flyfisher Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 [quote name='blackmn90' timestamp='1324036624' post='1470013'] I think now the only reason this thread is carrying on is because people want it to for their own boredom and lack of things to complain about. write to the BBC complaining about the cold or whatever you boring bastards do but stop ruining basschat with your wrong opinions and negativity. [/quote] Well that's just your opinion of course but it sounds pretty wrong and negative to me. The OP asked for 'any advice' so how would you suggest respondents decide what is a right or wrong opinion? How about we all assume that the OP doesn't require your help in censoring "wrong opinions" and is perfectly able to analyse the responses and decide for himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EssentialTension Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 [quote name='jakenewmanbass' timestamp='1323999812' post='1469749'] Sorry to have missed the ensuing gents... Guess what... I've been in a sw***y London hotel earning a nice wedge for 45 mins of quality music with some seriously talented individuals... eg Pat Illingworth of Bass Day Marcus Miller accompanist fame on drums, head of music at Salford university Robin Dewhurst on keys and the dynamite Mark Crooks on Sax and clarinet, working for an old pal Simon Milner-Edwards who runs a few function bands, all long standing colleagues of mine. Last night I played at Newmarket Racecourse, tomorrow I'm at the same hotel, Tuesday I was teaching, at London Centre of Contemporary music... depping for Rich Brook who is on tour with ABC, I also taught in my home studio today and I have sessions happening in there and other places too... Earning a living from music is fabulously rewarding, I have been all over the world in my job, I have raised a family of three kids, (wife didn't work until the last child went to school) I have played in palaces, country manors, stadiums, (and muddy fields) for royalty, presidents and everyone else. I don't make a fortune but then I couldn't give a sh*t what car I drive, I meet and have met some fantastically interesting people... It's there if you want it... EDIT.. seriously mods... s_wan_ky gets asterisked? [/quote] Excellent, in every sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chlo_treacher Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Well if it helps, I went to icmp in north london to study on the bass degree course. It was a 3 year course, I stayed for a year and the reason I left were because I ended up getting so many professional job offers, it was impossible to attend the classes. I was studying to be a working musician so as soon as the work started to come in thick enough, I left uni for the work. [b]BUT[/b] had I not gone to uni for that year, I wouldn't have met the people or had the courage to go out and just do it. It [b]is[/b] all about networking in this business but sometimes a degree course can the first push in the right direction to start that process. Arni the bassist from the Vaccines was in my class, and well everyone knows how well he's doing! Phil Simmonds, Jessie J's/Alexandra Burke's bassist has just graduated from Bass Tech. Its safe to say he's doing pretty good now and I have a funny feeling he wasn't doing as good before he started to study! Remember there are also other benifits from degrees in music such as the ability to go on to do a pgce for teaching music. My course actually had a section in the third year where you did lesson plans and class teaching and if you passed you got a certificate at the end of it to make you a partly qualified music teacher in schools and such. Good courses will open your eyes to different areas of music that you never previously thought you could do and will help you gain skills to be able to go into them. If you go to uni for the right reasons and dont let uni become your 'gig' I personally feel its a fantastic path to follow. Good luck! x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leftybassman392 Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 (edited) I was in the business for around 15 years until my enforced retirement last year. It helped to pay for a nice house to live in, all the instruments & amps I could ever possibly need (and them some! ), a pretty well equipped project studio (as those who bought it all when I sold it off last autumn will testify); and the current toy of choice has a Porsche badge on the nose. If I had it to do again, the only thing I would change would be to up my tuition fees a little and haggle a bit harder for gig fees. Apart from that, not much. Edited December 16, 2011 by leftybassman392 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Machines Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16218284"]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16218284[/url] . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakeBrownBass Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 [quote name='Machines' timestamp='1324120679' post='1470960'] [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16218284"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-16218284[/url] . [/quote] The computers not going to write the song for you.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 [quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1324123741' post='1471001'] The computers not going to write the song for you.... [/quote] This is also assuming that songs become popular based purely on their musical merit... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakeBrownBass Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 [quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1324127941' post='1471078'] This is also assuming that songs become popular based purely on their musical merit... [/quote] It also doesn't take into account how much financial backing songs in the top 10 get with promotion to drive sales... Not worthy of a news story IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobodysprefect Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 (edited) Has been an interesting thread! And gets quite a bit of frank discussion, too. I'm graduating in 17 months with BSc, MSc(economics, finance, business law), LLB and LLM (Criminal & Process Law) (Yes, that's two complete 3 year bachelor's and 2 separate master's degrees, would take 10 years if you were to do them one after another... uh.) and I gotta say... [b]Do what you love![/b] I just got told by a loverrrly Polish girl that my eyes really light up when we talk intent. And that's all I should do with her, lest I anger the wife. [b]Listening to sensible advice[/b] and going after the MSc first[b] has felt like a real mistake.[/b] Because in the time between then and now we've had a credit crunch and a eurocrisis... And I absolutely hate working in commerce or industry. On the flip side, without a degree in the financial side of the world, I wouldn't be half as well positioned to prosecute or judge financial crime. Relevance to thread? I should probably study the standards of proof in piracy cases. My hunch is that the standard the copyright owners have been allowed to get away with may well be an interesting one. It's a pretty long line of legal reasoning and probably wouldn't work in your common law system of thought. I'd be willing to share the reasoning, but maybe not in this thread. Any interest? Point is, there are more distractions fighting for the consumers' entertainment money (and[b] declining real incomes if you look at income v. housing prices[/b], not income v. electric toy prices) and with youtube and spotify the young generations don't have to get into the habit of buying records I got into, which will, in the long run, probably mean a shrinking proportion of disposable income spent on records, but more on console games, DVDs, TV sets etc. Like Jake said, live music is on the up, though. OTOH the record companies are branching out into extracting revenue from merchandise sales and so forth. It flows fairly easily from corporate mindset and bargaining power. [b]What you'd expect from corporate[/b] lawyers, really. The professional musician has always had a different lifestyle from the nine to five worker. In Finland the prospects are worse* than they've ever been, though, so I would recommend a young person get an electrician's or a plumber's certificate so they can do that for 1-2 days per week and live on that salary while perfecting their craft. But then you have that backup plan that makes giving up easier... *the real (that's 'inflation and tax corrected') salary for the best players in my town has been on the decline for some time and there's no change in view. Then again, as Bilbo said, many positions offer less real salary now. Kinda lucked out in that my #1 love tends to pay off well. Edited December 17, 2011 by nobody's prefect Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobodysprefect Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 I suppose I should save everyone the trouble and write a condensed version with the implications spelt out right away: My 'Life lessons and advice for non-perfect people:' First: You can't be THE BEST in everything, or maybe anything. But more importantly, you can never be [b]your [/b]best in what you don't love. And being your best is it's own reward. Second: the times is hard - for everybody! Environmental degradation (I'm looking at you, baby boomers! You f***tards chose to view using up non-renewables as [i]income[/i] instead of eating up our capital) and general societal trends which I won't bother to type out but which are well known in social sciences have put the writing on the wall: declining standards of living ahead in the West. (FFSG) Third: learn enough legalese to know when you should contact a lawyer. It's usually sooner than you think. It's also cheaper to do it sooner. Fourth: as a cancer survivor: you can't plan everything ahead. So don't make too intricate 30-year plans. Make sure you enjoy what you plan on doing for a living at least somewhat. Could be you die the first day of retirement. (As if there's a retirement for us! I kill me! ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDaddy Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 [quote name='JakeBrownBass' timestamp='1324123741' post='1471001'] The computers not going to write the song for you.... [/quote] not yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 How to look at this..?? How long is a piece of string, IMO..!! Your desires, goals and all the rest at 20 might not be the same as at30 or 40. Are your priorities the same through those ages..?? I think it is far easier to prolong a career of sorts into your 60's if evidenced by the old boys touring their ex-name gig around Europe.. You'll see them turn up at all sorts of festivals..they are well looked after and the market determines whether they get asked back and are therefore viable.. Will your earnings keep pace with the guy in your class who now works for the council on a decent salary..?? who knows. Is a new car every few years important to you or your family..?? Can you/do you plough funds into a pension..? Will you be the player you want to be...if you have to hold down a tough and demanding career..?? Zillions of variables... so you should at least study whilst you decide. I only know a handful of people who have made real money out of music as opposed to survived of sorts for 20 years or so...and by that, I would say they have been able to accrue a standard of living that the worker with an above average yearly salary could achieve over that time, with family and kids. To do that, they had to tour with very big name groups and earn fabulously well for a short time...they still take the £50-100 jazz gigs now..but then they can also afford to ..presumably. It really really depends on what is important to you and how you manage any changes that come your way.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle psychosis Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 [quote name='AttitudeCastle' timestamp='1323977050' post='1469495'] I was told that studying physics will earn you more or less minimum wage unless you do great things, (not saying you haven't or won't this is just another example!) and that if you actually want to study physics you're more or less giving up a fancy car and a fancy house. [/quote] I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion but I had to once I read this post---its [i]completely and utterly[/i] wrong. Physics is one of the best degrees you can do in terms of getting a good, well-paid job at the end. People who are highly numerate and highly trained in problem solving are very attractive to the financial services industry (actuaries, risk analysts, investment bankers), the manufacturing industry (quality assurance, manufacturing engineering, r&d engineering). You can go into teaching, become a patent lawyer, write computer games or other software---even working as a post-doc at the bottom of the academic ladder you'll probably be earning upwards of £28k. Don't just believe me either, ask PriceWaterhouseCooper: http://www.rsc.org/images/EconomicBenefitsHigherEducationQualifications_tcm18-12647.pdf They did a study for the Royal Society of Chemists and found that the top five highest paying degrees (on average) are Medicine, Law, Engineering, Chemistry, and Physics. You'll find similar figures from other sources if you look for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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