Why Do You Do It?

[edwardofhuncote]

I'm often blown away with the level of musicianship around here, and I know some of you guys have full-time, pro, and semi-pro gigs.

I don't anymore, and even when I did, it was mostly just holding 3/4 or 4/4 time signatures straight, playing roots and fives in an acoustic folk band, starving to death trying to get Nash-villans (yeah, Joey knows who I mean... ) to like us enough to book us for B-day gigs on a festival circuit. A couple years of the road, a couple off-seasons making nice with tip-jars on Broadway and Printer's Alley, and I came back home to Virginia to pick up where I left off doing this public service Water Department thing. I still got to play as much as I wanted to, but the economics sucked a lot less, and I got to sleep more. But I never burned out... I love it more than air. From the first gig I ever got paid for, a New Years party in 1987-88 (made $34) until this very day, nothing makes me quite so happy as to pack my gear in the car, and go play some music. The Girl-In-The-Pink-Floppy-Hat is close, but even she questions my choices. Truth be told, some of it is her fault.    All kidding aside, music is such a BIG part of my identity that I wouldn't know where to start over if I couldn't play. It's just what I do.

Recent health issues, (for me it's this osteoarthritis, degenerating my spine and putting my hands to sleep) are making it really hard. And I just can't tell anybody "no, sorry man, can't make it.". I'll play until I drop. In fact, if I'm going to drop, I hope it's after the last song of the last set, and they have to put my bass in the case, and haul my rig out for me too. Okay, that might be a little too far, but this is one of those rare things where I actually get to decide for myself (at least for the time being)... and I would feel worse sitting at home with a bottle of Tylenol knowing there was a gig happening, and I wasn't in on it. One day, maybe in the not-to-distant future, they'll fix me up again, but I'm going to keep doing what I can until I can't anymore.

A recent thread made me wonder where everybody else here is with their Musical Journey, so I'm just throwing it out for discussion. Contribute whatever you are comfortable with - past stories, current events, future aspirations.   

[pauldo]

Gregory,
You are opening up a can of worms with me!   
Reading your ‘story’ brings a lot to the surface for me.  Just like you music is also a big part of my identity. 


One of my cherished memories is my Mom telling me she was at a coffee clutch talking with the neighbor ladies and catching up on what all the kids are doing these days.
When she got around to me she paused and said I was a “musician”. At the time I was in a band, playing original songs and not getting paid enough at gigs to cover cocktails… but her saying that made me feel like she recognized what was truly important to me. 


In hindsight, and knowing my mother much better these days, I think the fact that two of my brothers are Engineers, one a Geologist and my sister at that time was an Artistic Director for a high profiled magazine in Chicago that she was too embarrassed to confess that I dropped out of college and was working in Manufacturing as a Labor Unit…


Que sera, I AM a musician and will always be.


I also recognize that my skill level is well below some of the true Artiste that are members here.  But I have a passion AND when things ‘click’ and the groove is not denied, the Music feeds my soul!  I love it, whether it is 1, 3, 5 ditty or some actual sheet music with complex time signatures and key changes (somewhere here I recanted my stint playing Chess the Musical in a pit band) playing Music is friggin’ AWESOME.  <— kinda hypocritical coming from a guy who in the last decade has stepped completely away from it.   


Paul (who wishes all of us to be able to ‘keep on keeping on’ until our last breath)
[size=78%] [/size]

[glocke]

I never had  the skill level of some of the pro's that post here so have never done this for a living, I did at one point though put some serious effort into getting various bands going and ended up making music that sounded reasonably good, and those efforts led to some opportunities that allowed me to play with people that DID do music for a living full time at the national level.  I'd get good feedback from some of those people so I know I was doing something right.

Eventually though I largely became discouraged by a lot of things and stopped pursuing playing opportunities and basically do one gig a month with some people who play dead music and a few other non-dead things. The things that got me down are:
-lack of rehearsals...most of the music I ended up playing live were pickup bands consisting of people who had different familiarities with the music being played.  While things usually sounded good, the lack of rehearsals and lineups that constantly rotated just lacked the kind of depth and cohesion that a more consistent group would have.  End result for me is that a lot of these gigs just ended up not being as fun for me because people were basically just jamming through tunes and not actually putting time and effort into working to make a group of musicians sound better as a whole.  Some folks I know refer to that as playing "without a net", frankly I call it nothing more than rehearsing in front of an audience.

-travel time, late nights, too much downtime. Not much needs to be said here.  All this stuff becomes a drag after awhile and it is almost impossible for me to justify giving up 8-10 hours or more for a 2.5 hour set more than once a month.


That said, I love bass, and I love grooving, and I love getter better as a player and musician and these things have led me to find new joy with music so a lot of what I do now consists of:
-Double Bass studies with Joe Solomon up in NYC.  Costing me a ton of money, but hey, a shrink would too but not only am I learning how to become a double bass player, but my overall level of musicianship has increased quite a bit by doing this and things I was not able to do on electric bass before doing the DB thing, I am now able to do better.  My ear and my sense of timing are in a much better place than they were as a result of this.

-BeatBuddy, effects.etc.  I am having a blast coming up with different grooves and bass lines playing along with a BB and an Aeros loop station.  I can (and do so on a regular basis) sit there for hours coming up with different things.  Than there is the whole effects side of things and exploring different tonal palettes with effects.

-Synth stuff.  During the pandemic I bought a lot (I mean a lot) of Moog equipment and spent some time playing around with synthesizers.  The sonic landscapes that can be created with these things are a lot of fun, and you don't need to have a lot of KB ability to get around on them.  They are complicated in other ways though.
 

So in summary...The phase I am in is more of a path improving overall musicianship and just having fun with music in my own space and on my own terms.

[the_home]

Gregory, you have shared what many, many of us probably relate to at least in broad terms.

Music is the only avocation (more serious or formal than a hobby?) I've maintained all my life. While I've dabbled in other things over the years, those things have all come and gone. I've been making music for half a century. Initially on guitar for the first 35 (starting in a community summer program at 12) and expanding to the low life over the past 15, I've ejoyed the activity and the community associated with it. Once I was secure enough in terms of family income I began collecting instruments as well as playing them (probably collect them better than I play them), which is truly what brought me to this particular group.

While I share some of the same degenerative spine issues and other aging challenges that you do, Gregory, it is still the enjoyment of 'being played by the music' that is my soul's main refreshment (aside from family). While the achy neck and shoulder, and numb hands now have me playing my ultra light Sadowsky for the most part, I still keep up the collection in top condition and enjoy the sight of my blistered koa topped Series or the infamous BigRedBass just sitting in a stand. My current project, if I can get it to come together, is to Alembicize a light weight jazz body with activators to enable me to get back some of the Alembic sound into my regular playing.

As the song says, "The music never stopped".

[hammer]

I'll be brief here since well paid gigs, at least for me, are a thing of the past. However, playing at friends' weddings (or the weddings of their children or more recently grandchildren), jamming with those I've known for years, or just sitting by myself practicing while playing along with my favorite tunes or new music I've just discovered, is like breathing fresh air.


Working with and doing research about improving the lives of people with disabilities all too often takes one to rather dark places. You meet and get to know people who have been stigmatized, forgotten, or even worse are living their lives in a somnambulant fashion fed enormous amounts of drugs by a psychiatric profession that has recently focused more on behavioral control than healing its patients.


Given that this is the context of my workday, music and the musical journey I have taken is as necessary to life as air. Whether it's connecting with my son while providing a backdrop for the Mississippi Delta blues he loves to play, helping set the pocket for a band of aging healthcare professionals I often sit in with who believe the last "good" music was played by the Allman Brothers while Duane was still alive, or playing relatively simple bass lines as part of a newgrass group I'm playing with, I've come to treasure each note I get to play, each song to which I can contribute, and each new friendship I make through my involvement with music. As a result, in a fashion similar to that described by Greg, as long as there are others who ask me to play, I'll be there to breath that fresh air.

[cozmik_cowboy]

As I have mentioned, in my youth I was a sound engineer (and, when no one was hiring for sound, a stagehand).  I was good enough at both to make a living sufficient for a young, single guy with no material aspirations - but not, alas, to support a wife & kids......

I did it because it what I was supposed to do; it wasn't what I did nearly so much as _who I was._

As to playing, I have never gotten good enough to aspire to anything beyond the occasional play-3-songs folkie open mic - but I do it because it _hurts_ not to;  due to various health issues, I have played very little the last 2 years or so, and not at all from last October until last week (can now again do 3-4 songs at a shot; another year or 2 and I should be back to where I was 3 years ago - which was strictly in the bedroom.  But not being able to play has caused about as much pain & suffering as not being able to walk (or, more recently, walk unassisted).

Peter

[bigredbass]

I never did drugs, can't drink, was reasonably well-adjusted, and was married and never strayed on my wife.  So I was screwed for being a musician.  Once I moved to Nashville, I LOST two gigs as I wouldn't 'party' afterwards.

10 years ago, I simply ran out of patience.  I loved playing enough to do it for free, when it was good.  But too many years of other musicians' endless soap operas, drugs, drinks, the constant bombardment of bad environments in the clubs and elsewhere, and my eternal disgust/rage of having to deal with drunks, finally burned me down once and for all.  It became too toxic and soul-crushing to try and do something I really loved in the environment I was in.  I never managed to make the 'right' connections and play with the good ones that are out there. 

It was very hard, but I walked away while I still could.  It was all I could do to save the rest of my life.

I don't miss it, and would not dream of going back, and honestly, that world of music is as gone as propeller airliners and steam locomotives.  And frankly, Nashville is a terrible place for gigs if you're not in the right circles, which I never cracked.  Before I came here, I played 5, 6, 7 nights a week for a long time.  That doesn't happen here.  I just don't have the fire in the belly to chase all that any more.

I have other interests now, so many things I missed for the years I was obsessed with playing, and I enjoy my life with those interests a lot.  I missed out on a lot, time I'll never get back, so now is the time to grow and put old aggravations behind me, which I do every day.

I still play around the house several times a week, I find I'm more interested in the instruments than I am the players, and I am more than happy to withdraw from that Rat Race, and sell my season ticket to a new rat.

Maybe he'll do better than I did.  So I'd have to say I DON'T do it . . . . anymore.

[glocke]

I never did drugs, can't drink, was reasonably well-adjusted, and was married and never strayed on my wife.  So I was screwed for being a musician.  Once I moved to Nashville, I LOST two gigs as I wouldn't 'party' afterwards.

10 years ago, I simply ran out of patience.  I loved playing enough to do it for free, when it was good.  But too many years of other musicians' endless soap operas, drugs, drinks, the constant bombardment of bad environments in the clubs and elsewhere, and my eternal disgust/rage of having to deal with drunks, finally burned me down once and for all.  It became too toxic and soul-crushing to try and do something I really loved in the environment I was in.  I never managed to make the 'right' connections and play with the good ones that are out there. 

It was very hard, but I walked away while I still could.  It was all I could do to save the rest of my life.

I don't miss it, and would not dream of going back, and honestly, that world of music is as gone as propeller airliners and steam locomotives.  And frankly, Nashville is a terrible place for gigs if you're not in the right circles, which I never cracked.  Before I came here, I played 5, 6, 7 nights a week for a long time.  That doesn't happen here.  I just don't have the fire in the belly to chase all that any more.

I have other interests now, so many things I missed for the years I was obsessed with playing, and I enjoy my life with those interests a lot.  I missed out on a lot, time I'll never get back, so now is the time to grow and put old aggravations behind me, which I do every day.

I still play around the house several times a week, I find I'm more interested in the instruments than I am the players, and I am more than happy to withdraw from that Rat Race, and sell my season ticket to a new rat.

Maybe he'll do better than I did.  So I'd have to say I DON'T do it . . . . anymore.

For some people "The Hang Part" is incredibly important and I've lost gigs because Im just interest in hanging.   For my gig next week there is an afterparty thats supposed to get pretty crazy as there will supposedly be a porn star from LA there that is friends of these people.  Its not my thing, so I won't go Im sure ill get shit for it.

[paulman]

The fact that taking the tools and making an aural connection that's never been heard before can happen every time is what makes me keep going.  Even if I'm the only one hearing it.

The endless possibility is a score.

Finding people that want and can do that and keep the other parts of life together, that's the real issue for me.  Passion is the hardest part to come by.

This is a thoughtful post.  It is very nice to read all your experiences and insights.

[edwardofhuncote]

I've very much enjoyed the response. I think of several folks here as friends, some I've met personally, some I talk to often, some I correspond with electronically, some just on here. This is a pretty cool little circle with an incredible pool of talent and imagination. Just count myself lucky to have stumbled into it. I don't have a lot of musicality to contribute, but I have a memory like a steel trap, especially for dates and numbers, and a sense of humor like a high-wire act. I love to play music, and I love nice guitars, to the point of being passionate about it. This is a good place for that.

[cozmik_cowboy]

I've very much enjoyed the response. I think of several folks here as friends, some I've met personally, some I talk to often, some I correspond with electronically, some just on here. This is a pretty cool little circle with an incredible pool of talent and imagination. Just count myself lucky to have stumbled into it. I don't have a lot of musicality to contribute, but I have a memory like a steel trap, especially for dates and numbers, and a sense of humor like a high-wire act. I love to play music, and I love nice guitars, to the point of being passionate about it. This is a good place for that.

I myself have a mind like a steel trap, Greg. 

Rusty, and illegal in 38 states.......

Peter

[peoplechipper]

I've been questioning this lately, as getting the other two into the room at the same time has been like herding cats on meth, with no gigs on the horizon...mind you, I like my scream therapy and it's been months since I've had a session. I know my band won't tour or make money, but I like getting on stage and blasting, bellowing my head off about horrible things...

[edwin]

I spent 25+ years playing full time all around the country. Never made a fantastic living at it, but had a lot of fun and my wife was (and is) very supportive. At age, 50, I switched gears and went to law school (although that got sidetracked after I graduated when Xander was born and had a really tough start, but that's documented elsewhere). And I still gig 4-6 times a month because frankly, it's too late to stop! It's what keeps me sane. I'm not a quarter the bassist I was 10 or 15 years ago, but it's still fun and people seem to like it. It would be more fun if I had more time to practice, but that's just how it goes.

Meanwhile, we have a show with 4,000 pre-sales on Friday, so I better do some practicing and make sure my batteries are fresh!