I work a day job.
I don’t often mention it, because I often feel that fact makes me “less” of a musician. The fact that I haven’t gone forward with reckless abandon into my music, no care for the consequences in my life, giving up everything for the chance at stardom. Assuming that what I want is stardom. Which it’s not.
What do I want? Creativity. Of course, there’s nothing that prevents me from being creative while still maintaining a separate day job. Lots of musicians do it to varying success. There’s many benefits of having a day job: I get the opportunity to live in this fabulous city called San Francisco. I get the comfort of knowing that I’ll be able to afford rent every month. I get to choose which musical opportunities I accept, and I get to save some evenings free for just hanging out.
But a day job is also the enemy of creativity, for three reasons.
1. Time
A day job takes away significant portion of my waking time that could be spent being creative. The remaining time that I have in the evening also has to be split among other musical tasks like promoting, booking, practicing, and everything else. At this stage I don’t have the luxury of having a team to share the load of these tasks. So an evening that could be spent doing creative musical work could very well be spent preparing for a future gig.
2. Energy
No matter how rewarding my day job is, after a full day I am often beat. These days, sometimes the last thing I want to do is come home and begin working again.
Lots of musicians also have the tendency to be the most creative late at night, myself included. A really productive evening of music for me is often laid out like so:
7:00pm – 8:00pm: Come home and have a snack, check e-mail
8:00pm – 10:00pm: Record violin parts for songs that I’m working on
10:00pm – 11:00pm: Have dinner while watching an episode of a TV show
11:00pm – 2:00am: Focus on production work on headphones (to avoid bothering the neighbors)
If I’ve had a really demanding day, I might skip out on recording parts in favor of relaxing with a glass of wine. And there’s certainly no way I want to sit in a chair for another couple of hours on the computer. Even if I do stay up until well past midnight working on production, that will put a crimp in my energy for the following day. At some point I have to take time to recover.
3. Comfort
More and more, I’m realizing that for me true creativity comes out of hardship, necessity, and limitations.
If I’m complacent and comfortable through my day job, then there’s no impending need for me to create new music or find gigs. I don’t need to make and play music in order to pay rent. Certainly a benefit in some ways, but I’m never forced to take a risk.
There’s a reason why so many songs are about breaking up and moving on. It’s because the song was born out of hardship. Certainly it also helps that these songs resonate with an audience. But with great emotions come powerful songs.
There’s also a reason why so many pop songs are relatively simple (in structure, lyrics, and production). It’s because the less time is spent creating a song, the faster you can release it and move on to the next potential hit. Certainly it also helps that simpler songs also focus the listener’s attention on the melody, hooks, and performance. But for whatever reason, usually less is more.
So what?
Am I quitting my day job? No.
Am I just venting? Probably. I fully realize that I am in a very privileged position by having a stable day job.
Do I plan on getting back into the studio for more music? Definitely!
Will I promise a release date? Definitely not. I have a day job, remember? 🙂