I was just thinking about how incredibly busy I am and how little I get to see family and friends. It's to a point that when I'm finally home with more than an hour or two of free time, all I want to do is NOTHING...save for playing with my daughter or watching a movie with my wife Renee.
Many of my friends, who I consider my closest friends, I haven't seen or hung out with in a year or more. This isn't how I want things to be, but unfortunately it's how it has to be.
I'm basically self employed, which means I have many responsibilities. I don't have a staff of people (yet) to help me with everything I do. Nobody to call venues for me or book my gigs for me, nobody to take care of making copies or sending faxes of new music to players that I'll be performing with, nobody to help me sort through the 40 or 50 emails I get daily that isn't actually spam, nobody to take care of my promo stuff for me....and so on, and so on.
The most frustrating thing is when people don't seem to understand the amount of work it takes to do this thing called music for a living.
Anyway, because I spend so much time away from friends and family (even when I'm actually home), I have taken to calling non-musicians "civilians". Just as with the military how ordinary people can't ever have a true understanding of what it's like to be in a wartime environment or really come to grip with the traumas involved, so is it how we musicians will never be fully understood or have the amount of sacrifice and hard work that we must endure on a daily basis be truly looked at as something other than "happy go lucky".
My best friend is a cop. Our two schedules are very similar. Of course, I'm not risking my life everytime I "punch the clock" the way he is, but we both are none the more tired or in need of both family and self time.
Despite what I just wrote, I love what I do and can't really imagine doing anything else. And certainly, I have it MUCH better of than many people! How many people sacrifice so much for their occupation and can still say that they love what they do? I guess I just needed to vent is all!
Many of my friends, who I consider my closest friends, I haven't seen or hung out with in a year or more. This isn't how I want things to be, but unfortunately it's how it has to be.
I'm basically self employed, which means I have many responsibilities. I don't have a staff of people (yet) to help me with everything I do. Nobody to call venues for me or book my gigs for me, nobody to take care of making copies or sending faxes of new music to players that I'll be performing with, nobody to help me sort through the 40 or 50 emails I get daily that isn't actually spam, nobody to take care of my promo stuff for me....and so on, and so on.
The most frustrating thing is when people don't seem to understand the amount of work it takes to do this thing called music for a living.
Anyway, because I spend so much time away from friends and family (even when I'm actually home), I have taken to calling non-musicians "civilians". Just as with the military how ordinary people can't ever have a true understanding of what it's like to be in a wartime environment or really come to grip with the traumas involved, so is it how we musicians will never be fully understood or have the amount of sacrifice and hard work that we must endure on a daily basis be truly looked at as something other than "happy go lucky".
My best friend is a cop. Our two schedules are very similar. Of course, I'm not risking my life everytime I "punch the clock" the way he is, but we both are none the more tired or in need of both family and self time.
Despite what I just wrote, I love what I do and can't really imagine doing anything else. And certainly, I have it MUCH better of than many people! How many people sacrifice so much for their occupation and can still say that they love what they do? I guess I just needed to vent is all!
