Quotemusician   /mjuːz'ɪʃən/
Synonyms:

    * noun: player, bandsman, music player, composer

    *
      musicians plural

    *
      A musician is a person who plays a musical instrument as their job or hobby. N-COUNT

I agree with devi's assessment. I think you can still call yourself a musician if you just do it because you love it. You're not a professional musician, but you're not precluded from calling yourself that, just like amateur golfers call themselves golfers even though they're not Tiger Woods.

That said, I sing jazz and play guitar. I used to play drums and sax, but haven't done so in years.

Dennis

Yeah so many people seem to think its some sort of gift, or special ability - and for sure a natural sense of rhythm helps, but it can be taught, or at least approximated, same with pitch - but for the most part it's just years and years and years of working on it.  Day in and day out.  When you want to, and when you really don't.  I've listened to some of the best players do their warm-ups, and even after 30+ years of playing, gold records and all that acclaim, and there they are, running scales over, and over, and over.  You have to do it until you can do it without thinking, so that your fingers just go there, and then you have to work everyday to keep up that ability and stay on that level.

It's like a lot of the kids I work with watch me do something and ask "what's the trick" and quite simply the trick is I've been doing that for over 30 years.  No trick, just endless repetition.

Vocals, guitars, basses. I have been playing bass guitar since the age of 13(a long time), guitars since 14. I have been able to sing lead & harmony since I was very young. I consider myself to be Semi-pro right now--I can step up with the big boys occasionally but do not presently do this for my living although I have in the past. I have played covers of everything from ELP to Hank Jr, played in original bands and some southern gospel too(my father was a SG/country singer from the 50s & 60s). I also played in bands that opened shows for Hank Jr, Lee Greenwood, TG Shepard, and others.

I have been around a great many good musicians and most will play every day but not all. Muscle memory comes with difficulty and quickly disappears with little or no practice. Most of those who don't play daily won't let two days go by without practicing.

Randi

Quote from: tekla on January 08, 2010, 12:50:42 PM
The old professional adage about practice is "if you skip one day, you notice, if you skip two days, your wife/GF notices, if you skip three days, everybody notices."

And old acquaintance of mine, who is a highly successful musician asks "How often do you practice?" when other people come up to him and says: "Hey, I'm a musician too."  If the answer is not "Everyday" he just kinda blows them off.

I do the same deal with people who say they are writers.  I ask, how many pages they write a day, or at least, how many hours do you sit there and try to write, and if they are not trying to write every day, they are not trying very hard to be a writer.

Actually, you can still be pro if you don't practice every day...  my band once went 2 months with out practicing or playing... played a show... To us, we were just alittle off on the backing vocals... but still tight in everything else, to the crowd and fans we were spot on... Music is in the ears of the listener.

Most of my music teachers pointed out that there are two types of players... Those who are naturals and those who need lots of practice. Those who are naturals are able to play well with little practice, those who are not naturals must practice constantly...

Eventually it boils down to nothing more than muscle memory... your fingers, arms, mouth, throat remember where they need to be with out you thinking about it. Once you hit that point, it doesn't matter how you define musician. you are one... period.

Perhaps, but I sure don't see it much - if at all - at the level I'm working at, and that holds true with the people who are selling out arenas or little clubs.  Heck, I have to do 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night just to keep the calluses up.  Someone once asked Jerry Garcia why, on top of touring with the Dead doing 150+ shows a year, he also played in the JGB, with Grisman and that bunch, had a bluegrass band going on the side, and even did the odd acoustic gig with John Kahn here and there, and his response was that he had to play everyday and he hated to practice, so... 

That I do believe LoL

One thing though, my band has been at it for 10 years... alittle over 9 years when the no practice thing happened.  Its going to happen again, I'm recovering from a serious shoulder injury and cant really play. In our first 2 years we played 650 shows... and when we do practice, its usually 4-6hr sessions.

Yeah, long ago and far away in what now seems like another life altogether Jer let me play his Doug Irwin guitar (Rosebud) until Steve Parrish told me if I didn't put it down he would shoot me (and he was a serious as a heart attack).  I did have to think for a second or two.  Nice guitar.

One can definitely slide by on natural skill, but talent can only get you so far.  To be a really good musician, you have to have natural ability and work your ass off.  That actually applies to being really good at anything (oh look, I'm pretending to be wise, while actually I'm parroting ideas that have been said by many other people).

Luck, good management, and excellent PR skills help too.  At least if you want to play someplace besides the bedroom.

I'm reminded of back when U-Tube first came out, and there were all these vids of kids and such just doing a total shred from their bedroom and we were down in the catering area watching them and were kidding the guy with us who was from some metal band about how good these kids were and he said "Eh, being able to play on your bed is not doing 90 minutes night in and night out in front of people with a band."  And he had a point.

Vocals, didjeridoo and a bit of violin.

Piano is my main instrument now.  I used to play mallet (keyboard) instruments and various drums including tympani.  I own a bass guitar but rarely play it.  I've played some brass and woodwind as well.

Originally guitar and vocals in my band.
Then that ended and joined our drummers side band on bass, our old guitarist ended up on drums a few years later.
Then after that the three of us started another band, me still on bass and the other two swapping between drums/vox and guitar/vox.
Now I have one of their drum kits at my house and I'm slowly getting better.. but since HRT my interest has faded, not sure if they're related though.
I want to, in the future record a bunch of shoegazer kinda songs.. a lot of atmosphere and noise ^_^
I just hope I feel inspired in the future because right now I'm ready to sell them all >_>
I use a fender jazz bass, epiphone SG, big muff and a laney RB9 with a laney 4x10 and a marshall 15".

I kinda lost interest after deciding to transition.

But now I'm thinking to either start up a "Chick" band or band full of trans people or maybe help a newer band with some guitar and maybe vocal work

Im a guitar player - 6string acoustic, 12string acoustic, electric, mandolin and now electri resonator.

Also play the blues harp

Start a band with me Virginia.  I've already picked out a name.

And the name of this band is SCREAMING CROTCHFRUIT!

I figure we don't even have to perform, just show up and sell t-shirts.

I talked to the Gretsch/Fender guy about an anti-endorsement.  They would pay us NOT to play their stuff (or to even be seen near it) and buy us like Epiphone equipment to show off.  As soon as the manufactures hear us, they'll be in a bidding war to get us to play the other guys' stuff.

In case we have to play, I've written a couple of songs with the people I work with based largely on things we've heard people say on Taylor Street on in the theater.

I'm Not Contagious Anymore
Brown Note Blues
Crack Ho 4 Jesus

and the big finale song, cause after you do this one, you better run
We ->-bleeped-<-ed Your Mother (And She Wasn't That Good)

Can't you just hear kids singing along with that?  Warms my heart it does.

So many people start out to be the next Rolling Stones and fail.  Most in fact.  So there is a hella lot more fail than success.  So, if we start out to fail, how could we not succeed?

So that's where I've been going wrong?

If I try to screw things up to begin with I'll prob. get it right?

Show biz is all about smashing people's dreams and breaking their hearts, if we set out to fail, we can't help but to be huge.

And even the Gretsch/Fender rep thought the reverse endorsement was a great idea.  Who knows how much money we can make by not endorsing other products.

Look, you ever see some real fat person walking down the street with some designer name on their chest along with the food stains and think "Hey, if I was that designer I'd pay her NOT to wear that."  It's brilliant.

Oh gosh, you don't want to me start putting up pix of guitar porn, I've been taking closeups of the star's guitars for a long time now, some of them are even good.