Introduction

[Quarterredwing]

Hello Taxi Forum Folk,

I have no idea if this is in the right place so please forgive me if not.

I wanted to introduce myself before posting proper.

My name is Bryan Donbavand, based in England. I’ve been a musician for many years, thousands of big and small gigs under my belt. Before that I worked as a sound engineer, monitor engineer, backline tech, guitar tech in various west end theatres in London and progressed to working for touring bands, and luckily had the opportunity to work all over the world with some incredible musicians and artists….I was hooked and convinced “I can do this”…and so very nearly made it too! .

always written original music, had trouble singing in front of people, but had no issues making noise in front of an audience with whatever instrument I could get hold of. My oldest friend happened to be an outstanding vocalist, we had a world class Bass player, and an even more astonishingly talented drummer. All the right ingredients!

Proud to say: At our best we played a semi decent Saturday slot at Glastonbury as an officially unsigned act

Ashamed to say:We got bored quickly and constantly changed things around, never really delivered our big live sound in the studio and ultimately blew it!

Fast forward I’m a partner in a small business that has nothing to do with music with my incredible wife, two beautiful kids who love music, the 8 year old daughter is a natural drummer.

Still a head full of compositions and no real outlet so here I am!.

Hopes: would love to become part of this community, improve, test myself, learn and maybe get a placement.

Dreams: would love to be involved in Film and Tv music/score to some degree.

Most treasured instrument: 1960’s Eko ranger six guitar my Mum saved for a year to buy for my Dad and bought in Liverpool on the day John Lennon and George Harrison were presented with their gibsons from rushworths music. She had to wait while they had their photos taken!

Fears: I’m a talentless cheese ball who was only ever destined to fail….+ too many more to mention.

Thanks for reading.

Bryan
Quarter Redwing

Still have a head full of compositions and

[shamus]

Hey Brian. That's a lot of experience within the industry. What a busy boy you have been!!

Pretty sure your named fear has no foundation. It's in your blood by the sounds of it .

Anyways, good luck with all things music and Taxi from here on in

[cosmicdolphin]

Most treasured instrument: 1960’s Eko ranger six guitar my Mum saved for a year to buy for my Dad and bought in Liverpool on the day John Lennon and George Harrison were presented with their gibsons from rushworths music. She had to wait while they had their photos taken!

Welcome Bryan, I have the same guitar but it has a somewhat less illustrious provenance having being rescued from a skip near Sutton Coldfield in the late 80s

It has a hole in it...I mean apart from the one where the sound is meant to come out and the strings have been on it at least 10yrs but it's been been on TV a few times and is a trusty composing companion.

Good luck with Taxi and I will leave you with one parting piece of advice often given round these parts " write to listings " ...( which basically means don't try to shoehorn pre-taxi compositions into the listings as it rarely works out )

Mark

[Quarterredwing]

Hey Brian. That's a lot of experience within the industry. What a busy boy you have been!!

Pretty sure your named fear has no foundation. It's in your blood by the sounds of it .

Anyways, good luck with all things music and Taxi from here on in

Hey Shamus,

Thank you for the reply and the encouragement. Good luck to you too.

[Quarterredwing]

Most treasured instrument: 1960’s Eko ranger six guitar my Mum saved for a year to buy for my Dad and bought in Liverpool on the day John Lennon and George Harrison were presented with their gibsons from rushworths music. She had to wait while they had their photos taken!

Welcome Bryan, I have the same guitar but it has a somewhat less illustrious provenance having being rescued from a skip near Sutton Coldfield in the late 80s

It has a hole in it...I mean apart from the one where the sound is meant to come out and the strings have been on it at least 10yrs but it's been been on TV a few times and is a trusty composing companion.

Good luck with Taxi and I will leave you with one parting piece of advice often given round these parts " write to listings " ...( which basically means don't try to shoehorn pre-taxi compositions into the listings as it rarely works out )

Mark

Hello Cosmic Dolphin (my spirit animal by the way)

It was a great story about having to wait for Harrison/Lennon to have their photos taken before she could pick the guitar up, made even better in our family at least because she was a tiny, outspoken, complex and beautifully temperamental Irish lady who didn’t like the Beatles very much and would’ve hated waiting around for them. Had it been Ronnie Drew, “sure it’d have been no bother”

I like the skip story, I’d like to think there’s a back story of anger and frustration that we’ll never know about that led to that Eko being launched into skip oblivion, only to be rescued and given another go!. And that somewhere out there the previous one careful owner spotted that guitar on the telly and was finally at peace with his/her decision.

Thanks for the advice, that’s the aim, I’ve found it easier than I thought to write to the description, pushed me to start from scratch, it’s exciting at the moment.

Best wishes.

Bryan.

[irthlingz]

Hopes: would love to become part of this community, improve, test myself, learn and maybe get a placement.

I have found that if my ego can stand the battering of rejections, then I can have fun, improve my skills (I know some would disagree ), and am inspired to create all sorts of things I never would have done without the TAXI listings.

=== Michael ===

[Quarterredwing]

Hopes: would love to become part of this community, improve, test myself, learn and maybe get a placement.

I have found that if my ego can stand the battering of rejections, then I can have fun, improve my skills (I know some would disagree ), and am inspired to create all sorts of things I never would have done without the TAXI listings.

=== Michael ===

Hello Michael,

Absolutely, I think I’ve improved my listening and understanding of what’s required in the last two weeks.

Thanks for the notes.

Cheers.

[Quarterredwing]

Hello Again,

Had my first two returns and a mixed critique. They we for the same submission, instrumental piano.

Feedback 1
Positive comments about the overall feel, no criticism on sound quality, good build and arc.

Constructive not so positive comments about what I chose to play for the build and peak of the track, I play an octave progression, I felt this offered a dramatic sounding build the comments suggested I fill these in with more notes but ultimately returned due to ability/performance with criticism over the sustain pedal use.

Feedback 2
Positive comments about the use of a repeated theme to build the track. Good hook and nice use of back and forth between the repeated theme.

Negatives again where aimed at the sustain issue, but also comments suggesting that what I intended as rubato was more hesitant. And suggesting I apply some quantisation and programming to remedy, I would say that I agree overall with the critique of this track. In excitement to approach something new I rushed this, I disagree slightly with the quantisation notes as this was a full live take but I do agree in parts it’s rushed and not clear. This has been my first attempt at writing to a particular track length.


Onwards and upwards and the learning curve begins with the old anxiety being given a stern talking to!.