There’s a new band in town that’s getting all the work. They’re young, good-looking, high energy and they have great set lists. Only thing is, they can’t play their instruments.

 

Now I don’t mean that sarcastically, like they’re bad or anything – I mean that literally – they can’t play their instruments. Never took the time to learn. And they don’t have to.

 

They have good jobs during the week. They’re busy people. They just do this on the weekends to have fun and make a little extra money. They’re also less expensive than all the other bands made up of musicians who make their livings through music. And they’ve become the busiest band in town.

 

My future ex and I have both been in music our entire lives; studying, performing, always working at it to grow and get better.

 

For the past 6 months, my future-ex has worked on and off with this new band in town as a “ringer”. It’s a large band (looks great onstage!), made up primarily of non-playing musicians, but they always hire a few “real” musicians that can really play to fill out the karaoke (excuse me – “band-in-a-box” – you press the space bar on your computer and it plays music) tracks and give the crowd the impression that the band is really playing.

 

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Last night I went to a musical put on by a local theater group. I used to be the musical director for a community theater group. I played the piano and led a small pit band.

There were a lot of kids in the group and there were many rehearsals just for the musicians to work together with the singers, and if the music was too difficult or overly syncopated or out of the grasp of the actors, we would modify it; slow it down, cut out a section, or just follow the actor, no matter how off-beat they would end up – so they always looked good on-stage, and were able to give their best performance, at whatever level they were at.

 

Last night, the whole musical was done to pre-recorded music tracks. Karoake. When I looked in the music booth, there was a guy pushing buttons on a CD player. The actors were mostly kids, and apparently new to rhythm, because many of the canned tracks left them in the dust.

 

The kids were cute. The show was cute. The parents were pleased, so I guess my snobby little music high horse is uncalled for, but still….

 

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When I was a kid, I remember being struck by the image of the blacksmith, one of the oldest trades and artforms, and then as the new 20th century machine-age culture rolled in, the art of the blacksmiths became unnecessary and obsolete.

 

I know the world is evolving and things will be what they will be and there will always be a place for creative, hard-working people. But I still found the view last night a little disheartening.