Musician Archive

• greet the customers who come in


• ask how their days have been


• ask what they're planning on doing after they finish in the cantina


• never ignore someone who asks for help


• don't dance in your skivvies, professionalsare more respectedthan prostitutes


• don't spam for tips or heals


• certainly don't go AFK for an extended period of time and expect to be in the group when you get back

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kirah_ashlin wrote:

Great report, Lilo. However, remember one thing - before you arrived, those newbies were wallowing in ignorance. You were able to do more than they could simply by reason of your previous training and knowledge. Perhaps there should be a master or two assigned to each server's "entry" cantina in Mos Eisley to give the new kids some much needed expertise. . . . .

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ive been a master musician on eclipse for a long time. recently ive done master musician again on chilastra, because i don't play on eclipse anymore. the grind is easy. it takes no more/no less than a week to grind it out. i agree with the creator of this post. a master is truly how well you entertain people, no matter if you're a "master" or not. God bless all true masters out there!!!!

I too have taken to starting over from novice. I actually started awhile ago, been doing it on and off. I'm up to ME/0032 music. I do a lot of starport and other such performing though so expect to be very lacking in healing xp, but that's fine.

I've now mastered dancer, musician, entertainer twice, and working on musician a second time. (And proud to say the most I spent AFK was a few minutes here and there to get a snack, mostly in the beginning, and I stopped using macros completely 3 boxes into entertainer. I do all my flos by hand now... But that's off topic..)

I started in Tyrena. It was fun, but it started to get disheartening as I watched the local AFKer who was always there go from novice to master, then start buffing I suspect. And people would run straight to her no matter who else was in there, because they were used to her being there I suspect. If I wanted to outperform her I had to get out the droid with the laser show and jam out sw1 ont he mando. But that does get old after awhile.

I'm trying Mos Eisley at the moment. It's got a good load of AFKers, but the newbies make it worth it. A lot of people here on the 14 day trial. I started just playing with my droid off to the side. Got a few people listening. Probably a third of the people to come in. A few entertainers came and tried to get in the group, but it was becoming apparent the group was all AFK. So I invited a couple dancers to the group, one of em really nice. We got probably a lions share of the people coming in.

One of the musicians who was in the main group was asking me about my droid. I mentioned that it was ironic I wasn't in the main group cause I was playing sw1, but that it sounded good on the mando. (Okay, so maybe it doesn't get old THAT fast..) So he came over and listened a bit, and was majorly impressed. So he left the group to jam with me. He was only at music 2, here on a 14 day trial.

Starting over occasionally can be a good reminder why we started in the first place. I think in a way the trip to master is more fun than master.

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Tiaga wrote:

One of the musicians who was in the main group was asking me about my droid. I mentioned that it was ironic I wasn't in the main group cause I was playing sw1, but that it sounded good on the mando. (Okay, so maybe it doesn't get old THAT fast..) So he came over and listened a bit, and was majorly impressed. So he left the group to jam with me. He was only at music 2, here on a 14 day trial.

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Ironic, but true. One of my favorite "pieces" to play is StarWars1 on the mando while I have my droid doing the bandfill portion. I do this a lot at starport waits and whatnot. I think it's because StarWars1 is the only song that has a really great guitar like quality.

At any rate, I think I'm going to start doing this as well. Well, I'm not going to start over, LOL. But, I'm going to make an effort to spend some time in Mos Eisley so I can "train" the newbies in the real art of entertainment.

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Tralmek wrote:

I didEntertainer and Musicianbeforethe hologrind, and I have done them since the hologrind. Now I've decided to create a new entertainer character to test the waters of being a Novice Entertainer again during the late-term hologrind. This is in direct response to the people who have challenged those of us who are Master Musicians to go try out being a novice and seeing how we liked it.

Here is my experience so far:

I arrived in Mos Eisley having intsa-migrated everything away from my main HAM stats and devoting it all to secondary action stats. I shut down my helper unit and ran over to the Mos Eisley cantina, positioning myself slightly off to one side. The atmosphere of the cantina seemed to be much the norm nowadays, there was a person orfive spamming for invites, heals and tips, there were a couple of masters or near-masters advertising their buffbot services.

There were also several newbies who were playing starwars1 or dancing the novice dances without /flourishes and wondering why they weren't making any xp. These are the ones I worked with first, after guiding them through the nuances of joining a group, I showed them how to maximize their xp for the amount of action they couldexpend. (I'm very proud of the fact that no one had to stop playing or dancing because they didn't have enough action). In addition to the technical things I tried to implant a few social tips in their minds as well:

• greet the customers who come in


• ask how their days have been


• ask what they're planning on doing after they finish in the cantina


• never ignore someone who asks for help


• don't dance in your skivvies, professionalsare more respectedthan prostitutes


• don't spam for tips or heals


• certainly don't go AFK for an extended period of time and expect to be in the group when you get back

Pretty soon, we were racking in 50 healing xp per tic and I was getting about20 music xp with my slitherhorn on StarWars1. Needless to say, we all qualified for our next level of dance, music, and healing pretty quickly. It goes to show that even a group of novices can succeed and get xp even when there are higher-level entertainers around. The next step was to find someone to train us, luckily a masterDancer/Entertainer, working on Musiciancame back from the netherworlds of AFK-dom and actually requested to be part our group (this was surprising to me). The things this poor girl didn't know. Suddenly I had an entirely new task ahead of me--training a master in how to do her job.

The master I was dealing with was a Master of Macros. In short order, she had provided the group with the information I had expressly avoided delving out--how to write macros to go AFK including autojoin and everything. At this point I was convinced I had a project on my hands, I needed to convince this lady that AFK macroing was damaging to the profession, so I started out by (tactfully) pointing out how little she actually knew.

Her bandfill backup droid, for example, was stuck doing the same basic pattern on the Rock we were all playing now. After a few /bandflo (flo) bandfill 's on my part the question came up in groupchat: how do you do that? I was only too happy to explain, and eventually it became a full-fledged course in how to use /bandflos, /pausemusic, and other "advanced" commands.

I was able to keep this girl engaged and active for several hours, just teaching the ins and outs of how to entertain well and how to use all the tools we have at our disposal. I felt a small sense of triumph when I got ready to log and the master Entertainer/Dancer said that she too was going to log (instead of goingAFK to power her way through the rest of music). I don't know how much I might have helped her to stay away from AFK grinding, but hopefully I did enough.

The point is, however, not that I may have helped turn a grinder into a true Entertainer, but that as a Novice Entertainer, I was still capable of "beating out" the competition of so-called masters. People were watching the group of live andinteractive Novice Entertainers instead of the group of AFK "masters." Really, friends, the Masters title means nothing, nothing at all. Anyone can do the grind and have the technical abilities, but even a Novice can be a Master of Entertainment.

So, for those of you who think that a Master Musician/Entertainer such as I am sitting on a high horse saying I want people to do something I didn't have to do myself, read what I've said carefully. I don't need my Masters skills to Entertain, the skills are just tools, it is the heart, it is the spirit behind the keyboard that really makes a Master. Title has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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Great post!

I myself have done that once. It was great.

It's like you said- The skills we learn are merely tools. Real entertaining comes from the heart and soul.

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Tralmek wrote:

I didEntertainer and Musicianbeforethe hologrind, and I have done them since the hologrind. Now I've decided to create a new entertainer character to test the waters of being a Novice Entertainer again during the late-term hologrind. This is in direct response to the people who have challenged those of us who are Master Musicians to go try out being a novice and seeing how we liked it.

Here is my experience so far:

I arrived in Mos Eisley having intsa-migrated everything away from my main HAM stats and devoting it all to secondary action stats. I shut down my helper unit and ran over to the Mos Eisley cantina, positioning myself slightly off to one side. The atmosphere of the cantina seemed to be much the norm nowadays, there was a person orfive spamming for invites, heals and tips, there were a couple of masters or near-masters advertising their buffbot services.

There were also several newbies who were playing starwars1 or dancing the novice dances without /flourishes and wondering why they weren't making any xp. These are the ones I worked with first, after guiding them through the nuances of joining a group, I showed them how to maximize their xp for the amount of action they couldexpend. (I'm very proud of the fact that no one had to stop playing or dancing because they didn't have enough action). In addition to the technical things I tried to implant a few social tips in their minds as well:

• greet the customers who come in


• ask how their days have been


• ask what they're planning on doing after they finish in the cantina


• never ignore someone who asks for help


• don't dance in your skivvies, professionalsare more respectedthan prostitutes


• don't spam for tips or heals


• certainly don't go AFK for an extended period of time and expect to be in the group when you get back

Pretty soon, we were racking in 50 healing xp per tic and I was getting about20 music xp with my slitherhorn on StarWars1. Needless to say, we all qualified for our next level of dance, music, and healing pretty quickly. It goes to show that even a group of novices can succeed and get xp even when there are higher-level entertainers around. The next step was to find someone to train us, luckily a masterDancer/Entertainer, working on Musiciancame back from the netherworlds of AFK-dom and actually requested to be part our group (this was surprising to me). The things this poor girl didn't know. Suddenly I had an entirely new task ahead of me--training a master in how to do her job.

The master I was dealing with was a Master of Macros. In short order, she had provided the group with the information I had expressly avoided delving out--how to write macros to go AFK including autojoin and everything. At this point I was convinced I had a project on my hands, I needed to convince this lady that AFK macroing was damaging to the profession, so I started out by (tactfully) pointing out how little she actually knew.

Her bandfill backup droid, for example, was stuck doing the same basic pattern on the Rock we were all playing now. After a few /bandflo (flo) bandfill 's on my part the question came up in groupchat: how do you do that? I was only too happy to explain, and eventually it became a full-fledged course in how to use /bandflos, /pausemusic, and other "advanced" commands.

I was able to keep this girl engaged and active for several hours, just teaching the ins and outs of how to entertain well and how to use all the tools we have at our disposal. I felt a small sense of triumph when I got ready to log and the master Entertainer/Dancer said that she too was going to log (instead of goingAFK to power her way through the rest of music). I don't know how much I might have helped her to stay away from AFK grinding, but hopefully I did enough.

The point is, however, not that I may have helped turn a grinder into a true Entertainer, but that as a Novice Entertainer, I was still capable of "beating out" the competition of so-called masters. People were watching the group of live andinteractive Novice Entertainers instead of the group of AFK "masters." Really, friends, the Masters title means nothing, nothing at all. Anyone can do the grind and have the technical abilities, but even a Novice can be a Master of Entertainment.

So, for those of you who think that a Master Musician/Entertainer such as I am sitting on a high horse saying I want people to do something I didn't have to do myself, read what I've said carefully. I don't need my Masters skills to Entertain, the skills are just tools, it is the heart, it is the spirit behind the keyboard that really makes a Master. Title has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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Very awesome post .
Just today I was in line for a doctor buff, so I got out my droid and started playing Waltz with the chid and mandoviol. I watch happily as several people in line start clapping, and then I get a tell asking me what song I was playing. I respond to this person, who was farther back in line, and he replies saying that if I switch down to ballad, he'll play with me. I do, and continue bandfloing to get my droid to play more interestingly, and I immediately get a tell from the guy saying "Wow! What did you just do?" So I explain that it was a bandflo and briefly how to do it, and he starts doing several bandflos . Unfortunately, by this point I was at the front of the line and on my way out so I couldn't talk more about it with him, but he told me that it was the greatest piece of information he could've learned.
Made me happy .
-Scipionus Mentus, Tempest