Miscellaneous Profile of ages for members of cafesaxophone.com?

[SaxBoss]

Hi All,
I often wonder what the average age of saxophone players would be? Would it be young , middle aged, or older? Please participate in this poll. I'm sure it would be interesting to get a cross section? You do not have to nessarly give a declaration below in the comments, although it would be fun?

 

[mizmar]

Yeah, but...
I'm pretty sure the café biases older, even more so with the regulars. Other platforms are more yoof oriented... Then again, the older you look, the less online-chit-chatery you get....

 

[SaxBoss]

Then again, the older you look, the less online-chit-chatery you get....

You mean, it's almost like we run out of puff?

 

[Hoosierken]

I tried a saxophone group on Reddit, their main two pieces of advice were Yamaha and take it to a tech.

 

[Selmer10G]

Blarmey, I'm the youngest one on here who's voted so far and I still used circular dial telephones in my youth. And manual typewriters.

 

[greenstripe]

Yeah, but...
I'm pretty sure the café biases older, even more so with the regulars. Other platforms are more yoof oriented... Then again, the older you look, the less online-chit-chatery you get....

Forums are seen as a bit old hat. But in my experience Facebook etc will just be the same questions being asked over and over and people trying to sell stuff. There won't be running conversations and you can't search etc. Very well.

I've so far resisted Reddit

 

[MD0483]

Blarmey, I'm the youngest one on here who's voted so far and I still used circular dial telephones in my youth. And manual typewriters.

I used to mend them!

 

[mizmar]

You mean, it's almost like we run out of puff?

Or just stopped smoking it

 

[Colin the Bear]

What year were you born? Name of your pet? Ooh! I've been hacked 😱
Behave.

 

[thomsax]

The latest years I've wonder how or why I should communicate with other players. Internet and e-mail revolution made it possible to communicate quick and cheap. Today it's even quicker and cheaper. The old computers are replaced with pads and smartphones. Better?

If you want to get in touch with sax players from other parts of the world internet is fine. But internet and smartphones made the local/rural music life less present. The last blues and rock meetings I had in the woodshed the players fingered on the phones between the songs, during the break .... . We were not talking about the songs, sound, ideas for new songs ..... . I was in Boston during the Stanley Cup final and a band was booked to play in a bar. Four big TV screens, a live band playing and most of the folks in bar were looking at their smartphones .... .

I started to organize Rock & Roll Saxophone meetings/workshops for nearly 25 years ago. I was working as a teacher and I thought playing an instrument or to cook was roughly the same. To know (or curious to learn) how things are blending, using the right technique .... to reach our goals. Some guys preferred recipe/sheet music, other guys were fine with a working instruction/lead sheet with chords and some guys were fine with cooking and playing "by ears".

Forums are good places to communicate. But they are also good places "to position oneself". Good or bad?

I'm not on FB, SOTW .... anymore. Cafe Saxophone is the only forum I'm active on. But Breakfast Room was more organic. I don't write and send out RockSax newsletter/magazine anymore. The last concerts I organized I didn't post the event. I liked the posters that were made to be posted on telephone poles, narrow and long. The new thing was Facebook. The good feeling with organizing got lost.

I'm born in the 50's. How can I go back to the future?

 

[Pete Thomas]

It doesn't surprise me that there are lots of older people, but still surprised none born in the 90s or later. I know there are younger members, but of course not everyone is active all the time. maybe will make this a sticky thread and hopefully get more votes over time. I've also moved it to Breakfastroom forum.

Note that the poll is for those who enjoy Cafesaxophone. There could be many members of other ages that don't enjoy it.

 

[Phil]

So you will make it a sticky to remind us all that we are old?
🙂

 

[mizmar]

Note that the poll is for those who enjoy Cafesaxophone. There could be many members of other ages that don't enjoy it.

Maybe we need another poll of the ages of folk who don't enjoy the Café?

 

[Pete Effamy]

What about mildly nonchalant?

 

[ESJohn]

 

[MikeMorrell]

Hi All,
I often wonder what the average age of saxophone players would be? Would it be young , middle aged, or older? Please participate in this poll. I'm sure it would be interesting to get a cross section? You do not have to nessarly give a declaration below in the comments, although it would be fun?

Interesting question! When posting this comment, the poll is only 24 hours old. It'll be interesting to see how many people respond over a week or 2 (or four). I just want to mention a few points:

• IMHO 'people who enjoy cafesaxophone.com' fall into one or more different catgories, for example: 'members' and 'guests' (non-members) who visit the cafe, to search for info, browse threads. etc.; at the time of posting there are 9 members and 53 'guests' on-line
• I suspect that the frequency that 'members' visit the cafe varies widely per member in any given time period. My personal 'visit behaviour' is that I sometimes don't visit the cafe for months at a time. In other periods every day or 2. I'm retired so (along with others in my age group), I have plenty of time each day to visit the cafe. I suspect that younger members with busy day jobs and commute times, a hectic family life with young children etc. don't have as much time to visit the cafe, unless they really need support or help for their sax playing.
• The availability of on-line resources on sax-playing is truly vast and expanding. From YouTube video's to social media groups to on-line sax tuition. For 'digitally native' (younger) sax players, participating in a 'forum' might perhaps be something of an anomaly in their usual mobile-driven social interactions. I don't know. I just suspect that most 'apps' these days (and for the past couple of years) offer 'alerts' when something of interest is posted. Not by e-mail but either in the app itself (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) or via a mobile 'push alert' if the user prefers.
• The visits (and visitors) to both the TTS and the cafe websites (and almost all other websites!) are anonymously tracked using 'Google Analytics'. Through this (free) service, website owners and administrators can build up an aggregated picture of the website visitors (age, location) and their ' visit behaviour' on any website. For example: how did they get there? Which pages did they visit? How long did they spend on each page? Which technology (Desktop/Laptop, Tablet, mobile did they use? Etc. All this data is 'aggregated' over all visitors. No personal data is made available. Some 6 years ago, I helped Pete with an analysis of visitors to the TTS and cafe websites. whole lot has changed has since then!
• Still, back in 2017, we were looking at hundreds of thousands of visitors per year to the cafe, of which roughly half were 'returning visitors'.
• It's not for me to indicate any 'demographics' of Cafe visitors. I no longer have access to the TTS and Cafe analytics data (nor do I need it!). But I'm confident that Pete and his team of moderarators are keeping an eye on the 'demographics' trends.
• Bottom line: a couple of hundred participants (now 50) or even a thousand participants is IMHO likely to be a small, 'skewed' sample of members who regularly visit the cafe. IMHO, it's unlikely to represent a true cross-section of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who visit the cafe each year.

But it's still an interesting question in terms of 'What is the average age of members who regularly visit the cafe'? Regularly = at least once a month.

 

[MikeMorrell]

@Pete Thomas: it still amazes me that with your background as a pro sax player and lecturer, you've become so deeply tech-savvy in developing the TSS and Cafe websites! The content and design is superb. But you've really dug deeply into all the details to make sure that the 2 sites continue to run as good as possible. I'm not sure how many appreciate this, but- as a (voluntary) website designer/maintainer - I can confidently say that your 'tech savvy' far exceeds mine!

I'm sure you're monitoring the 'analytics' and you're much better placed that I am to think about and decide 'what's next'. Just 2 ideas, which I'm sure you've already thought about:

• Depending on the 'demographics/device data', a TTS/Cafe mobile app?
• We now have a ChatGPT experiment focused on 'web' information sources'; Would a ChatGPT-like app more focused on the TTS and Cafe websites add any value? I have no idea of the feasibility, potential costs and potential benefits. Maybe the TTS and cafe resources are included in the current ChatGPT app. Perhaps a 'Cafe Sax/TTS' branded AI-driven app (with info weighted towards TTS/Cafe Sax) could potentially draw visitors towards both websites. More that 'Google' + 'Bard'? No idea.

 

[Digger2054]

I think younger (I'm mid 30's) people go elsewhere for their information (social media)

I had a situation when I was on a committee made up of an older generation, I suggested using social media more regularly, rather than sending emails to members. Because they didn't 'get it' it was dismissed, and they continued to manually email all members and complain about people not reading or replying. The message on social media is recurring, not a one hit, with posts showing repeatedly. When people have 5mins to scroll it's usually social media.

Whether incorporating social media into TTS, Cafe Sax is worthwhile or beneficial I don't know.

As mentioned above there is a wealth of knowledge on here, frequently I search google for questions and the cafe comes up, I have a read, but don't engage, there may be an audience of younger people doing similar.

 

[Tenor Viol]

As someone who has been on more committees than I care to mention, I'm all too familiar with the chances of trying to persuade some to modernise how they operate as 'challenging'.

The bad news for those that run clubs/societies etc is that if you wish to target a wide demographic then you need to use multiple techniques. It's annoying as most groups, especially if it's not a tech one, will struggle to find the necessary internal expertise or willingness to do/run the necessary site/platforms.

There's little point in saying that we need to be on Reddit / TikTok / Instagram / Discord if you haven't got the people/resources to be able to do it.

The simplest way to get attention is to have a web presence so that a search will find you. The forum mechanism of structured 'conversations' which can be searched is a big asset that is not replicable on other platforms. Undeniably fora are regarded as 'old hat' by some, but there's little real alternative. FB groups are particularly useless as there is no structure there. The nearest alternative in terms of end-user experience is probably Reddit.

Is the demographic of active forum users the same as the demographic of all visitors to the Café: probably not. (For reference - I'm over 60).

 

[Digger2054]

@Tenor Viol it's reassuring to hear, it got a little heated/personal, as a result I turned my back on the sport I was involved with. And now I spent my time waffling on here and trying to play a saxophone