Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibilities

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Hades
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by Hades »

:D :D
that sounds so familiar because I'm pretty sure that could happen to me any time
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ZenoSupreme
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by ZenoSupreme »

i've been doing this for a while now; fulltime job, girlfriend, friends and offcourse music production and dj'ing (fortunatly no kids).

Seemed hard at first. I made music since I was 16 or so... had all the time in the world to make a beat, lyrics, recordings... now everything is different... I have to manage my time. It's not as free and inspiring, but it's not that bad either. I've seem to come to terms with the situation. The time I can spend on producing, is spend more toughtfull and focussed nowadays. I tend to work more productive and actually finish stuff.

I also try to use beat making time/mixing time as chilling out with friends time. combining those two works for me because I got friends who are musically inclined.

I use my comuting time to listen to beats/mixes i'm working on. This way I imagine what needs to be added. When I'm in the studio I add the parts I thought about.

I also plan at least 1 day a week in the studio (mostly on Friday or satturday), I just spend the day there and see what happens (either it's making a beat, pacticing on my mixing skills or listening to music).

to be honest, balancing real life responsabilities with my creative part (and wanting to make some money on the long term out of it), has made me more focussed.

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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by disparate »

My current status is decent - in a corporate job which for the last while generally isn't too challenging in terms the effort it takes and any late nights etc, I can listen to music in my earphones for a lot of the day and I went down to a 4 day/30 hour week recently. Decent manager and colleagues which hasn't always been the case there, obviously I struck when that particular iron was hot in terms of asking to cut my hours... Main downside is that I'm away from home a lot but that's manageable since I've got a decent laptop to do music/DJ stuff on and make my excuses to avoid that working-away routine of ending up in the pub with colleagues every night etc.

No kids which helps too I guess ;)

I think for me and probably for a lot of others, having some routine and schedule has its good sides. Sometimes in one's less self-disciplined moments there's a lot to be said for being forced to be awake and doing stuff at a certain time to get the ball rolling! There's a happy medium of course, not so good if that schedule doesn't actually have much free time in it.
Lost to the Void wrote:Well the thing about a shadow job is that there are fewer illusions.
You are clearly trading your time for money. I always preferred that, it's more honest in its own bullshit.
For sure, it's one downside of this type of 'professional', degree-qualified job compared to previous things I've done like bar work where it's kinda expected that it's just a job and a lot of people are pursuing other things or studying or otherwise not seeing it as a career; it's sometimes a bit isolating to be surrounded by people to whom the job's their main focus/aspiration, be sat in appraisals or conversations with the bosses trying to play up my interest in career progression, etc. Suppose I see it as a reasonable price to pay for the extra money and cushyness though and like someone else said there's not much to be gained from playing the rebel either.

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winston
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by winston »

disparate wrote:
it's sometimes a bit isolating to be surrounded by people to whom the job's their main focus/aspiration, be sat in appraisals or conversations with the bosses trying to play up my interest in career progression, etc.
that isolating feeling is the feeling of your soul dieing. different strokes for different folks, so there's nothing wrong with not being career focused. when you're playing up your interest in your job, are you really trying to convince your bosses or are you trying to convince yourself?

any coincidence your username is "disparate", i wonder?

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Hades
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by Hades »

winston wrote:
disparate wrote:
it's sometimes a bit isolating to be surrounded by people to whom the job's their main focus/aspiration, be sat in appraisals or conversations with the bosses trying to play up my interest in career progression, etc.
that isolating feeling is the feeling of your soul dieing. different strokes for different folks, so there's nothing wrong with not being career focused. when you're playing up your interest in your job, are you really trying to convince your bosses or are you trying to convince yourself?

any coincidence your username is "disparate", i wonder?

when in the midst of the time and time again horribly painful process of finishing a track,
there is always winston to put a smile on my face during breaks... :)
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terryfalafel
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by terryfalafel »

winston wrote:
disparate wrote:
it's sometimes a bit isolating to be surrounded by people to whom the job's their main focus/aspiration, be sat in appraisals or conversations with the bosses trying to play up my interest in career progression, etc.
that isolating feeling is the feeling of your soul dieing. different strokes for different folks, so there's nothing wrong with not being career focused. when you're playing up your interest in your job, are you really trying to convince your bosses or are you trying to convince yourself?

any coincidence your username is "disparate", i wonder?
Hmm, I don't think this is right.

I've worked in a supermarket back in uni days where people who earned barely minimum wage made the job their life. If anything, it was worse there in terms of the expectation that you 'live the brand' or whatever bullshit motivational stuff they went in for.

These I work in a technical job in the broadcast industry. Good money, challenging in the sense that it's high risk and you have to be very careful not to make mistakes, but very fucking easy in that I set my own agenda, do what's asked of me, no one bothers me and once per year I make up some tosh about goals and objectives.

I agree with what someone posted earlier, in that more responsible jobs generally aren't harder as long as you can cope with the responsibility. If anything they're easier... Plus, you get left to your own devices more. Less chance of a micromanaging little Hitler type boss, bollocking you if you're two minutes late back from lunch or something...

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by Lost to the Void »

Easiest work I ever did was corporate work. So yeah, definitely not harder. Loads of money, fuck all management to tell me what to do.
But it took over. and ultimately didn't mean anything.
I had to sacrifice it to make music the center of my life again.
One thing I have never had, in any shadow job, was a Hitler boss. I have a massive problem with authority (so I have been told, personally I have no problem with authority as I don`t recognize any authority). So I`ve either whipped those type of people in to shape, or managed them somehow so that I basically got what I wanted, or I fucked off. Learning how to negotiate myself out of arrest on weekly basis gave me a solid grounding in diplomacy and negotiation/mental trickery.
The trick is to win, but have the other person walking away thinking they have won, when in fact you have completely got everything you wanted and led them around by their nose.
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Hades
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by Hades »

Lost to the Void wrote: The trick is to win, but have the other person walking away thinking they have won, when in fact you have completely got everything you wanted and led them around by their nose.
well, I'd like to get back to all of this, but only when I'm in a somewhat more sober state.
but yeah, I do know this : the above advice given is at all times useful, wherever you go in life...
tell them they're right about 70x per second if you have to,
if only that could mean that in the end you'll get whatever you wanted to...
8-)
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Prophän
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by Prophän »

Hades wrote: tell them they're right about 70x per second if you have to,
if only that could mean that in the end you'll get whatever you wanted to...
8-)
We were taught to do this when I worked in a call center, but the whole idea behind it was to make us so low, vile, manipulative and prideless that we could not be considered human beings anymore :lol:

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Hades
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Re: Balancing creative ambitions with real life responsibili

Post by Hades »

Prophän wrote:
Hades wrote: tell them they're right about 70x per second if you have to,
if only that could mean that in the end you'll get whatever you wanted to...
8-)
We were taught to do this when I worked in a call center, but the whole idea behind it was to make us so low, vile, manipulative and prideless that we could not be considered human beings anymore :lol:

:lol:
well, there is a huge difference between doing that trick just to sell shit in an outbound call center situation many times a day,
and the few times a year you can use this simple trick in your own private life, just to make social interactions easier...
call it the vaseline to make your goat more willing, if you like... ;)
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