What is the story with the apparant lack of musicians in Dublin?

Kell

Folks- as you all probably can see, I've posted two ads in the past for singers and guitar players that have resulted in no results. I am just wondering where all the musicians in Dublin are? Are you all in bands or play an instrument but not sure what calibre you are at yet?

I am so interested to find out what you think that I have posted a poll. Please reply so I can find out where all ye are.

knobbles

you left out one option in the voting category-
"Searching but having similar problems finding"

Treebeard

I'm in Wicklow and play guitar but fall into that catagory of not being sure if I'm good enough in my playing to be in a band. What kind of music do you play?

Drunk pirate

I'm a not bad at guitarist. I'm the best amongst my friends, reletives, ppl on streets, it's just I'm probably too young and I wanna start a band with one guitarist like a dimebag no#2

Kell

I am a drummer playing in a band that hasnt really got off the ground for lack of other musicians to take an interest. I am dissappointed in the lack of people who voted on the Poll as well. Lets see, we have had thirty views and only three posted a vote on the Poll. What does that say?

A word from the wise to those of you looking at this that can play but are unsure as to how good you are. The only way you'll really ever progress musically is to play with other musicians. You never know, you just might surprise yourself.

brianjoy

Have a look at my post on this board.

zynaps

It can be daunting when you read the boards out of curiosity, and haven't ever been in a band performing for real before, and all you see is "drummer needed, must have experience of at least 20-30 live gigs!!!" or "super experienced bassist needed" or "continuo harpsichord player needed, must be able to improvise on the spot and impress the whole band and read baroque chord notation"

Also, not everyone is a drummer/singer/bassist/lead guitarist/x86 programmer or good looking!
Nor does everyone always like the NIN/pixies/placebo/etc etc.

zynaps

Kell

Thats what biting the bullet and just going along for the rehearsal is all about. Forget the fact you've never played in a band before, forget that you might not have oodles of experience. A rehearsal will tell you one of two things- a) you're **** and you need to practise more or b) you're better than you thought you were. A good thing to do is work on a style of your own, something that cant be mistaken, whether it's a particular guitar riff or a well placed fill on drums, basically something that makes people sit up and go "sweet. We likes him/her". My fav and it's always worked is a well placed bass/tom triplet.

sparki74

We'll I'm a singer and a musician.... should do more with my voice though. It's very good (and I'm not a self promoter at all!!)

SO if you are looking for someone with a voice with a bit of a folk, jazz, blues influence.... aka a little Eva Cassidy and Sinead O'Conner etc etc ... then I'm your girl

zynaps

Ditto! Except.. with the piano and not so good... and without the Eva Cassidy and Sinéad O'Connor influences

Gotta love jazz though

kamobe

I'm a lone soul who finally stopped talking, and bought himself a guitar about a year ago and half ago. Taught myself how to play, doubt I'd be near good enough to play in a band, similiar with the singing. Gonna head busking soon enough with one of the lads for a laugh

zynaps

Did that on Grafton street with me sister once, when I was like.. 15
The fact that she was playing a cello drowned out my heinously crap playing on me acoustic guitar :P

It was a laugh though, good luck

kamobe

It was a laugh though, good luck

Cheers

Did that on Grafton street with me sister once, when I was like.. 15

I'm 21, left it a bit late to pick up the habit, but why not eh?

Lemming

Originally posted by zynaps
Did that on Grafton street with me sister once, when I was like.. 15
The fact that she was playing a cello drowned out my heinously crap playing on me acoustic guitar :P

It was a laugh though, good luck

You busjked on grafton st. zynaps?

Like meself - used to be in the string quartets (playing Viola). The likes of Champion/marathon sports/hmv h-a-t-e-d us and used to turn up their music really loud so it'd blare out of the shop doors and drown us out. We still made a killing

Anyway, to answer the thread, there are plenty of musicians in Dublin. You've just got to go talk to them. I, for example, play three instruments, hjave played concerts (not the same as gigs) all over Europe and a couple of gigs here in Dublin, but am not in any band/orchestra at present cause I'm not too fussed and am quite happy to be "free-lance" if you will. Talk to me (and many others I suspect) and make me interested and I may just join a band/whatever

Neil3030

Well i for one am in a band so....erm.....there ya go.

zynaps

Originally posted by Lemming
The likes of Champion/marathon sports/hmv h-a-t-e-d us and used to turn up their music really loud so it'd blare out of the shop doors and drown us out. We still made a killing

Actually when I was playing one of the songs (I really was a beginner back then, I even brought the music with me... not that I'm not a beginner really now ), I broke a string for the first time on that guitar, and had no idea how to change the string.
I ran down to Walton's on George's Street, which turned out to be closed, but the guys were still inside talking or something, and one came out and gave me a string for nothing because the till was closed
Then... I still didn't know how to put it on, so I ended up (dunno how) getting a security guard outside Thornton's on Grafton Street to show me (even went and got the pliers himself).

The two of us wrote a cello arrangement for Life on Mars (I'm big into chords on strings), which basically earned all the money...

I'm 20 now, and if I was arsed, I'd do it again (with at least one more person anyway).
You've just gotta go off and do it if you're into the idea!
Also, play to tourists and stuff. The crappy upside down plastic thing someone in a restaurant gave me to sit on (neither of us thought of chairs) started falling apart, and after the resulting me warning it and having it collapse a few times, I looked up and there were three times as many people standing around... so at least three people.

Kell

Originally posted by Lemming
Anyway, to answer the thread, there are plenty of musicians in Dublin.

Lemming- the point of this exercise was to actually get people to come out and say what they do or why there doesnt seem to be a plethora of musicians on the web, when I'd say one in five people that I know can play but wont. You mentioned that there are plenty of musicians out there but that I gotta go and talk to them. This thread has had 155 views and 16 replies including my own input. Where are the opinions or the input from the 139 other viewers? It just doesnt inspire confidence thats all.

Pauleeeeeeee

My personal experience has been:

If the musician is a nice bloke, you can have a laugh with him and is reliable and shows to practices on time all the time, they are gonna be an average or crap musician.

If the bloke is a great musician ( i've only ever encountered one and been in a band with one for a breif period, which shows their rarety ) then they are probably gonna be an unreliable prick.

You can't win....well...i can't anyway.

Lemming

Originally posted by Pauleeeeeeee
If the musician is a nice bloke, you can have a laugh with him and is reliable and shows to practices on time all the time, they are gonna be an average or crap musician.

If the bloke is a great musician ( i've only ever encountered one and been in a band with one for a breif period, which shows their rarety ) then they are probably gonna be an unreliable prick.

Whilst I realise this is your own personal experience Pauleeeeeee (hope I got all the 'e's in there ), I don't agree with it. Having been around the music scene for quite some time, I've encountered both sides of the coin.

I know good musicians that are bang on, and will turn up for a concert/gig at the drop of a hat for ****s and giggles, maybe a few free pints. If they get paid too for it, wayhay!

I also know musicians (one violin player in particular - no names though ***) who think they are god's gift to music, happen to be very good, and are absolute mercenary pr*cks.


Note: ***
Whilst he's certainly a cut above yer average musician, he is not what I would consider truly gifted. ie. like one violinist whom, out of 800 people, was picked to enter the Royal Guild-Halls of Music in London some years back.
- The problem is that he thinks he is

Giblet

Kell, some people look at the thread more than once, theres about 50 unique viewers maybe

miju

I think another reason why musicians don't join bands is because there currently exists in the Irish music scene a HUGE difference in musical opinion.

I myself have been trying to join a band for the last year. However, not one band has been interested simply cos I like the beatles, doors, kinks, the who and so on

BTW if anyone is looking for a guitarist / songwriter give me a PM and I'll give ya a shout back!

nesthead

i got into a band by answering a post on this very board, and i suck!

if i can do it, theres hope for you all!

Pauleeeeeeee

Thats the friggin point. Of course its easy to be in a band with people like yourself who suck.

I want one with talented people...thats ****in impossible to find.

RicardoSmith

Why don't you go to all the gigs you can find, and post ads in the colleges and in the music stores. Both places you find loads of musicians. Though if you find ones that will admit to being "talented" they won't be. Its hard to find like minded people to play in a band with. If was easy everyone would do it wouldn't they?

Define "talented" btw...

Pauleeeeeeee

Well, yeh, of course there are people who are just big headed and say they're brilliant or real talented when they are not but I find most people who say that about themselves are usually just being honest. Usually...unless they follow up the rest of the sentence with a 'but' or 'i'm practicin really hard at my solo's right now man and i think in another year or two i'll be great at them' ( yeh thats a big help to me right now! )

I define talent as good technical ability with and instrument and also a good creative ability.

RicardoSmith

So any one note guitar solos ala Neil Young are out? Are you looking for the Steve Vai types then are you? I'm not flaming I'm just curious on how you quantify "talented".

Have to say I wouldn't consider myself talented. I can make up a decent riff (others say its decent anyway) and shred a bit (I can use my pinky whooo). But I wouldn't have the ear of other people I know who can hear a tune then a month later work it out from memory in about 5 mins on pretty much any instrument. It takes me a while to work out the bones of a song, and lots of practise to get the right feel for it. While I can read music a little bit for other instruments but I never bothered learning how to read quitar music. Can read tab but not especially quickly. Can jam with other people and have had a few sessions with mates for a laugh, but wouldn't have enough experience to gig without a lot of practise. Also I wouldn't know most of the music other people would know as I really only learnt how to play stuff I liked and whatever whomever I was jamming with would play aswell. So I'd have to learn what everyone else is playing. I know what sounds right and how to find a workable scale (for soloing) in what ever song I'm playing but I couldn't tell you the key or the scale that it was. So in a nutshell, I'm not talented

However for what you are looking for I reckon you should define more rigidly what you are looking for in your ad. For example Must have good ear, able to sight read, Playing for 5yrs or more, must have giging experience etc. Some song writing experience or something like that. Then get people to send you a demo tape of something the've done. As anyone with that level of ability or experience has bound to have recorded themselves at some stage or another.

Anyway thats my 2cents.

Pauleeeeeeee

Actually, I'm not really a soloing kinda man ( although one or two songs i've written have got solos in them ). I can play very fast stuff and stuff which requires good technical ability but the music i'd want to play in a band would not be really based around solos....more complicated riffs i suppose.

Also, I feel that people who have good technical ability at an instrument are more freely able to express their idea and be more creative musically ( yeh yeh....dont bring up christ moore ).

If you want to know what I'm looking for exactly just look at the post on this forum I've made in searc of musicians or a band.

Maybe I'm aiming to high...but I'm sick of being in mediocre bands..I wan't to be in a very good band that will get somewhere and I'm just not settling for average anymore.

RicardoSmith

being mediocre doesn't seem to get in the way of all those boy/girl bands though....

Pauleeeeeeee

yeh but thats pop music and they are better looking than me and I want to create GOOD music

Lemming

It is entirely possible to be surrounded by what would be considered good musicians, but in a mediocre band.

Mediocre does not necessarily equal lack of technical ability.

Remember that before you decide that someone is "useless" to you as a musician.

Pauleeeeeeee

I'm well aware of that but as I said, with a decent technical ability usually comes a better creative ability and ability to be 'tight' as a band. With those two factors more often than not your going to have a better than mediocre band.

I know thats not always the case but I'm sure that it more often than not is