Terror Incognita
Mar. 8th, 2011 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanA question... Rhetorical, or not, depending on whoever reads this & the even fewer who would answer.
Since the mid-80s at most & the late 80s at least, I've defined myself as a musician ~ primarily as a guitarist & over the last 25 years or so, increasingly as a writer of original music with the idea that it be performed by a group of players... preferably including myself... & that it reach, if not a huge audience, then at least an appreciative one.
However ~ with the demise in early 2009 of my last attempt at forming a group of players suitable for said ambitions, I've been increasingly distancing myself from the ideal & its practice that has sustained me for decades to the exclusion of any other profession to which I may have been suited. More simply ~ I'd never taken the whole 'career' prospect seriously at all, unless it involved playing music, so any 'day-job' has taken position well behind my musical ambitions in my list of priorities.
Currently, I find myself in a retail sales job, not dissimilar to those I had in the early 90s, working for a company which seems to think fostering an air of hostility & fear is an effective way to motivate staff... when all it does is encourage backstabbing, demolition of any 'team' spirit & the idea that kicking colleagues in the head as you climb over them is acceptable conduct.
One way or another, I have encountered this kind of thing throughout my working life ~ I mean my working life supporting my lack-of-musical-career. In the now accepted absence of that desired career, I find I have no patience & even less tolerance for such belief & behaviour.
And yet... music still calls to me. I still get a kick out of playing any of the neglected instruments that lie around the place. I still listen to music with a player's ear ~ isolating each instrument's part, appreciating its skill & technique, then allowing it to blend with the others to feel its complementary nature & enjoy that as well. I still harbour 'The Dream' of finding the right combination of players with the skill, drive, hunger, desire &, most importantly, availabilty to make my rock'n'roll dreams come true, even at the age of (almost) 44.
Because the alternative is to give it up & concentrate on advancing the 'career' that will keep me gainfully employed for the next 20 years & hopefully contribute to my sustainability for a while past that. And simple, time-&-soul-wasting Retail Sales jobs aren't going to do either of those things.
I'm happy to knuckle under & down to the prospect of becoming 'financially fixed by 50'... abandoning the musical dream & putting away the childish things associated with it (the guitars alone would fetch a reasonable price... even on E-Bay).
But should I??
On the one hand, I have a reasonably acknowledged talent for composition & performance. On the other, I have life & professional skills built up over the same amount of years I've been playing. One side has kept me going. the other has paid for me to do so.
I find myself at not so much a crossroads as a T-junction, where the road I've been on is definitely ended, now I have to choose a new direction... where either my spirit or my body will starve.
Faith vs Pragmatism... What to choose??
Since the mid-80s at most & the late 80s at least, I've defined myself as a musician ~ primarily as a guitarist & over the last 25 years or so, increasingly as a writer of original music with the idea that it be performed by a group of players... preferably including myself... & that it reach, if not a huge audience, then at least an appreciative one.
However ~ with the demise in early 2009 of my last attempt at forming a group of players suitable for said ambitions, I've been increasingly distancing myself from the ideal & its practice that has sustained me for decades to the exclusion of any other profession to which I may have been suited. More simply ~ I'd never taken the whole 'career' prospect seriously at all, unless it involved playing music, so any 'day-job' has taken position well behind my musical ambitions in my list of priorities.
Currently, I find myself in a retail sales job, not dissimilar to those I had in the early 90s, working for a company which seems to think fostering an air of hostility & fear is an effective way to motivate staff... when all it does is encourage backstabbing, demolition of any 'team' spirit & the idea that kicking colleagues in the head as you climb over them is acceptable conduct.
One way or another, I have encountered this kind of thing throughout my working life ~ I mean my working life supporting my lack-of-musical-career. In the now accepted absence of that desired career, I find I have no patience & even less tolerance for such belief & behaviour.
And yet... music still calls to me. I still get a kick out of playing any of the neglected instruments that lie around the place. I still listen to music with a player's ear ~ isolating each instrument's part, appreciating its skill & technique, then allowing it to blend with the others to feel its complementary nature & enjoy that as well. I still harbour 'The Dream' of finding the right combination of players with the skill, drive, hunger, desire &, most importantly, availabilty to make my rock'n'roll dreams come true, even at the age of (almost) 44.
Because the alternative is to give it up & concentrate on advancing the 'career' that will keep me gainfully employed for the next 20 years & hopefully contribute to my sustainability for a while past that. And simple, time-&-soul-wasting Retail Sales jobs aren't going to do either of those things.
I'm happy to knuckle under & down to the prospect of becoming 'financially fixed by 50'... abandoning the musical dream & putting away the childish things associated with it (the guitars alone would fetch a reasonable price... even on E-Bay).
But should I??
On the one hand, I have a reasonably acknowledged talent for composition & performance. On the other, I have life & professional skills built up over the same amount of years I've been playing. One side has kept me going. the other has paid for me to do so.
I find myself at not so much a crossroads as a T-junction, where the road I've been on is definitely ended, now I have to choose a new direction... where either my spirit or my body will starve.
Faith vs Pragmatism... What to choose??
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-08 12:38 pm (UTC)My statement of a few years back still stands - I think you could carve an excellent (late) career for yourself in music management. While it would be rather irksome to be so close and yet not performing yourself, I think a) you have definitely got the knowledge and talent to know who to support, how and where and b) it would keep you in touch with the music scene in various ways, and might even give you the leverage back in as a player.
Also, you could do the management part at nights and weekends for a while, while the day-job provides the living, and then once you've propelled the latest Farriss Brothers into the absolute limelight, you'd have the money to chuck Retail Hell forever.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-25 09:12 pm (UTC)hi, i'm a nerd
Date: 2011-04-07 03:22 am (UTC)I'm in the same place at my job right now. Do you know what happens when I start getting tied up in questions about which fork in the road I'm supposed to take? Language or the Kiss starts running through my head, and then I have to fire up iTunes and listen to the Indigo Girls break my heart:
Re: hi, i'm a nerd
Date: 2011-04-08 08:10 am (UTC)Thank you...