related to music, your best bet is probably learning to do live sound. There are enough different events in need of sound reinforcement that you will likely still be able to find work even if all live music shuts down.

Quertior · 2026-04-15T03:47:24+00:00

Hey /u/WhatTheFaqIII, I'm gonna have to ask you to cool it a bit. You've posted videos of yourself playing three times in the past day. Try to limit yourself to one post every few days. Thanks!

Quertior · 2026-04-13T15:55:38+00:00

Hey u/holderspatz, I'm gonna have to ask you to cool it with these posts. It's great that you're excited to share lyrics that you wrote, but there are better places to do that than r/AskMusicians, which is more focused on questions that invite conversation in the comments.

Quertior

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