And your skills change with age, Pat. I used to be a very decent guitar player. I am now 60 and have some arthritis developing in my hands to join the knee and spine, and I can barely play anymore. So as a PLAYER my skills are leaving me. As a MUSICIAN, I don't know any less about music than I did 30 years ago when I was young and playing 5 dates every week.

Life also changes. I don't have the luxury of spending 8 hours a day on music. I have 8 hours a day that I work elsewhere. I would LOVE to be a full time musician again. However, there is not enough work out there to be able to maintain an income level where I can own my house, my fairly new car, etc... I am well past the years where I could live with 2 roommates to defray expenses.

Some of the stuff I wrote over the years has been very good, and when my bands performed the songs, it wasn't as much HOW the songs were played as the songs themselves. I get emails now from strangers telling me they like my writing. That means more to me than anything.

I guess the best way to answer your question is that I express through writing these days. And the writing includes the technical skill of THEORY rather than the technical skill of PLAYING. I can always get players. I have a rolodex full of players. If they can play what I hear in my head is the key.

Besides which, if I can get ONE song into heavy rotation, I can make more money from the mechanicals from that one song than I can playing in a year. Sure it's a longshot, but for every CD that comes out, SOMEBODY wrote 11 or 12 songs. Why not me?