[Trombone-l] The Holiday Blues

[Moran, Doug]

In our area, live music is down quite a bit from 10 - 20 years ago.  
But this year is not vastly different than the last 5.  The economy is 
certainly part of the issue (down, just above recession in my opinion), 
but also the folks making the decisions on hiring live music or canned 
music are being swapped out for a younger generation that see things 
differently.  We hope this is a cyclic problem, and the value of live 
music will come back.  Time will tell.

But, I think this is a function of the USA "scene" to come.  A friend 
just returned from a European trip, which included a stop in Italy.  
They were walking down the street in Rome and heard band music.  They 
followed the sound and found a festival going on.  The Rome Police Band 
(name might be wrong but it was 70+ police officers) was playing 
"Liberty Bell".  Then they played "Washington Post".  You do not hear 
of police bands in the USA, and so our conversation moved to that 
topic.  There has to be one somewhere in the USA.  (???)

BTW - there are still gigs out there that pay, but they are tougher to 
find and especially hold on to.  Always have to be "fresh".  My 
December is full except NYE, but NYE is dead in most places around 
here.

Doug

On Nov 29, 2007, at 6:16 PM, t.stone at att.net wrote:

> Hi List,
>
> Things certainly have been slow so far this Holiday Season! Last year 
> I didn't have a single gig, yet another bone-playing friend of mine 
> had a long run on the Nutscratcher plus four church gigs! This year 
> he's got zip (so far), and I've got only two -- a holiday/90th 
> birthday dance and a New Years Eve gig. We were talking about this 
> subject yesterday, and here's a really interesting thing that he told 
> me: He got invited to the annual Trombone Christmas Party of a 
> well-known LA professional bass trombone player. This person's party 
> is usually held on a Sunday night, allowing all  the professional and 
> non-professional invitee's preceding Saturday night to remain open for 
> gigs. Well, this year's party is scheduled for a Saturday night 
> because, it is rumored, hardly any of the invited trombonists have 
> gigs scheduled! And I've heard this same thing about a decided lack of 
> forth-coming Holiday gigs from players -- both brass, woodwind and 
> string -- in other groups I play in. Since
>   the L
> ist has been so lethargic this month, I ask this question in the 
> interest of creating some stimulating "End of s Lethargic November" 
> conversation: Do you find this trend happening in your part of the 
> universe as well? And, if so, what do think is causing it, and what 
> can be done about it? I know you all are not just lurking out there 
> practicing your flexibility studies and etudes! So come on now, let's 
> get the blood flowing into those ten digits and get some responses 
> happening!
>
> Tim (Sitting On My Butt Hardly Giging At All This Holiday Season) Stone
> Granada Hills, CA
> t.stone at att.net
> _______________________________________________
> Trombone-l mailing list
> Trombone-l at maillists.samford.edu
> http://maillists.samford.edu/mailman/listinfo/trombone-l