Quote:

Quote:



Being a musician is not what I do, it's what I AM.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫



I support the local Jr College music program. The dean once told the students that you go into a music career "..if it is the only thing you can do". I took that comment in the positive spirit that it was intended. But I do believe you expressed the same sentiment better.




I think so.

I started as a musician, and got almost famous, warming up in concert for the major stars of the day, with a big record contract offered to us (negotiations failed when our lawyers wanted us to make some money from the deal). Then I got bummed and tried to quit music.

I had a short stint as a telephone repairman and another as a Cable TV Field Engineer, both while playing music on the weekends. It didn't work out with me.

I was capable of doing the jobs, better than many, not as good as the best, but somewhere in the upper middle. But I found myself simply enduring the week and waiting for the weekend. I lived for the weekends when I was on stage and playing music.

I can't not do music.

Being a musician is not an easy life. You always have to be looking for new work, you have to try to be a businessman/woman (which is not always easy for artist types), you have to learn to read the audience and play for them, you have no sick leave and actually have to play when you are sick, you get no paid vacations, you have to pay self-employment tax unless you are in certain orchestras, and you have to strive to be better than your competition or else you will not have any work.

But this pretty much describes any person who is self-employed, doesn't it?

On the other hand, I get to eat, breathe, and live a life doing music and nothing else but music. I'm happy and well adjusted. I'm doing better than the abandoned corporate workers who had the rug pulled out from under them when their jobs were outsourced. The big corporation doesn't care about it's workers, it only cares about this quarter's bottom line.

I make all my own decisions, if the decision is good, I profit, if the decision is bad, hopefully not too much damage is done and hopefully I learn from it. It's not like I have a job and I don't even consider it a job. When I'm looking for work, I'm foraging, when I'm schlepping equipment I'm exercising, and when I'm performing I'm playing (and I mean playing).

As I said, it's not what I do, it's what I am.

I once watched a documentary about the great violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and she advised people if they can and want to do anything else, they should do it. But if they absolutely have to be a musician, then they should be a musician.

It's a happy life. Sure it has it's challenges, but what kind of a life doesn't? But I get to make a life doing music and nothing but music. Between performing and this little Band-in-a-Box aftermarket sideline I stumbled into, I'm doing OK. Or as they say, "could be better .. could be worse".

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Last edited by Notes Norton; 12/11/10 09:41 AM.
Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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