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May 5, 2023·edited May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

Great post Ted—and lots of good comments here. I'm a Juilliard School graduate. Between the ages of 12 and 25, I was laser-focused on a career as a classical musician—and devoted massive amounts of time and energy to putting myself in the best possible position to make that career happen. I did everything "right"—went to one of the best music schools in the world, studied with some of the greatest teachers in the world, and performed for a half-dozen summers in some of the world's most prestigious music festivals. NONE of that helped. What do I do today? I'm the communications director for the Pacific Crest Trail.

My point simply being that even when you do everything "right," it's likely you won't succeed in achieving your dreams—but that's okay. Like others here, I have a small-but-powerful little setup in my home with a DAW, some good monitors and an 88-key MIDI controller...and I've had a LOT of fun with that over the years. I'm a percussionist, so I've also had (for years) a rubber practice pad on a stand in front of a glass door looking out on my backyard...and I have spent countless hours happily drumming away on that rubber pad—for the sheer joy of rhythm, and throwing new "wrist twisters" at myself to learn.

I still hope someday to professionally record a dozen of the hundred-plus songs I have sitting on a hard drive. I still hope someday to perform again in front of an appreciative audience. But I don't think I've had a bad life because I didn't achieve my musical dreams. I'm grateful for the incredibly special time I had playing with one of the world's greatest orchestras (the Juilliard Orchestra).

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Ravi Shankar said: “But music is not for sale. The music that I have learned and want to give is like worshipping God. It's absolutely like a prayer.” Okay. I'm 66. But I'm still going. I'm caring for my disabled husband (who's a composer, who makes no money), I'm retiring from my day job in 8 weeks, I have two adult kids who still need my help, I'm carrying the whole family, BUT I believe that there is a place in this world for my music. Which I get up every morning at 5 AM to write. There's only one answer to this question: keep on going!!! Never, never stop!

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I think people underrated how nice it is to be a musician with a day job. You can focus on your art without the financial pressures.

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

Back in the 1960s my goal was to be a film composer which I pursued relentlessly, even at one point winning a Downbeat Magazine scholarship to the Eastman arrangers summer program where I won the Duke Ellington award to return again the following year. After college as a composition major and a 5 year stint in the Air Force as a pilot to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, I moved to LA to attend UCLA as a grad student in composition. I knew I didn't want the degree which would probably lead to a teaching job but wanted to use the proximity to the vibrant LA music scene to hone my craft and get work while studying. After a year and much frustration, a friend said: "Richard, remember it's the music business. There's the music and there's the business. Don't confuse them." The aha that gave me was profound as I now understood why there were musicians far better than I who were starving and musicians who were much less talented, sometimes embarrassingly so, who were making serious money. I came from a middle class worker-bee home. We were not entrepreneurs and I had no experience in self-employment or the marketing and relationship building to create a successful music career. Realizing this put everything into perspective and I eventually moved on to a successful non-music career as a Clinical Social Worker and psychotherapist, but I also continued to play piano and write for enjoyment and sometimes for hire. Not having to try and wring a living out of music freed me in a sense to look at other options and resulted in increasing my pure enjoyment of music.

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Quick list of some artists who had day gigs for much/all of their adult life:

T.S. Eliot was a banker.

Charles Ives was an insurance executive.

Phillip Glass: plumber.

Toni Morrison: editor.

Herman Melville: customs inspector.

Vivian Maier: nanny.

I love writing music, doing my Substack, and putting things in boxes as an archivist by day. :)

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If you substitute writer, every single one of these 8 pieces of advice are absolutely right-on, and I can see so clearly that because I followed this advice throughout my life (wanting to be published author of historical fiction at age 12, telling stories and writing in my day job as a history professor, staying connected through a writers group for 30 years) I achieved that life I wanted at age 60, and have had more success in the past 13 years as a writer than I ever thought possible. I hope all the young aspiring creatives will take that advice and have and find a similar life of joy and satisfaction.

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

Good one Ted. I’m 66 and still love practicing every day. I love it more than when I was younger. I’ve made a living in New Orleans playing music for over 30 years. An additional piece of advice might be go where the music is. I remember a Joe Pass interview years ago wherein he said when someone asked if they should move to LA to pursue music and he said “if you have gigs where u are ,stay there” something like that. I feel in love with New Orleans music and came here thinking even if I don’t make money and wind up homeless I’ll be around my heroes and other great musicians. Allen Toussaint,Fats Domino,Earl King etc. Not only was I able to make a living all these years but wound up playing with many of my heroes over the years. It’s a cliché of course but follow your heart and love the music. If u want it bad enough you’ll figure it out.

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

I am not a musician, but my son is. He’s currently enrolled in a Songwriting program at a university in Nashville. My older son is a writer; another creative profession. I was an electrical engineer (not a very creative endeavor, but a stable paycheck), so I can’t really relate to the struggles my sons face. Your suggestions were really valuable and I forwarded your piece to them for moral support. I know my Nashville son faces rejection on almost a daily basis; he never complains about it, but just keeps moving forward. I hope he never gives up his dream... Thank you for your words of wisdom!

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

I'm about to make a debut of sorts playing in public. Thing is I'm 55! I've been playing for almost 20 years where folks in Los Angeles have been telling me I play lead guitar as well as anyone out there. I played piano concertos and didn't really immerse myself in guitar until I had a lot of free time after finishing my medical residency. Surrounded by pros who made the big time when I was in NYC for school.

After I shed the classical training box, where you don't improvise and aim to improve what you're playing AS WRITTEN in the score, I bought a grand piano. Drilled for hours, playing some classical. Could not improvise on piano the way I could on guitar, glimpses but then always that classical box returning in a way. But I moved to a new place four years ago and didn't want to disturb the neighbors wailing on the electric. Spent a lot more time on the piano and lo and behold I'm starting to tickle the ivories like nobody's business.

But I always played for my own joy while friends were begging me to share it with the world. I'd try to explain my profound issues with stage fright and say one of these days . . . I always hated speaking to a room full of doctors or having the spotlight on me. Not as an athlete, I was rather good at multiple sports. But I hated standing up in front of the entire school during weekly assemblies to announce our team's results, a duty that fell to the captains which I was in several sports.

It's never too late. And absolutely agree, and this is something a huge fraction of humanity just doesn't get on some level- the better you get at something the more the fun grows. I've been told numerous times when offering to give someone pointers and instantly improve their "game" that they're fine, they're having fun being absolutely terrible. (Skiing, I trained for years with a HOF ski coach Bad Bob Salerno, and tennis where I was nationally ranked in a previous lifetime 40 years ago).

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

But for all the, at times, exhausting and depressing, day jobs I had, I wouldn't have my own little recording studio in my own house where I can choose from any number of guitars and keyboards to make music with. I'm retired now, not because I made a lot of money in music- I never did. But that never made me want to stop writing another song. The only times I ever wanted to give up was when I either listened to a gate keeper who told me all the things I was doing wrong, or compared myself to some artist who was much more "successful" than I. I had to stop doing that.

Since the first of the year I've written a collection of 10 new instrumentals and they will be out on all the usual streaming services in June. It's hard to describe how satisfying that is. I don't make but pennies from all the songs I have put out there over the years. But I tickles me no end when see some person I will never meet or know, somewhere halfway around the world has streamed one of my songs. Perhaps it made them smile a little. I know I did.

It took me a long time to realize that in the most important way I have always been doing exactly what I wanted to do- being a musician who makes music. For that I am very grateful.

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

This made me tear up. I dont know why ( i am not a musician , i dont play a musical instrument). It just did. Thank you.

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

I've been a musician all my life, and I've worked all my life. I've never been able to do one without the other. I manage construction projects. I have a family, and a home. I also have musician friends that I cherish that have magnificent souls, voices, and talent. But just a couple of nights ago, I couldn't sleep... so at 4:00 am went to the music room above the garage, and picked up a guitar, and started finger picking, quietly, in order to not wake anyone, and in just a few minutes, it arrived. A song. It was a little walking blues thing, simple... as art, insignificant, but it was also good. It was just a little drop from that big river.

So, is there and actual muse? Maybe. I can't truly say. Could be just an overactive imagination, or the residue of a dream. But for musicians, there are moments where it feels like there is, and it's possible to be touched by it, to speak to it and through it. My experience is that songs arrive, more than are made. Something comes to us out of a deeper place than we normally access, and blesses us with a richer experience of life itself.

You can't put a price on that, and it will continue to emerge through the lives of musicians no matter what. It's not a way to make a living... but a way to live. So I feel blessed to live in multiple "worlds" and have music running through all of them. So, to all that are up in the night, opening yourself to whatever comes, you're not alone, and you're doing something vital, even if the only beneficiary is you. You belong to, and are part of a world that was just made better for having more music in it.

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Ted, finally signing on, at least for a while. This piece is so spot-on. I'm older than you, spent a lot of my life in a music-related vocation, with substantial rewards, and now focus on my horn. It's very slow out here -- SF Bay area -- but I have a few students and get the occasional performance gig. Each day I want to play better. What, as you say, a gift that is. Have to acknowledge blessings. Cheers, man, thanks. And great Duke piece, too.

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Beautiful post - thank you.

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Thanks Ted, it's difficult when you're just starting out and finding your audience

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May 5, 2023Liked by Ted Gioia

I'm pretty much doing all of these, but I think the most important of all is - "Focus on the intrinsic joy of making music." Thanks Ted. You Rock!

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