The Musical Dreams & Ambitions Thread. What Are Yours?

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Goatlord
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Come on, I know you have some. šŸ˜

My intention is for this to be a safe space where we can share our whacky dreams and ambitions
when it comes to making music. Maybe you just want to find a few guys to play with in the garage,
or basement. Maybe you want to write more. Maybe you want to get on with some chaps in a cover
band. Maybe you want to write and record a Progressive Rock Concept Album that 3 people outside
of your family and friends will ever hear. :LOL:

I may be guilty of that last one. I have played live a ton. I have played with some great players and
some not so great players. I have been a not so great player. I have traveled a bit for gigs. I have taken
on challenges and done things that scared the living fuck out of me, because I believe we can only
get the best out of ourselves if we aim too high and too far.

Maybe you are trying to overcome some anxiety and stagefright. Maybe you wanrt to learn theory.
Maybe you want to scale back and focus more on writing/recording at home. Whatever it is, it's all good.

So without fear of judgment, shame, or ridicule---what are your ambitions, dreams, and deepest longings
when it comes to music? :beer
 
tl;dr warning on the following.

For a while, many years agoā€¦ between age 18-30 I wanted to be some kind of Jeff Buckley. Played in other peoples bands though, was to shy and to coward to pursue my own stuff. During that time I also wanted to be a Dave Matthewsā€¦. And sometimes a Matthew Bellamy.. but I was mostly a Jeff Buckley.. with many inner conflicts. Wrote a bunch of stuff, short drafts of crap that never made it into songsā€¦ just ideas. Still noodle on them 15 years later.

During this time post-rock also had sneaked into my life and my musical interest slowly shifted to end up pretty much that to 100% when it comes to what I wanted to play. So the last 10 years I wanted to be that, had dreams on starting a post-rock/instrumental band. But where I live and age it was kinda hard to find people interested in that even though I knew/know many people with music as an interest.

Pretty much gave up on the ambitions and slowly settled for my interest in guitar playing and gear as home hobby which worked out great with having a family. Actually felt good and fine about it all. I donā€™t look back and regret things like ā€œwhat ifā€ and ā€œif I had done thatā€. Because where I am now, I am happy.

The last couple years i have kinda built up another dream, and that is to finally try to do something with my old and new ideas. Maybe try to record them, work on the songs. Do a solo thing and just get it out of my head. No ambitions of fame or recognition, but just because I want to. I took a step out towards a community with likeminded people on IG, started my own account and so far Iā€™ve had great feedback for the very little I thrown out there.

Whatā€™s holding me back now is the usual gear distractionsā€¦ but thatā€™s just me. Itā€™s part of the whole picture. I have the means to just do it, to get things done. But I get distracted by the gear thing mostly. Trying IRs for a few months, trying pedals, read forums, or wanting to try new modelers or whatever only to end up back where I started.

Working on itā€¦ :bag
 
My dream once was to write music/scores for film.

If I can ever get that DAT machine here, Iā€™ll post a score I wrote for a spec Yaphet Kotto action movie.

I changed my career at some point because I felt I needed a ā€œrealā€œ job. It can be awful hard to make substantial money in the music biz.

Shouldā€™ve stayed with it, but wouldā€™ve had to move to LA or NYC which is also a dealbreaker.
 
Iā€™ll tell you something thoughā€¦ If you think the music business is weirdā€¦ Try the fucking movie business.

About egos and lots of cashā€¦
 
Iā€™ll tell you something thoughā€¦ If you think the music business is weirdā€¦ Try the f*****g movie business.

About egos and lots of cashā€¦
Have you watched The Offer by chance? Loose retelling of the story of getting the Godfather made. Not sure how "true" it all was but was very entertaining, nonetheless.
 
On my journey, I was fortunate to meet Mr. Paul Marshall.

Marshallā€™s career reads as one music industry benchmark after another. Since 1965, he has been a partner in law firms that have represented EMI, CBS (now Sony Music) Records, Atlantic, MCA, Bertelsmann, and the New York Times, and served as a director on the board at PolyGram (now Universal). Through these affiliations, he represented such massive acts as the Beatles, KISS, Whitney Houston, Neil Diamond, Heavy D, and many more.

He was also, infamously Bobby Fischerā€™s manager.

He opened up all the big doors to seven labels to me including Private, Narada, Windham Hill, Sony/ BMG, MCA and CBS.

Bill Ackerman actually wrote me a rejection letter! Even returned the damn tape. (I could see how far they listen to the demo.)

I shit my pants the day I got a call from the president of MCA.

Paulā€™s name was golden in the industry.

Very interesting experience, learning for the first time I had the wrong products at the wrong time.

I was doing synthesizer stuff while New-Age moved into acoustic ocarinas and such.

Stopped pursuing recording contracts and just started making music for commercial purposes.

Running a studio, you take in anything, including 911 murder tapes for the local DA. (audio expert for court)
 
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As a naive youngster, I wanted to take over the world as a guitar player in whatever progressive nu-grunge/thrash amalgamation I was going to be in, and tried to rely on other people too much without knowing at all how things worked in this industry.

As a young adult I just wanted to make a living from music. After figuring the best I could accomplish aat that point was to play for a punk band and live in a loft at a punk venue, I decided to get a steady job and change my ambitions into a creative writer in a home studio...

Then a home studio producing other people...

Now that I'm older and wiser, with more kids in my house and Covid keeping new clients away from my house (my choice), I just want to play guitar, earn a little money to make it worth the work, and be happy - and that means cover gigs right now.

I'd do something creative and original with other people in a band if it was 100% something I'd be happy with playing musically and maybe even a bit lucrative.
 
At this point in my life Iā€™m resigned to being a home hack, as being in an active originals band or doing any amount of gigging is pretty much not that appealing to me anymore.

That said, I would really like to take the time to formally record some of my own stuff, try to flesh out an EP worth of current material, and have it sound half assed produced. I always kick the can down the road diving into the recording/production side of it.
 
Oh well...I don't recall I ever wanted to be a rock star or something like that. I simply loved music, playing live, playing different instruments, writing some music and recording the output.

During my life as a musician I've wrote a lot of rock music, some soundtracks for theater pieces and short movies (and commercials too) and even a musical that never saw a full stage performance.

At my parents house I still have a dozen of music cassettes filled with with music recorded with my Yamaha 4 track recorder.

Writing and recording is unfortunately time consuming an time is scarce these days.

What I would love to do one day, once the kids are grown up and leave me some free time again, is write a progressive rock album for my self.
 
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Haha! So fickle.

Yanni make way for Carlos Nakai and the Native American flute.

See you at the Sweat Loge?? :unsure:
Actually quite accurate and funnyā€¦


Being in the recording business and working with labels, you can see how music sales was falling off by 1990sā€¦ Focus was more on live performances and ticket revenue. Napster, limewire etc.

I thought I could do the Yanni thingā€¦ But it seemed superbly boring. I never thought someone could stand at a console, play music and be entertaining.


Then EDM came alongā€¦

No Idea Possibilities GIF by MASTERPIECE | PBS
 
Pretty much the second Floyd took the stage in ā€˜94 I immediately wanted to be a ā€˜rockstarā€™. I really kept working towards that direction and really screwed myself in high school by saying ā€œI donā€™t need to GAF about my grades, Iā€™m going to be a rockstar.ā€ I at least actively pursued it for much longer than most people I know did. The height of that success came around ā€˜03-ā€˜05 when the band I started was talking to A&R guys from Roadrunner and Universal, who eventually stopped calling us and taking our phone calls out of the blue one day.

I was 26 when that all ended and I really didnā€™t put much effort forward after that, everything became ā€˜just for funā€™ afterā€¦..and actually, nothing was ever quite as much fun as that band was.

At 39, I just want to finish the damn album I started working on 6 years ago. :rofl I donā€™t really have any goals outside of that right now. I suppose WAY long term, I just want to be known as the dude who was always in a good mood and was more than happy to play his guitar above anything else. Thatā€™s good enough for me.
 
Actually quite accurate and funnyā€¦


Being in the recording business and working with labels, you can see how music sales was falling off by 1990sā€¦ Focus was more on live performances and ticket revenue. Napster, limewire etc.

I thought I could do the Yanni thingā€¦ But it seemed superbly boring. I never thought someone could stand at a console, play music and be entertaining.


Then EDM came alongā€¦

No Idea Possibilities GIF by MASTERPIECE | PBS

Haha! Yeah, we all got Skrillex'd there for a bit, didn't we?

Makes that flute business seem like virtuosity in comparison.
 
Hope I didn't give the vibe that I am grading dreams here. I don't believe in that shit (because adult life
can be so demanding and taxing that dreams can perish permanently.)

I truly believe that dreams are aspirations---and work their magic whether we ever arrive at any imagined
destination or not. Just having one is powerful. \

I like to see the flames (big or small, or smoldering) alive in others. It's not easy, which is why I believe
they are so vital to breathe a little air on whenever we have the chance.
 
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