Choosing the life of a musician.
Sometimes, there is no other choice.
This article is a reflection on a life lived not of financial wealth or stability, but of a life of music. The starving artist is sometimes considered a cliche because of how often the social stigma fits the endeavor. There are some of us who know no other way to exist. Music is the air that we breathe, and without it, we would suffocate.
I'm sure my parents would have liked to have seen me stay at a well-paying job for forty years, get married, buy a house, raise a family and live in the same town where I grew up. That was good enough for them, but it was not good enough for me. Since I was 13 years old, I knew that music was my path. Somehow, I had to find a way to get onto that path and have it lead me far away from everyone and everything I had ever known.
All artists face the inevitable strain of financial instability. Maybe my parents knew that the only way for stability to exist, was to work a job until the day you retire. Fifty years ago, this was a normal way of thinking for most families. Well, for me, my prospects were fairly limited to whatever employment existed in a small town. Most of these types of jobs were working a line in a factory or pushing a pencil behind a desk in a cubicle. This just wasn't nearly enough for me. I wanted so much more than to settle in a place where I grew up and never explore the world. I desperately needed to find out what I was truly made of; and staying where I started just wasn't going to help me accomplish that.
As a little boy, I was an awkward, shy, introverted kid who didn't have much of a voice. As I grew into my early teenage years, my body began to grow, but I was still struggling with my identity. I didn't know who I was. I grew up with music, but I never really paid much attention to it as anything more than something playing on a radio in the background or in the car. Then one day, the guitar came into my life and changed me. Suddenly, I had a voice, I had an identity. I practiced day and night and held onto that identity with a firm grasp. Something deep inside me knew that becoming a musician one day, was the answer I had been searching for.
So many of my family and friends have all gone on to work at their jobs for four decades or more, paying mortgages, raising families and struggling with exhausting financial debt and instability their entire lives. Some of them were lucky and made good decisions. Some did just about everything right, and created a very comfortable life. Unfortunately, life happened, and many of those success stories sometimes fell apart at the seams. They worked hard and somehow found a way to get through the tough times. Their lives stayed where the started. Nobody moved away, nobody explored the rest of the world, nobody wanted to do something different with their lives. If they did, they either never found the time or realized an opportunity to truly chase the dreams they once had. They gave up and settled for what they worked for.
I think I knew early on that none of that was going to be what I wanted in life. I just couldn't imagine not at least trying. So many saw me as foolish and maybe not thinking too clearly. What they didn't understand is that a life of music for me, was the only choice I had to make for myself, with or without their support.
Creativity as a musician, a writer or an artist is a gift. These gifts must be shared with the rest of the world. Try to imagine a world without music or books or art. It would be a very cold, unfeeling, emotionless existence. That was exactly how I felt about staying where I started and becoming a blue-collared Joe Lunchbox for forty-five years.
My old man retired from a job he had worked at for many, many years. He made enough money to put a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food in our stomachs. For a family of seven, this was no small feat. I used to wonder why he always came home angry. He worked while my mother raised the children and ran the house. It was a typical 1970's family life. It was all my parents knew. I do know that my parents had plenty of regrets. They had to leave their youthful dreams behind so that they could raise me and my four younger siblings. Maybe that's why they had such a difficult time understanding the decisions I made in my youth. I think my grandmother was the only one who truly knew that I marched to the beat of a different drummer.
I had many jobs in my life. I spent most of the 1980's working at a bakery in that small town. When I moved to Orlando, Florida, I spent many years working different jobs at the international airport. I worked hard at all of those jobs. Sometimes I enjoyed coming to work, most times, I would have given anything to be anywhere else. When I became a guitar teacher in 1996, it was as though I was finally being given a chance to chase the dream of working as a real musician. I never claimed to be a businessman. I was never very good with money. When I worked those old jobs and made good money; and spending that money was never really an issue. I always had enough for what I needed with a little leftover for what I wanted. Musician life would change all of that.
Choosing to work in the music world came with a price. I would struggle with money and never really get ahead of it. By the time I was in my 30's, the idea of finding a woman to marry, buying a house and raising a family, was quickly slipping away. My dreams were much more than simple domesticity. I wanted to be a rock star. I wanted to be in a band, playing concerts, being on the road, playing in different cities and seeing the world. I was married to my music. To try to start a marriage and a family while being a working musician, would have been selfish and unfair for everyone.
I have known so many musicians who have had to walk away from the musician life, just so they could settle down into domestic bliss. Some of them still do music stuff, but not nearly at the levels they once were, so many years ago. Maybe that's okay for them. I have nothing else in my life. Music is the one stable thing that hasn't disappeared from my life. So many people, places and things have been lost forever, but I have always had my music. It has been the one constant that I have always been able to come back to.
I no longer do the band thing. Those days ended several years ago. We got very close to grabbing that proverbial brass ring. We almost made it to the next level. It just wasn't meant to be. I wouldn't give up any of it. I have no regrets for the choices I've made in becoming a musician and a music teacher. I may not get to go out and do gigs anymore, but I do get to pass along that knowledge to my students. After nearly 47 years of playing guitar, I have enough experience to share that knowledge with those students so that they might one day pass it along to someone else.
I will never live a financially stable life as a musician. I had to come to terms with that understanding, many years ago. I'm okay with it. I would much rather live the life I choose for me, than to live a life I didn't choose, and live it for everyone else.
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This was a great post. Thanks for sharing your story.