have you ever listened to Frank Zappa's Joes Garage ? joe can dream up guitar notes that would irritate , an executive kind of guy i get through a day by playing songs in my head i can work along to anything i want , hendrix , zappa , gallagher and so on , it works for me , cheers
Alan

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Welcome to our nightmare...

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I'm not sure how old you are. I've been struggling with a similar problem. I've always pushed and stressed myself and taken on more responsibility than I should. Now I'm getting near retirement age. A lot of my friends have retired. I don't feel like pushing and stressing myself anymore, and all I think about all day is music. I don't want to retire, but it would end the guilt complex I'm getting about not working hard enough all day.
I'm getting more immersed in music stuff at night. I'll be practicing with a band in a couple of days. This will be the first time in over 30 years.
Bottom line, there really is no answer except force ourselves to concentrate on the day time tasks enough to afford what we really want to do in the evening.

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'10 American Deluxe HSS Sunset Metallic
'10 JA-90 Thinline Telecaster
'15 Music Man JP-15 Blueberry Burst
'07 Les Paul Standard Faded LCPG #82
'14 Carvin ST300
'12 Carvin CS424S
'66 Guild Starfire IV w/Bigsby
'14 Warmouth Partscaster Daphne Blue

This new job has me working days, evenings and a good part of each weekend. I hardly play and, as far as songwriting goes, I haven't put a pen to paper since last summer. All work and no playing guitar makes the Stratman rather ornery.

I plan to quit this month (after I collect last year's bonus). Not kidding! Blacktop Baritone Tele, as well as a Wattson FY6, Devi Ever Soda Meiser, and Wilson Effects Haze pedals are at the top of my GAS list.

Wow, great topic. I've been playing guitar for over 25 years. I didn't start playing gigs for money until early 2007. I worked a good paying job for 10 years leading up to that. After getting laid off, I accepted a severance package, paid off some bills & worked a few odd jobs. In early 2007 I decided to gig. Momentum built, I got my feet wet, paid some dues & gained a ton of experience & by the end of 2008 I was earning a living completely from gigging. I did that until the end of 2010.

I live in an area where smoking is permitted in clubs. Every winter from 2007 to 2010 I kept getting really sick from being in small clubs with 50 to 70+ people chain smoking. I cancelled a lot of good quality gigs due to being sick from poor quality gigs. In 2010 I made the decision to ditch the smoke filled dives in favor of venues that permit breathing fresh air. I have to travel out of town to get those "good gigs" & I dropped 5 clubs that regularly booked me on a monthly basis. The change has been great for my health, but it hit the finances hard & I was forced to get a "day job" again to supplement my income with the gigs that I'm getting.

I think about music all day at my day job. I also think about that fact that I've had gig filled weekends that blow away the two week paycheck I earn at the "day job".

Then I remind myself of the weekends with no gigs, or the ones that got cancelled due to bad weather, or the ones where the club owner was slime & tried to jip me at the end of the night. Those experiences remind me to be thankful for my modest but consistent day job earnings.

It's definitely a balancing act. Ultimately though, when I look back on all of the venues I've performed in, I think the day job has given me some flexibility that I didn't have when I was just gigging. I can pick & choose my gigs now which is a great thing. In the past I played a lot of gigs out of NEED. Those were almost always the types of places that I didn't want to be in, but I booked it anyway because I needed to earn some cash.

Anyone who's actually tried to survive by gigging as an independent musician will completely understand what I'm talking about.

Cheers~

Computer geek by day - singer/songwriter by night - gigging musician on weekends.

You bite the bullet and do what has to be done...

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

I gave up being a full time gigging musician to go to law school. From 60 mph to zero in a flash. Haven't picked up a guitar in months. It's awful. But we do the things we do for a reason, for greater goods. And if music is a part of your soul, it will make its way into your life one way or another. You will find the time in time, even if you're not finding it now. So try to put your head down and focus on the things you know you need to do. If you do what you need to do when you need to do it, then you can do what you want to do when you want to do it.

/Yoda signing off. Getting back to studying...

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Check out my band!

Tunes for any mood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO6xhc71KyE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5Hm3tScm0

What ever your choice don't do what I did. I simply slid my guitar under my bed, loaned my amp to a friends kid, and went on with my life. giving full time devotion to my career and family responsibility's. Life was good but musically deprived. 34 years later I retired and little by little I began to get back into my music. I found that It was necessary to relearn almost everything, believe me it's been a struggle. and now ten years has gone by and I find that the ageing process has made certain things damn near imposable to do as well as I once did. Maybe if I hadn't quit like I did, things wouldn't come quite so hard. This is a major decision, don't take it lightly.
----Danny,

I have the same problem, but with school. I'm just doing make up work now trying to compensate for time lost in the past (mostly due to focusing more on guitar). But it's still hard to find the time between my part time job and gigging. I usually have at least one or two gigs a week, not counting multiple jam sessions and band practices. I wish I had taken school seriously in the past, if I had I wouldn't be in the position I'm in today. I can't imagine how busy I'll be once college starts. Something will have to give, but I really hope it's not music.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
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I'm still a novice....two years in and still learning.

I have to keep up my practice schedule, but it was sometimes difficult with a job, family, kids, etc.

Solution: I purchased a good, used 17 year old Godin 1000 for $200.00. I brought it to my office and leave it here on a stand. I practice, unplugged, at lunch. My office has a door and the guitar is quiet enough unplugged so as not to disturb my colleagues.

It gives me something to look froward to and helps me progress as a player.

Good thread.
I'm also have a day job but play in two bands. Been trying to make up for the lost time after college and trying to be a bike racer. Found that I didn't have the talent to be a bike racer and spent 10 years, chasing that dream.
I start playing bass when I was 16 but never really got disciplined to do right. So, I continued to play when I wasn't riding, working or bored. Then, one day, I went to a friend's party, who had a band playing at the party. The bass player had only three fingers but could groove like no tomorrow. I realized that I could play, if I got my act so I went out and got some lessons. Had to relearn everything since I had developed some bad habits. Then, met some other people at a local jams and got asked to play with them, which made me work even harder to get better. Recently, started to play in a second band.
Having a lot of fun but without the day job, I couldn't support myself on gigging alone, as another poster noted. So, I practice at night, when I'm not rehearsing or riding my mtn bike.

Nightmare is a good way to put it... Im in the same boat also...

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In Reference to Blues Legend RL Burnside:
After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.

This all sounds like Musician 101. I was a very heavy gigging musician in the 80s and 90s and was also self-employed with a successful woodworking business. You talk about some tough days keeping the priorities straight - I had 'em! The woodworking went well enough that I could spend my incoming gig money on a big PA system and a trailer to haul it in, amps and a bunch of guitars, most all of which I still have to this day.

You know what the guitar player said when asked what he'd do if he won a million dollars?
Keep on gigging until the money runs out.

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

My buddy's got a Martin backpacker in his office that we noodle on when we need a break, but lately when I get a new song idea (whether at work, driving or whatever), I've been grabbing my cell phone and hitting the "Record Audio" feature and just humming it and/or singing into it. That way I can capture something that I might otherwise forget and figure out the chords when I get home. Just need to find a quiet place so people don't hear me going dah-dah-dah-DAH, dah-diddley-diddley-DAH, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, etc....

That's one of my favorite features of my phone! Whenever I have an idea, I jut record it and work on later when I have time.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
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