Musician Archive
Thread: death of a Master Entertainer/Musician
Hey guys,
Some of you know me on Chilastra as Chaple Starfox. At one point I was known in most cantina's and anywhere the hip musician scene was. I know I have even cranked out my share of instruments over my time as a master and many should own instruments by me. In the comming weeks I will be switching slowly over to pistoleer/smuggler and leaving the entertaining industry, it was great jamming with you all especially you Ricky. Just wanted to let my friends know why they haven't seen me playing music of late.
Chaple Starfox
Master Musician/Entertainer
Chaple, sorry to see you leave show biz. Anything I can say to change your mind? 
- Ricky Starwalker, Master Musician, Master Entertainer, and 2-2-1-1 Carbineer, Chilastra
You people MAKE it boring because you just stay in the Cantinas all the time. You can make your profession fun simply by joining a guild and going on hunting parties with them. My guild LOVES having me with them to heal mind wounds and to buff their focus/willpower.
You can make the profession fun if you'll just get out of the Cantina for awhile.
NanokTaemon wrote:
You people MAKE it boring because you just stay in the Cantinas all the time. You can make your profession fun simply by joining a guild and going on hunting parties with them. My guild LOVES having me with them to heal mind wounds and to buff their focus/willpower.
You can make the profession fun if you'll just get out of the Cantina for awhile.
For me, this is a load of crock. I spend over 60% of my time in the field(that increases every day as I spend less in the cantinas). Whether its solo, a small group, or a full 20 person group mind wound healing isn't needed that often. Maybe once every3 hours someone has some decent mind wounds that actually needs to be healed. Creatureshit the mind the least often and hence you getmind wounds the least.But by this time most people have accumulated a ton of battle fatigue(which cannot be healed in camps) and then where do we go? To the cantina so I can heal everyone in about 1 minute tops and then back out into the field.
As you get out of the cantina more, you realize that in the grand scheme of things our piece of the pie is just table scraps. Notice that Chaple is becoming a combat oriented profession. Why? Because he can actually do something significant for himself, for his friends and for a guild(if this is far from your reason, I apologize Chaple).
I'll admit that I've been having similar thoughts myself. The band I created at first was excellent and consisted of three master entertainers/master musicians. The few player run events we performed at were a blast. Lately, however, there seems to be a lack of work available, and lack of motivation from the rest of the band and myself. I've been focusing more on combat lately, and can't seem to resist the idea that being a creature handler/rifleman might be a lot of fun.
The groups I've been in, while they enjoy the music because it's something different, it offers very little. After a couple hours of fighting, I'm usually only getting 7-14 exp of entertainer healing in evenlarge groups. Maybe things will get better once the improved buffs are added, and hopefully it won't be too late for me to try. I've no doubt that other professions will become as dull as musician has become to me, I'm just feeling that the longevity of their enjoyment will lastbeyond that of the musician.
Caihsk Ahxi'lya of the band 'Chowbasa Pateesa'
Master Musician/Master Entertainer - Chilastra
Well, It's not that I stay in a cantina all the time. I have always been a avid player, I run two characters at once. Yes I have 2 accounts. One is a Master Weapon Smith/Carbineer and the other is Chaple. So getting out has very little to do with me leaving the profession.
The biggest reason I'm bailing is due to the lack of need. Now, those that have seen me perform know that I take the profession very serious. While I was grinding to master I spent hours on end reading Longfellow, Poe and other great poets creating emotes that only I used and were kinda my signature.
Very few ladies can withstand Longfellow or Poe, they were the Men of all time. I always made good tips, still do if I really focus. I could easily do 50-75k per 4-5 hours if I hit a busy cantina.In fact it's how I funded my master weaponsmiths grinding to master.
Also, I use to be in contract w/ Chiana for doing all her weddings and special events. I have played w/ laucian and others at many of her functions, and yes she always paid well. Kinda Ironic was that my last gig as ME/MM was the wedding of Chiana and Laucian.
Now, the reason I am leaving the profession is simple. It's really more of the fact that I have done it from day 7 of launch and it's not the same anymore. The AFK'ers are a minor issue, if they want to have the computer grind a character all night, more power to them. Personally, I think they would make more money running a mining script on some awesome mineral and selling it after it despawns at 5-10cr/u. It's just that some of the creativity is gone.
Example, at Chiana's wedding their was about 6 of us. Mind you they were all very talented. So I asked the band if they wanted to try something challenging, of course, they agree'd. So, I would call out the flo's for each type of instruments, with pauses and I would hit a count down macro at the end.
So it would go like,
(Chaple) String do flo's 8756 pause 5
(Chaple)Horns, 3216 pause 5
(Chaple) Drums hold 7's (Means do 77777772) - I'll explaine this later
(Chaple) Nar's hit a 4536 pause 5
Now I would hit my count down and the macro would go like this
Chaple excitedly says, 'On my Mark! Inthree Band'
Chaple says "3"
Chaple says "2"
Chaple says "1"
Chaple says "Mark"
At this point the band would hit their approapriate flo's. I could always tell when someone missed it, I think I have every song's flo's memorized by sound. The end result was something amazing. Even though I was in a group of masters, some of them never thought of this. I had spent hours recording flo's using special macros with people who were musicians in RL to put the sounds together.
(On the drums issue, think about when you listen to your favorite band in RL, do the drums change constantly, or do they remain the same for a duration of the song, then doa special drum roll or hit symbol's etc. So for most competition or band performing, you really want your drummer to stay on the same flo's all the time to provide consistancy to your song. Remember, the drummer sets everything to the song, if the drummer is an idiot hitting flo's randomly, then no matter how coordinated the rest of the flo's are the song will sound funny.)
The audience went crazy, and we did this for about an hour and then like real performers, most of us were mentally exhausted from the required concentration. Imagine that, tired from performing, not mindless flo pounding.
Thats what I use to play musician for, now to find a group willing to not run macro's but to try coordinated songs is impossible, if you kick an afk'er theirs always someone who gives you sh*t about it. So I stopped doing it and slowly switched over to more of a combat role which allowed me to experiment in the art of combat. (BTW, Feign Death rules when hunting, and if you figure out how to exploit it to it's max capability it's insane.)
Well, this is a summation of all the things I learned as a musician, there are more things, but this post pretty much explains the basics to what I figured out to the game. I must admit, I didn't see the light at first, it was from the mentoring of Gunzz and Ootino on Chilastria that I was able to figure the rest out. Gunzz was the first person to show me coordinated flo's and Ootinio was the person that took my music from a science to an art. I am very grateful to both of them, even though they don't play anymore.
In closing, I must say that this profession is alot of fun and I enjoyed it greatly since launch, but the Big Band/Master Band Era is over and must make way for the Macro'r, AFK'r and tip beggar. I have lost all of my ME skills except music and healing. Had to surrender them for smuggler and pistoleer skills. Maybe I'll keep drums, they were always my favorite.
Chaple Starfox
Master Musician/Smuggler/Pistoleer
Chaple,
Well stated and I must agree with your points. I wish we were on the same server because the effort you took I also followed. I worked on arrangements and coordinated flourishes with different instruments. Itwas a great deal of fun, but very difficult to find other musicians willing to workat this level. It would have been fun to work with you.
When I started, the novice musicians spent hours in the cantinas trying to work together, but as time went by, more and more novices opted for AFKcantinaperformances. Master musicians were not recognized as anything more than a novice. The musicianship degraded to Flo Pounding, or worse -the endless playing of the basic loop. As all this was happening,my artisan and combat friends related stories of glory and fortunes. A poor bank account and degeneration of the cantina environment eventually drew me out to the field. I started to focus on artisan skills and spent 90% of my time tending harvestors and selling resources. This effort has resulted in a padded bank account and has funded my current projects. I have not given up my ME/MM skills but the temptation is at times high. At times it feels so lonely being a ME/MM.
My point of bringing this up is to let others know that I am out there and am interested in returning the music profession to its former glory. I think that if I had known Chaple and fate had us in the samegalaxy things might be different. I am not one to post on the forums much (as evidenced by the low post count), but I have realized that we, as musicians, need to pull together a bit more. Since we are not finding each other in game -these forums mayprove helpful.
If anyone on Naritus is interested in this please let me know.
- Tooba
Owner: The Tooba Center for the Performing Arts - Kaadara, Naboo [Naritus]
i too am headed towards mster soley for my guild. they keep asking me when ill be MM because they are anxious for the buffs/heals whilst we are out on lok/yavin/etc...
those that get board only entertaining i can understand. vary it up a little. dont do MM ME MD, try MM CH and pistoller, thats what im doing, and im havin alot of fun, cause im still plently combat oriented as well as able to be benifical to the guild as a whole.