My career is a great idea. People tell me all the time how they wish they would have taken the chance when they were my age. To go back in time and wake up a little bit. Spend a little bit more time at home instead of hanging out with people who's names they can't remember today. Focusing on things that matter in life: passions, hopes and dreams.
I've been a full time solo guitarist just over a year now and for as much as it seems like a glamorous life, the truth of the matter is that it is a lot of hard work that people just do not see.
My daily schedule consists of getting up in the morning and doing some sort of work out. (let's be honest, no one would believe a starving artist who's overweight, am I right?) after that I hit the woodshead (for those of you who don't know, that's what is know as the "practice room" in musician speak. ) for anywhere from 4-6 hours a day. Sure I take breaks but they don't last more then 5 or 10 minutes. Practicing music is something that is hard to describe. It takes full concentration and a lot of time. It's not only muscle memorization but also understanding the concepts of why things work the way they do and being able to recall them an a moments notice. I'll have to get into that some other time.
After that I spend about 3-4 hours a day at Starbucks, online researching gigs, bars, clubs, new music to learn and other fellow solo artists. I see where I can fit, how I can become more likable to the places I don't. I write email after email trying to promote myself to bars and clubs that get hundreds of these a day and make the extra effort to stand out. (Which I still struggle with.) Calling owners and manages daily till the point they tell me to stop. Researching other people who play, who in my opinion, have have as much talent (not all but there are some) and somehow are getting the same gigs I have applied for and trying to figure out why.
I do my best to try to learn from everything I experience. Why things work and don't work and how to better apply myself to my career.
But I digress.
My job is a lot more then learning a few songs and playing for a half empty bar. It's knowing what to play and how to play it. It's knowing what's going to work on stage that's going to keep people around and bring them back over and over again. It's the hours of time spent getting better in my room, sending emails and making phone calls. In reality, there's a lot of days that it doesn't seem worth it. Being told you're not good enough, you don't have the right look, sound or presence. Being told no more times then you can count and undoubtedly having judging you constantly.
But what makes it all worth it, is that I play music for a living. I don't make a lot of money and have a hard time paying the bills most of the time but through all the B.S. and negativity and politics, I play music for a living. I'm able to do what I love and thankfully get paid for it. don't fool yourself, if you wanna play for a living, be prepared to work. To grind it out.
I can honestly say, there's not one thing I rather be doing to make money. I love my job and Im love how hard I have to work for it!
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