For me, it's gigging. There was a time & place in my life when I did it about 4 times a week. Take 4 gigs, all lasting 3 hours a pop, and you eventually forget to actually think about the music. ;) About 2 years ago, I stepped away from being so overly involved in it after a short stint in eating/breathing it; at first it was painful, on several levels. Probably most obviously was the fact that I was admitting to myself that I wasn't 'meant' to be a musician as a full-time career. And when you love it as much as I do, it really is hard to make sense of that.
Yet there are so many more things to steady gigging, both locally and regionally, than the actual music playing. Without digressing too much, I'll just mention the shameless self-promotion, the hours of cold calling venues, the money pumped into recording, the endless search for compatible music-makers, the fear that ya just may not make the money you need to comfortably pay your bills, the hours of self-employment wasteland (ie, you can sleep in but you are seriously wasting your valued time if you do), and the inevitable jerkwads you often have to wade through to find the genuine people that want to help you, no strings attached. Hmmm, can you tell I flirted with this lifestyle for a while?; )
But I mention all of this to point out that the time I quit my "day job" and chose to focus on music was short-lived yet rewarding. It became a blessing in disguise. I only lasted about 3 months and gave into the urge to get back into the stable, predictable life of an educator. Once I did that, after a year or so, music became fun again! I appreciated the fact that this was forever a part of me; it wasn't something I ever really needed to 'give up.'
And, thus, I am at a place where I am regularly playing music again, even though I already have my plate way too full with other obligations. But music is my soul; it is what makes all the other junk in life make sense.
And tonight, during a three-hour gig, I caught my mind wandering. The first half were thoughts of adversity: "WHY do I even do this?" I asked this & other miserable questions as 4 drunk guys continued to annoyingly call out awful cover songs & treat me as if I were their puppet on a string. ("Here's $10...play some Skynard, PUH-leeeze?" "Lisa, we need you to sing __(song I don't know/never want to___ now, sister!")
"At what point did it come to this?" I almost laughed to myself. But any local, hardworking musician knows....sometimes it DOES come to this. No matter how big in your britches you ever get.
However, once the Phoenix 4 (read: out-of-towners walking Bricktown, reminiscing their frat boy days & wondering what single life used to be like...) gulped their last drink & realized they were incredibly late for Mickey Mantle's reservations, a new vibe set in. A few older couples milled around. A table of subdued twenty-somethings whispered. A woman bought my CD after telling me that she, too, was a special ed teacher.
And I played the songs I love, the songs I wrote. I sang & exposed my soul. I covered Roberta, Norah, Beatles. I did some kinda weird vocal percussion while I sang the blues. I FELT the lyrics I belted. And I had a blast. And all those initial feelings of love returned.
"Wow, THIS would feel wonderful if I could do this all the time!"
"What is it like to play in a dark, hushed, crowded room, where people want to interpret lyrics & FEEL something? Like this?"
"Man, I wish I had the guts to quit my job, school, everything...and do THIS." (oh no, here we go....)
Ha.
I bring up my thought process while I am playing to say this:
You're never wasting time when you are bringing joy to someone...that includes yourself. If growing up gets defined as consolidating the child-like excitement about certain things into a teeny, tiny compartment, only for use when social cues deem it appropriate...then I will pass on the maturity, thank you very much.
May I continue to feel passion about playing music for others. It makes my life fun.
Let's do it sister! This made me smile.
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