Commitment

[Lynx]

I walked away from being balls deep in music at one point
It was a conscious decision at the time, but still don't know why.
Just a gut decision.

Think it might be because I didn't want it to be the "be all and end all" for me.
I would hate for it to be a "job", the fear I would somehow become insensitive to it and lose perspective. Bizarre thoughts really.

It was strange. Everything that I thought I needed was there in front of me and I shook my head and thought "nah, fuck that" ..

It's a funny thing that one, man. We thirst for something with the better part of our being and after the trials and tribulations life finally decides to hand it to us and the only words we can mutter are, "Well... Shit... I don't know if I want it that much after all"

I'm finding within myself that it's fear a lot of times that causes that second guess. That and a deeper realization that the reality of what we want isn't the fantasy we thought it was. You can't have the rose without the thorns and sometimes it's more comfortable to live in a fantasy world..

[Mattias]

I too committed myself 110% to music and the necessary sacrifice of a possible family and kids were a relatively small price to pay.
Commitment and sacrifice often goes hand in hand.

[Sasemoi]

I walked away from being balls deep in music at one point
It was a conscious decision at the time, but still don't know why.
Just a gut decision.

Think it might be because I didn't want it to be the "be all and end all" for me.
I would hate for it to be a "job", the fear I would somehow become insensitive to it and lose perspective. Bizarre thoughts really.

It was strange. Everything that I thought I needed was there in front of me and I shook my head and thought "nah, fuck that" ..

It's a funny thing that one, man. We thirst for something with the better part of our being and after the trials and tribulations life finally decides to hand it to us and the only words we can mutter are, "Well... Shit... I don't know if I want it that much after all"

I'm finding within myself that it's fear a lot of times that causes that second guess. That and a deeper realization that the reality of what we want isn't the fantasy we thought it was. You can't have the rose without the thorns and sometimes it's more comfortable to live in a fantasy world..

I've been in this position twice for both passions I've pursued in my life (chess and music) and I absolutely regret 100% not going for it. I had the same feeling of 'fear of commitment' along with a social background that expected of me to be using my intellect for another purpose. My opinion now is that if you haven't experienced the 'job' for some time (let's say a couple of years) you can never be sure how it will have compared to what you know it to be (the years of grind of getting there, and which have been very passionate I'm sure) and that you will always have to take a plunge into the deep if you are going for a 'less comfortable' or 'less secure' path but fuelled by passion. You're going to have to commit to something at a point.

I honestly think this is a question of intelligence, never being sure what it is you are going to be doing for the rest of your life or at least a very long time, because you see so many possibilities. Committing to one thing feels like restricting yourself and leave you to wonder about so many other things.

[Hades]

Commitment isn't what it used to be.

We were much more committed in the 90's.

Now commitment is shit.

guess I got that coming

and the best (or worst) part is that he's totally right.

[Hades]

I walked away from being balls deep in music at one point
It was a conscious decision at the time, but still don't know why.
Just a gut decision.

Think it might be because I didn't want it to be the "be all and end all" for me.
I would hate for it to be a "job", the fear I would somehow become insensitive to it and lose perspective. Bizarre thoughts really.

It was strange. Everything that I thought I needed was there in front of me and I shook my head and thought "nah, fuck that" ..

It's a funny thing that one, man. We thirst for something with the better part of our being and after the trials and tribulations life finally decides to hand it to us and the only words we can mutter are, "Well... Shit... I don't know if I want it that much after all"

I'm finding within myself that it's fear a lot of times that causes that second guess. That and a deeper realization that the reality of what we want isn't the fantasy we thought it was. You can't have the rose without the thorns and sometimes it's more comfortable to live in a fantasy world..

Totally agree with this.
This "be careful what you wish for" thing can be a very strange phenomena indeed.

[Hades]

funny Alume,
I was almost gonna start a new topic on kind of the same topic, but then with the emphasis on the job part,
as in : what kind of jobs do you guys/Stace do, or what kind of jobs have you done in the past ?

As I've said before, I used to have this pretty good life :
had to work 10 to 12 nights a month, shit job, but gave me a LOT of free time.
But I was also a bit too die hard for what I am passionate about :
I used to do sports 3x a week, watched about 20 films a month for more than a decade, read 2 books a month,
played piano and made music.
Next to that I spent a lot of time with my kids and renovated almost my entire house.
Then I hit rock bottom because the nightshifts finally caught up on me, and my speed of living was just too high.
When I was climbing out of rock bottom, I stopped doing everything else so fanatically, except for my music.
So in the year I was at home, I spent 40 to 60 hours (some times 80) a week on my music. And the results were definitely there.

I always thought I'd love to make a living from this, but I really don't, or at least not be dependant upon music as the main source of income. I wouldn't say no to a release once in a while, and a gig from time to time.
But let's face it, I'm just getting older, and I fucking like being at home in the studio, not somewhere in a hotel room or in an airport. I don't even like crowds ffs...
If music would be my job, I would turn into a full-time alcoholic in only a few months time. I'd cheat on my lovely mrs sooner or later, and my kids would barely get to see me until divorce is there and then they would almost never see me.
I don't want to be that kind of father to my kids, end of story.

Soooo, 3 months ago I started a decently paid job not far from home, but I was gone from like 7AM till 7PM, and when I was home, I was so wasted I had no energy for anything at all. The focus I needed was extreme, and the stress already got to me after 2 months. So I called it a day and had a chat with my boss a few weeks ago. He offered me a new position in the same company, which has been relatively great so far.
I work from 2PM til 10PM, which means I get up every morning, have breakfast with my kids and bring them to school,
and then I have about 3 to 3,5 hours each day for my music. And then I still have at least 1 day in the weekend.
So even with a fulltime job I'm still at about 30 hours of making music each week. That's a fucking sweet deal.
But yeah, that only works if I give up the other stuff more : the sports, books, films.
I still enjoy all of that, but less fanatically. Only music is the one that stays on such a high level.
I'm not gonna say my job makes me happy, it's just a job that pays the bills, but I realized I'm basically just a musician that decided his family is priority, so I'm a musician that works to pay the bills, simple as that.
Might seem sad for some of you, but it isn't once you put your mind to it and when you still have enough time for music, like in my case.

[Hades]

also, an important detail I'd like to add :
it's a job that isn't eating away all my energy (like the one I was doing for the first 2 months)
and since my hours off are before my job, I'm still fully focused.
of course my evenings are extremely short, but when you have your time off after your job, you are always less motivated to start working on something,
while now it's the opposite : if I had a really good morning with my music, I don't mind going to work doing a boring job,
cause I know that job gives me my mornings off for music.

I read a lot, and it's funny how when I look up the lives of some of these writers
(for example Raymond Carver, but if you really wanna have a laugh : read "Post Office" from Bukowski)
they almost always did some kind of "shadow jobs",
basically jobs that just didn't take up too much of their energy, so they had most of it left for their writing.
I am convinced there are a lot of people out there like that.
Hell, almost every day I stumble upon great music being made by totally unknown artists.
So many people out there are not doing some job they've wanted to be doing since they were young.

[surface]

Tom, don't mean to be disrespectful but do you have any notion of how good you have it?

There's people on this forum that haven't a bean and your crying about doing 7 to 7?
I do the same hours and I know the score, coming home and basically going to bed.

I'm on here a while and I know you have classical training and that's something that is gonna have a huge huge huge influence. Not everyone has that luxury.
It's great that you put family first, I think we all do or would do (human nature)
Just get on with it!!

Having a shadow job, wtf world are you talking about?!!
It's survival for most. A regular income is hard to find ..

[The_G]

Having a shadow job, wtf world are you talking about?!!

Something you do to support your art but otherwise have no interest in, and which doesn't require any specific skills?

Yeah, of course people do these jobs to survive or to support families, etc. And some people enjoy them too, even the post office

But I think the point was just that loads of artists (in any art form), including important ones, have to support themselves by doing something completely unrelated to their art. Which they often hate.

[surface]

Okay, I know.
Apologies Tom (before you check in!).
I know that was totally unwarranted.
Just gone off on a rant, and it was uncalled for.
I think if the passion is there, then, no matter what your situation, you have to make time. Prob just annoyed with my own situation and trying to handle it...

[Lynx]

I walked away from being balls deep in music at one point
It was a conscious decision at the time, but still don't know why.
Just a gut decision.

Think it might be because I didn't want it to be the "be all and end all" for me.
I would hate for it to be a "job", the fear I would somehow become insensitive to it and lose perspective. Bizarre thoughts really.

It was strange. Everything that I thought I needed was there in front of me and I shook my head and thought "nah, fuck that" ..

It's a funny thing that one, man. We thirst for something with the better part of our being and after the trials and tribulations life finally decides to hand it to us and the only words we can mutter are, "Well... Shit... I don't know if I want it that much after all"

I'm finding within myself that it's fear a lot of times that causes that second guess. That and a deeper realization that the reality of what we want isn't the fantasy we thought it was. You can't have the rose without the thorns and sometimes it's more comfortable to live in a fantasy world..

I've been in this position twice for both passions I've pursued in my life (chess and music) and I absolutely regret 100% not going for it. I had the same feeling of 'fear of commitment' along with a social background that expected of me to be using my intellect for another purpose. My opinion now is that if you haven't experienced the 'job' for some time (let's say a couple of years) you can never be sure how it will have compared to what you know it to be (the years of grind of getting there, and which have been very passionate I'm sure) and that you will always have to take a plunge into the deep if you are going for a 'less comfortable' or 'less secure' path but fuelled by passion. You're going to have to commit to something at a point.

I honestly think this is a question of intelligence, never being sure what it is you are going to be doing for the rest of your life or at least a very long time, because you see so many possibilities. Committing to one thing feels like restricting yourself and leave you to wonder about so many other things.

For myself I'm learning to live and move with uncertainty. Once the eyes are open wide enough it's impossible not to see that nothing is certain and nothing can be perfect, but with that comes the choice of moving forward anyways. And if I look for what I respect in my past self or the people around me, a large part of it has always been that a choice was made to jump into that abyss.

And it's something we hear again and again, a sort of premonition from those that have gone before us, that the regrets are always on the side of not doing it and never doing it.

I appreciate the thoughts, man

[Hades]

Tom, don't mean to be disrespectful but do you have any notion of how good you have it?

There's people on this forum that haven't a bean and your crying about doing 7 to 7?
I do the same hours and I know the score, coming home and basically going to bed.

I'm on here a while and I know you have classical training and that's something that is gonna have a huge huge huge influence. Not everyone has that luxury.
It's great that you put family first, I think we all do or would do (human nature)
Just get on with it!!

Having a shadow job, wtf world are you talking about?!!
It's survival for most. A regular income is hard to find ..

please, I don't like being called by my first name here.
I'm Hades on subsekt.

I'll reply to your next post in a next reply,
(don't worry man, apologies accepted )
but I still like to reply to this first.
Just some things to put stuff more into perspective...

I know very well how good I have it.
And I realize that for a lot of people it's survival nowadays.
I was never trying to complain, I was just trying to point out that it's ok to just chose a job to pay the bills and try to have as much time free for doing art as you can,
many people just do shit jobs and don't even have something to look forward to as we can with our music.
My mrs does a heavy job, but though she's had far better offers with better paychecks, less hours,...
I'm always telling her to stay where she is if she's happy there (which she is).
I am not complaining about my job, I'm trying to point out that myth (that quite a few teenagers and twenty somethings still believe in surprisingly, the fairy tale parents tell you when you grow up) that when you study well, you'll later find a good/decent job, whatever that might be.
I aced all my exams at univ, and didn't get anywhere with my degree (not my fault, but that's another story).
Never mind that though, just think about it (but I'm sure you know this as you're probably in a similar "no big-perspective" job like me) :
there's like 100.000 different jobs, and how many different educations are there out there ? (which makes perfect sense of course, but yeah, many people just don't realize this when they're younger)

My family doctor actually told me once (on the rare occasions that I have to visit him, I'm almost never sick) that he talks about me as an example to his kids to point out how important it is to think long and hard about what you're gonna do as a job later.
He probably doesn't realize that gives me a rather uncomfortable feeling in general.
But here's the thing, I think I can go and find a "higher" job if I try harder, and if I'm prepared to travel longer up and back every day, and when I'm willing to accept more responsibility. But I chose not to do so, because I want to preserve my energy and focus for music.
It wasn't the 7 to 7 thing I couldn't do, it was the stress that was killing me. I was literally yelling at my mrs for nothing because of it.
If you come out of a long and hard burn-out, the last thing you should do is get a job like I did at first, but I was stubborn and tried anyway.

And honestly man, please don't point out to me I should "get on with it",
I am "getting on with it", maybe you've missed my point where I wrote that I'm currently making music for about 30 hours/week,
and easily spent about 50+ hours a week last year making music.

But I'd also like to add : my previous job was a pure shadow-job. A lot more than the ones in my current company.
(my current one is just an average office job really, but I never thought I'd be the type to take this kind of job)
They don't call the night-shift "graveyard-shift" without a reason.
Before I had the many nights off, I first worked 6 years where I worked half of the nights each month,
plus I had to work series of like 15 nights in a row, up to 25 nights once (still the record there), just because when my colleague was on holiday, you had to be there,
that was the agreement. I can guarantee you when you work 25 nights of 10 to 12 hours (no breaks) you start to flip in a bad way.
And when you were sick, you didn't call in sick, you just went to work.
I actually had one colleague of mine complaining about me when I called in my 2nd day sick in a year time. 2 fucking days.

But that's not my point. My point is this : I did a "call-center" job (I prefer to call it dispatch, because it was far more complex than the average callcenter job),
outbound, for 15 years.
From the stats here I know most people only do this kind of job for maybe 2 to 3 years.
They are ALWAYS looking for new people there, fucking always.
So please, I have the highest respect for all the people doing hard jobs. (man, the truck drivers at the company I work at )
But when people are saying to me "it's hard to get a job", then I just have to think "so how come they are always looking for new people where I used to work" ??
The only thing they need to be able to do is talk Dutch and French, which most Flemish people here are perfectly able to do,
they'll teach you all the rest on the job,
and yet, somehow, people are still saying : "I can't seem to find a proper job"
Well, fucking redefine "proper job", or just leave out "proper" (like I said, whatever that means), and maybe you'll get one.
The (soon to be ex) of my best friend did a callcenter job a few years ago and left after 2 months,
and now she's doing the "I can't seem to find a proper job" thing, she's been doing it for almost 2 years now.
And location can't be the problem for her, nor education, trust me.

My last job's "no calling in sick policy" meant I couldn't even call in sick when my sister was dying.
I just had to call her, but she was so high on morphine that it was totally useless,
and by the time she was literally dying and my family called me to drive up there,
I literally had to say "look, I slept 2 hours today, my mrs just had a rough nightshift and barely slept at all,
if we have to climb into a car right now and drive for 2 hours, it's just not safe"
so we didn't, and when we left early morning after a few hours of sleep, she had died by the time we were half way there.
I still remember the spot I stopped when I got that call.
Yeah, sure enough, then they accepted me taking 3 or 4 days off to arrange the fucking funeral.

My last job had me go totally nuts in the end, when insomnia took over and I barely slept longer than 2 hours at once for like 3 months straight.
I started yelling to anyone for everything. But hey, it meant all those days free for music, and for my kids, and to renovate the house cause we sure didn't have the cash to pay people to do it for us. (but then again, I am lucky enough to have my own house, I fully realize that!!)
So you just hang on, because people will tell you "do you realize how lucky you are" (like you just did)
They had to literally pull me away from that job man, I just didn't see my own depression though it was extremely obvious.
The moment I realized I had to throw in the towel was when I saw my youngest (3 years old at the time) playing with her dolls and saying
"ssshhh !! you have to be quiet, or else daddy will get VERY angry !!"

Also, I fail to see what my classical education has to do with any of this. It just meant I put in years of boring hours training my muscle memory. Anyone can do that if they have access to an instrument. So of course the really poor are excluded, but you can even hire an instrument for not even 50€/year over here. Or in the case of a piano, you can buy an old piano here for maybe 100€ (no joke). My "luxury", as you call it, meant mostly walking back 4km in the dark when I was 8 to 10 years old,
because my dad literally forgot to pick me up at least half of the times. (no buses, too young to use my bicycle as I later did)
People nowadays would scream murder, after the Dutroux age here, but at the time stuff like that was normal.
But at least I had a father which didn't desert my mother, most kids nowadays have to deal with their parents divorcing like it's nothing.
So I guess it's still a luxury somehow. But it was putting in the hours in the end. And if I wouldn't keep on training my fingers nowadays, I would lose my skills soon enough man.
Commitment, the title of this topic.

anyways, I thought I had given up on long rambling posts.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that there's always things to put stuff into perspective, and at the moment I am doing a job that I never thought I'd be doing,
but I do it because I want to do music, and it frees my mind most of the time, and gives me enough time,
and when you put your mind to it and realize the positive sides of this, it makes the negative sides extremely small.

All the above was just trying to mention more context, so you might see things more from my point of view.

[Hades]

Okay, I know.
Apologies Tom (before you check in!).
I know that was totally unwarranted.
Just gone off on a rant, and it was uncalled for.
I think if the passion is there, then, no matter what your situation, you have to make time. Prob just annoyed with my own situation and trying to handle it...

Well yeah, you were probably frustrated by reading my story cause your situation is currently harder to deal with.
Apologies for that, but unfortunately I can't change a lot about that,
and I hope you can read from my rambling above that it wasn't like that for quite a few years (though I had some good times in my old job as well).

But about what you say :
Exactly.
The title of this topic couldn't be chosen better.
If the passion is there, you have to make time.

I was just thinking about that classical education "luxury" (as you called it) while giving someone a lift home.
Now, obviously, I can only testify about this stuff from my perspective over here in my country,
I don't know what it's like in other countries.
But I have this old picture of my great-grandfather holding his clarinet, it's on the wall next to my piano.
Together with her rocking chair, it was the only thing I wanted from my grandmother's house when she died a few months ago (she got to be 103).
I know from a fact that my mother came from a family where there was never any money, and yet all the children who wanted to do music school were able to do so.
They even had a piano at home.
And when you then look at my great grandfather, 2 generations earlier than my mother, they somehow even found money to pay for an instrument and some education.
So again, I guess commitment. I wasn't there to know their exact financial situation, but I know the stories my mom told me,
like how she believed Sinterklaas was a dumb fuck because he brought the rich neighbors lots of toys, and only 1 book for 8 kids at their place.

I'm gonna repeat a boring old story again, but when I first started my synth-adventure, there was no internet so no used gear,
and SW was almost non-existing at the time (and folks certainly didn't have computers that were good enough).
So I bought the only used "synth" I could find, paid 1500€ for it, so I had to pay off my parents for 2 years with all kinds of jobs.
All it had was GM sounds, but it had a sequencer, so I could make music, so I was happy as fuck.
Kids nowadays can get a laptop for maybe 300 or 400€ and get all the cracks they want.
But they still gotta be putting in the hours and show some commitment.

[Hades]

For myself I'm learning to live and move with uncertainty. Once the eyes are open wide enough it's impossible not to see that nothing is certain and nothing can be perfect, but with that comes the choice of moving forward anyways. And if I look for what I respect in my past self or the people around me, a large part of it has always been that a choice was made to jump into that abyss.

And it's something we hear again and again, a sort of premonition from those that have gone before us, that the regrets are always on the side of not doing it and never doing it.

I appreciate the thoughts, man

I totally respect people that can live with that uncertainty, but I personally can't do that,
if I have financial uncertainty, like in the year I was at home with my burn-out,
it tends to stay at the back of my head all the time (as is the case with most people I think),
and it just stresses me out.
And tbh, though I have a lovely mrs, she's pretty horrible at trying to make it seem as if we're broke all the time as soon as there's an unexpected bill arriving,
though we most certainly aren't.
I once read this quote "money is only a means so you don't have to worry about money",
the author meaning that if you don't have enough money, you will constantly worry about money,
but if you have too much money, you will enter a whole different world where you will never have "enough" money, you will always want more.

This is also one of the reasons why I'd never like to be making a living of my music.
I would have to worry about how much it would bring in, and I would have to be ok with the thought that my kids would be missing out on stuff because their dad chose to be a musician instead of a normally paid job.
I already have to be ok with the thought that my kids could have a lot more saving on their account if their dad didn't buy so much gear,
but yeah, I tell my mrs and girls often enough that if I get to die tomorrow, they can sell it all if they're not using it,
but they gotta make sure they get a decent price for it.

Are there people here with kids that did take the plunge and went for a full-time music life ?
I'd like to know. And if there are : how do you deal with that at all ?

[WOLF!]

Are there people here with kids that did take the plunge and went for a full-time music life ?
I'd like to know. And if there are : how do you deal with that at all ?

That's a great question Hades!
The ones I know, that do music (even pro's that do gigs around the world; and some of them without kids) all have a job to pay the bills.

[Lost to the Void]

Jesus, I did enough shadow jobs and I'm not worried about calling them exactly that.
Night jobs, part time shit....Unsociable hours.
If you are willing, at least in a big city, there is tons of that kind of work.
I think of them as shadow jobs as you work, literally unseen in the shadows.

I did night security in the royal army medical college. Right next to the Tate on the river.
I did night security at London's wine museum... That was a proper shadow job. 6pm to 6am.
Wheel clamping in hackney and islington, and the estates near wormwood scrubs.
Basically the places no company would do.
Data entry for charity pledge call centres.
Bouncer at various clubs and pubs in London.
Taxi marshalling for corporate events.

Loads of night shit that didn't require much comittment, you just turned up and exchanged time for money.
Well some of it, wheel clamping, bouncing, required far less passivity obviously.

Loads of people in that type of work I used to meet were writers, artists, actors, musicians etc

It's like in LA, every waiter and waitress is an actor or has a script they are writing, and in Berlin every toilet cleaner and McDonald's burger flipper is a Techno DJ....

[Amøbe]

I like this topic! I used to wanting to be a professional jazz guitarist - but to do that took a lot of commitment, which burned me out on it. I then decided that I didn't want to become a professional musician and I started thinking I wanted a job along the lines of being an engineer, teacher or something that was easy to grasp the idea of... but having to settle with something like that annoyed me, which was when I realized I need to do something with music, so I started studying musicology - through these studies I've had to do some studio/production work (with an academic aim), and now I'm back to making music again... and I can't emphasize enough how having a musical outlet eases me! These days I'm mostly producing to make myself happy - I would like to do some small releases or have a gig now and then, but it's not my main goal these days, and I find myself in a position I'm happy with (making music maybe three times a week for an hour or two - then from time to time I take a weekend off and dedicate it only for that).

I'm curious as to how many on here live off their music?

[Will Frances]

Im a believer in if you are into something, and truly want to be part of it you will eventually find a way to commit. If you have other life commitments/ circumstances outside music it can take time to build up momentum and integrate music in a way that works though

[Sasemoi]

Im a believer in if you are into something, and truly want to be part of it you will eventually find a way to commit. If you have other life commitments/ circumstances outside music it can take time to build up momentum and integrate music in a way that works though

Praise the patient in this near-lightspeed world

[ross-alexander]

I've worked several part time jobs self employed for about 7 or 8 years now, Initially I had no choice but to either try and do something constructive for myself or basically roll over and do something I really didn't want to do. Struggled this year though, it's been a tough year. There is no way I am going back to any sort of challenging role in future or anything that's too much hard graft. (I hope!!) Saying that when I'm busy I've been smashing 14 hour days so I'm hardly workshy.

Prior to this I had a career in teaching. In all honesty I loved the actual teaching bit but the rest of it was crap. Don't miss it at all.

How does this balance out with music? In all honesty it's fine but even when I was working much harder if I wanted to achieve something I would make sure I slept less and donated the time to it. I love making music but it's a productive hobby, not sure it will ever be more than that. More people have a drum machine than a fucking dog these days so it doesn't take a genius to work out the odds or making a full time thing out of it!

I make music most days if I feel like it and it's getting better, plenty of people have looked out for me and met some great friends through it all so can't complain. If I was ten years younger maybe I would feel differently so I don't blame people for chasing it more then, the opportunities are still there if the work is good, but I imagine it's very cut throat out there.

I feel very lucky, really I've mentally cracked it in terms of what I need in terms of money and time to achieve what I want to from things.