How do good musicians find each other?

Pharaoh

Pharaoh

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Oct 16, 2002
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I find it amazing that the SymX guys found each other and a perfect musical match. My son is a 17 year old prog metal drummer and he's very good. But there is NO-ONE anywhere around here who is a musician serious and / or talented enough to play intricate music like this, or even care to. :cry:

How do really good musicians find each other to start something great like Symphony X did (or any of the other awesome bands, for that matter)?

Everybody's into Nu Metal, and Pop Punk. The kid is like a freak in school because he's into GOOD music like symphonic and prog metal, can't even turn anybody on to the music. :rolleyes: My younger daughters are SymX fans and they're up against kids who are obsessed with Eminem and Avril Lavigne, etc.:eek:
 
:lol: Good question. A good place to find good musicians that share your interest in music would be a conservatory or music school. I haven't found a decent musician to play with yet, but when I get to college I think I'll find some good people to play (in a band). The only good musicians I know are my former teacher, my orchestra director and of course my orchestra fellows.
 
Originally posted by Pharoah
Everybody's into Nu Metal, and Pop Punk. The kid is like a freak in school because he's into GOOD music like symphonic and prog metal, can't even turn anybody on to the music. :rolleyes: My younger daughters are SymX fans and they're up against kids who are obsessed with Eminem and Avril Lavigne, etc.:eek:
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Welcome to my world.
 
Good to hear you're raising your daughters on good music:D I remember back in high school, only about 3 other guys I knew listened to stuff like Symphony X and Dream Theater and the like. I didn't know any girls that listened to music like that.:(
 
I know EXACTLY how he feels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only I'm a 14 year old guitarist. And the laughing stock in music taste at my school. Apparently my type of music is "Gay", "Speedy", "Shit for losers" and "Singers who don;t have balls" or so my "non-musical friends say.

Where does this guy live? Mabey we can hook up to a band?

See my recent post in the "Are you more than metal" thread to see more about me.
 
I'd so want to start something like Symphony X... but damn, I need practice... But nevermind that, same over here.. No one around here really listens to good music.. Am I the only one who just gets annoyed/frustrated when someone plays stuff like The Calling in class?? And they ask you to turn down what you are listening to because.... No idea, people just don't know good music anymore... Damn.
 
RE: SyX-Fan......No idea, people just don't know good music anymore... Damn.

But I truly feel that we are so fortunate to have found good meaningful music. Speaking for myself, I was discouraged for years until I was introduced to this genre, and I was a performing musician for many years. I now know where the "true" talent is. The commercial music market is nothing but bullshit in my opinion.

I just wonder how great musicians with the same desires and goals can find one another in one geographical area. Fate? It seems like it would be a major effort and even major relocation to pull something so substantial together. :confused:

PolyeidusRE: Polyeidus....Well, I play prog metal bass, And it just so happens that I'm moving to PA in a couple months. Maybe we could hook up! WaaHoo..I'll tell Bren. Do you sing???
 
Yeah I know exactly how you guys feel. There are SOME people in my school who have a bit of musical taste but that's about 4-5 out of 1500...
In my class there's only one girl who's into metal and the rest just follows the crowd by worshipping popwhores and the like.
They're all like 'bweh put that metal stuff out' without even listening to it. And if they accidentally listen to it it's 'huh, is this metal??' They think it's some kind of satan-worshipping music or something. :err:
 
Try getting your son a little more open-minded. If he wades into combat, guns blazing with the kind of prog elitist attitude you display, then people will of course be hostile towards him and his favourite type of music. You say that they don`t listen to good music. Well, they think they do. Music has entirely subjective quality, and if they like what they`re hearing, then let them. In no way is Symphony X or Dream Theater objectively better than Avril Lavigne or Eminem, even if you and I think they are. Why not try to open your sons mind towards the taste of his peers? If he joins a pop-rock band, then maybe he can try to get them into his music by working patiently towards that goal. If he is as good as you say, maybe they`ll be inspired into spending hours in the woodshed trying to match up with him?

Sometimes, keeping an open mind might be a good idea.
 
Originally posted by Harp Heaven
Try getting your son a little more open-minded. If he wades into combat, guns blazing with the kind of prog elitist attitude you display, then people will of course be hostile towards him and his favourite type of music. You say that they don`t listen to good music. Well, they think they do. Music has entirely subjective quality, and if they like what they`re hearing, then let them. In no way is Symphony X or Dream Theater objectively better than Avril Lavigne or Eminem, even if you and I think they are. Why not try to open your sons mind towards the taste of his peers? If he joins a pop-rock band, then maybe he can try to get them into his music by working patiently towards that goal. If he is as good as you say, maybe they`ll be inspired into spending hours in the woodshed trying to match up with him?

Sometimes, keeping an open mind might be a good idea.
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bullsh*t
 
OK, Harp Heaven..I can see what you're saying. He shows an interest in studio work, and I stressed that he MUST be open to everything. I got my experience in a Country band, which I didn't enjoy most of the music, but the experience was significant. But he loves the challenge of progressive drumming, just as my daughter does with electric violin. They get bored, and frustrated.

You stated an excellent point, and yes, I'll admit...I came across with a "prog elitist attitude." My wife and I closed ourselves out for years from much new music, till we found this, through our son.
Thank you. You are right, and I appreciate your advice. Bad tact...yes, sorry (I refrain).
 
Originally posted by Harp Heaven
Care to explain why, oh fountain of wisdom? Please refrain from posting things like that without an explanation. It is bad tact.
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Too worked up to grace you with more at the time.

Good music is more than subjective my dear harpy.
And to explain, I'll first give you a defiition of bad music.

Bad music is poorly written, poorly performed, and poorly arranged.
 
Originally posted by Pharoah
RE: SyX-Fan......No idea, people just don't know good music anymore... Damn.

But I truly feel that we are so fortunate to have found good meaningful music. Speaking for myself, I was discouraged for years until I was introduced to this genre, and I was a performing musician for many years. I now know where the "true" talent is. The commercial music market is nothing but bullshit in my opinion.

Click to expand...


I was only listening to punk about six months ago, was kinda closed minded towards metal (*is ashamed*) luckily I met someone who introduced me to Nightwish.. Then Stratovarius... Then... who knows, I'm into prog now and I feel GOOD about it :)

(Still love punk though.. just listen to it very rarely..)
 
Too worked up to grace you with more at the time.
Click to expand...
If you say so.
Good music is more than subjective my dear harpy.
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No, it isn`t. Art is entirely subjective, it has been demonstrated by avant-garde artists again and again and again. Mauricio Kagels Acustica is a 60 minute long semi- improvisational piece with people making noises and doing filtersweeps over sounds of electric drills. Is that music? Kagel thinks so. Many of his fans do. In fact, a lot of them think it is good music. I don`t think it is, does that make me right?
Bad music is poorly written, poorly performed, and poorly arranged.
Click to expand...
The Shaggs were a girl-band that made the news in the 70`s. They had basically been locked up with instruments by their superstitious father, whose grandmother had foreseen that the girls would be pop-stars. Since they had no outside influences or teachers except for a lone record by an obscure 50`s popstar, they had no idea of what the established rules for music were. They practiced for two years. Their first album, "Philosophy of the World", is a fucking horrible album in my ears. They can`t play worth shit , their guitars are out of tune, the drummer has no sense of rhythm, the singer is off-key all the time. The songs are terrible, with the same chords being repeated all the time, with lyrics that could have come straight out of a 6-year olds mouth. That fits your criterias for bad music, right? It sure does to me. A great number of other people, think otherwise. Frank Zappa had the Shaggs as his 3rd favourite band, ranking them higher than the Beatles. Critics all over the world agree that the Shaggs have a primitive charm to them, and give their albums top marks. Who is right?

Unless you want to claim omniscience and some kind of divine understanding of music, you have no right to say that music is objectively bad or good. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is a fitting quote here.

Pharoah:

Thanks for being understanding. I too used to be gung-ho and violently opposed to other tastes in music, so I try my best to recommend not being that way to others who are. If your son is interested in studio work/engineering, then he must indeed be prepared for all kinds of music.

I understand that he wants challenge. But sometimes, you just have to take whatever you got! There is nothing that implies that whatever band he joins might not mutate into something more to his liking.
 
Now all of a sudden, from Harp Heaven's comment
by working patiently towards that goal. If he is as good as you say, maybe they`ll be inspired into spending hours in the woodshed trying to match up with him? .....I am thinking about Mike Romeo's first band "Phantom's Opera". They were very Bon Jovi-ish with a commercial sound. But MJR's influence AND personal experience with them was great, I'm sure. And I guess he really didn't compromise his own developing style to be a part of that.:)
 
It is hard to find these people but they show up in the damnedest places. My assistant team leader here on this deployment, turns out that he is a prog drummer, and a good one too. He had never heard of Symphony X, but I let him listen to it and he is hooked now! :)
 
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