Music as a Job

Hi folks, There's something I've been wondering about for a long time. A stigma exists when it comes to creative jobs. I live in the Midwest and the lifestyle in my neck of the woods for people around my age is usually: Get up, go to work, get off, go to the bar, go home, repeat. Which is fine and all but what if you work as a musician? Well then that's when things start to change. For one working as a local musician means you work AT the bar. For some musicians this means an easy way to get free drinks. For others it means hanging out with friends easier after work ends. For people like me it's slightly awkward. I'm a very non judgmental person be nature. Some would even describe some of my personal life as rather libertine and free roaming in nature. That being said I also grew up in martial arts so I have a high value for being in complete control of my body. As such I generally avoid drinking and drugs as both a health and fitness choice as well as a self control point. I don't mind if others do it, just not my thing. But because of that I never really had a chance to get comfortable in crowds especially at a bar. So playing at bars is actually work for someone like me. But we get paid half decent for the work and it's nice to be able to put smiles on people's faces for a living. I'm very passionate about making people happy and because of that I love my job. The question tonight is about whether being a musician (or any other creative professional) is really work. Here in the Midwest a job seems to be defined as "clock in, clock out, go home." Anything other than that is relatively considered a hobby or playing some sort of games. Now we know in this society you can make a living doing just about anything, look at people who play video games on youtube for a living as a prime example. This is a great thing, because whatever you love can be your livelihood and anyone can truly have a career in anything if they work hard enough for it. So if you only define "working" as clock in, clock out, go home; then you're really limiting yourself to the possibilities that exist. However among this kind of mindset is a very dangerous concept of "oh you play guitar, you must be broke" or "you're unemployed then?" Well both of those things can be true but for a surprising amount of us that's not true. The basic mindset seems to be that if you're not on tv then you aren't working. I'd like to try and dispel that notion if I may. Firstly creative people work mostly off the clock. Look at the singer who spends all their free time learning songs, practicing technique and getting ready for a 3 hour show. Also look how many years it takes a musician (generally) to get to the level required to play full time? For me it took 15 years of consistent work on my instrument. No not all songs that I play require all that practice, but there's always that song that you HAVE to learn where you thank God for that time you spent running scales and learning theory. We train our skill sets for years before we can even start to get a paycheck. I don't know any "normal job" that requires that much patience and stamina. Not only that, but just to get to that first gig (and subsequent paychecks) is a barrage of cold calling, demo recording, auditioning, etc. You have to work the business side just as much if not more than the creative side. Then once you finally get that coveted paid gig, you have to make sure you have all the equipment (your tools) ready in working condition, and that you perform like the employee of the month so that you can come back to work another day. Our work is the only one where our performance EVERY DAY is the decisive factor for future work. You see we can't have an off day, and just coast through work like a regular job, we can't call in sick if we're not famous, we have to work our tails off and work like our lives depend on it each and every time we go on. You don't do that at a regular job. Yes we are our own bosses but that means we have the responsibility of an entire company on our shoulders, we are responsible for the branding, the work scheduling, the materials, the tools, the transportation, and we have to hope we'll get paid the full amount our time was worth in the first place. Most of all in a regular job, you have your schedule set up for you. We don't have that luxury. We have to claw tooth and nail to find our first set of working days, and after all that. After that heart attack inducing amount of work that we put in for YEARS just to get started, we have to make sure to keep going. I think most folks around here are right, I don't have a job. I have a career. A career I've worked half of the entirety of my life to achieve. And I'm humbled to have that opportunity, and damn proud to be a part of a select group of people willing to stray from the heard.

On Nerves, Precision, Guitar, and Super Mario 64

Hello Again,

I was watching some video game videos on Youtube with my Nephew earlier today. One of thing many things we watched was a Speed Run of Super Mario 64. If you don't know what a speed run is, it's basically people competing to complete a game under certain conditions as fast as possible.

Well we were watching a person beat the game in 5 minutes!

After my entire childhood was ruined by that experience it got me thinking about how precise the player must have been in his performance of the video presented.

And of course since I'm plagued with the sweet joys of ADHD, I immediately translated that to music performance.

It got me thinking about how different it is to perform in rehearsal or writing vs what it's like to perform music live.

I've been playing guitar for roughly 15 years no and every day that I play I'm more and more enamored with both the complexity and the inherent simplicity of music.

It's astonishing just how precise a person even at my mediocre level can get during songwriting. But even with that I've noticed a drastic change in my precision when writing when compared to what I play like live.

After a lot of thought and experimentation I've determined that the more nervous I am my playing precision is negatively effected.

I figure a lot of this is due to the fact I haven't been a live player for probably about 10 years or so. When I first started playing guitar I did nothing but play in front of people. However after high school graduation I spent a lot of years indoors practicing as well as learning a trade as a composer. So that meant I didn't get out on the road much.

Now that I'm out on the road more than not, I'm finding the concept of nerves an intriguing new experience.

What are your thoughts? Do nerves affect you positively, negatively, or not at all?

And if nerves have been an issue for you in the past as a live player what have you done to fix the issue?

Thank you, all of you.

To Whom it May Concern,

It's kind of strange when I think about the last few years. I've been away with this and that regarding that or this.

However I can safely report that sometimes life doesn't always seem to work out the way you would expect.

There's a lot to be said for willpower. There's also a lot to be said for malarkey as well. But one of my goals as a person was to be my own boss doing something I love.

Well as of right now I'm an entertainer. For the longest time I wanted to be a composer for orchestral works and various other things. However by happenstance I spent a few years without focus on that goal.

Because of that I felt I learned a lot of things about myself and about the world around me in that time. You see a few years back I was put in charge of a friend who was terminally ill. Over the few months my younger brother and I cared for this man I got my first tattoo, got engaged, broke it off, experimented with being a photographer and many other things in the course of knowing that man who I now call a friend and a surrogate brother. Sadly as we knew his life was cut off too early. But while I got a chance to know him he changed my life and my perspective on many things, God, joy, peace, selflessness, and yes even music.

Over the next year my Dad went through cancer and beat it. Soon after we moved to another town while Dad recovered, unfortunately while in that new (albeit smaller) town he gained a much faster acting cancer and a week after being diagnosed he passed away.

I'm generally a calloused person by nature, it's not necessarily a bad thing as I try to be kind to everyone I meet but that experience ripped the callouses off my heart and exposed a lot of mixed emotions I was unaware I was capable of. I stopped writing music again for a long time because of that.

However once I became engrossed in it again I felt like I had begun a new relationship with a first love.

I fell in love with guitar again and over the course of the next couple of years while taking care of another friend who happened to be very ill, I realized my potential as a guitarist and an entertainer was kind of shocking.

I never felt like I was particularly talented at one thing or the other, and even though my Father made me promise to never quit making music, I was at the time considering a job in health care considering I was growing rather used to being in a home care type of situation and I enjoyed the work.

It took a lot of people who gave a ton of concentrated effort to make me realize how much potential I have on a single instrument.

Thanks to that encouragement I've been working in a band called The Fringe now for a few months with an old friend who is an extremely talented singer and songwriter.

I've gotten to know and become friends with several of the most talented people in the areas where I work, and surprisingly enough I found a community of people where I fit in.

I'm extremely grateful to be a part of this community of extremely talented and creative people, as well as the fact I can play music and put smiles on people's faces as a career.

It's strange I initially wanted to make this post just to mention my band and say a quick thanks to the people that made it a reality.

But the truth is between God, a supportive family, and a great group of friends: I find myself extremely blessed to be a part of a local industry that is not only surviving but thriving regardless of billboard charts, record labels, and other things that aren't necessary.

There's nothing wrong with those things, but when I see so many talented people achieving a dream of making a living doing what you love, just because you love doing it; I'm in awe every day when I see astonishing things like this on a regular basis.

We're not billionaires, we don't drive Phantom's, but we do what we love, because we love it, and it pays the bills. That's my version of the American Dream, and I'm dang impressed by all the people that do it every day.

Of course I want to give credit where it's due, but thank you to all the people that believed in me once upon a time and still support me to this day.

Thank you, All of You,

Joshua Smith
Guitarist, The Fringe