This might not be the one and only discussion area for this, but it's good enough. Let me share my journey in the musical world.
I started playing clarinet in the 5th grade, or so. I initially wanted to play trombone, but I failed the rather stupid test for it: the instructor gave me a mouthpiece -- no instruction, mind you -- and asked me if I could make a noise. I couldn't, but could on the clarinet.
From that point on, I began a love/hate relationship with the clarinet, which switched back to "love" in about the 8th grade, when I found out a different mouthpiece made playing easier
.
At the start of 9th grade, I found out that the HS band had 25 clarinet players. I asked to switch to bass clarinet. I did this for a couple months, until I was asked to switch to bari sax. Additionally, at that time I got my first paying job: assistant to the director at my church. This job eventually became two part: a) computer work, from transcription to fixing computers and b) playing whatever part wasn't covered on one of my various instruments.
This position not only allowed me to get fairly skilled on a variety of things (including MIDI and electronic instruments), it also allowed me to play in a variety of different groups (jazz, small ensemble, etc.) and with some very interesting studio and pro musicians, most of whom you wouldn't know, so I won't belabor that point.
I also started singing. I was told I sucked. That's ok, though: from about age 12, I was a bass. They needed basses, even those that couldn't sing.
Fast forward a couple years, to graduation day (or somewhat before it). I had been offered a full-ride scholarship for biology at $school in $far_away_state, but I really wanted to pursue music, so I got myself accepted at SUNYC at Fredonia to study with Dr. Wyman, a 1st-gen student of Sigurd Rascher. Unfortunately, he didn't have any openings in his degree-classes (i.e., I wasn't quite good enough to get in), so I had to do a different major. I practiced for 6 hours or so a day. I got incrementally better, but realized: I have no talent at this, I just work hard and I'm not getting much better.
And then I got married (for the first time). I needed real money. I got a job as the head of a music department at a church in Tucson -- which promptly went bankrupt a year later. I did get another music job, as a director at a different church, but no pay. Hey, I worked as an accountant: it paid the bills.
About 6 years after this, I was no longer married to wife #1 and I was working as a computer tech. My techie job required me to learn HTML to get stuff posted on the intarweb. Fooling around with that led to the creation of my old website, saxpics.com. I also moved to Phoenix, AZ and started attending another church -- the music director of which said my voice wasn't half-bad, but I could use some lessons. I got them, from two different pro musicians (one toured with a gentleman named Larnelle Harris, the other was formerly Miss Arizona). I got pretty good at voice, but had no real need or opportunity to play sax or clarinet, so hung those up.
Throughout all of this, I've also been on TV hundreds of times and played at least that many gigs with dozens of different groups. I've also recorded two CDs, one singing bass and one singing tenor (yes, I have a rather extended range). I'd call that a fairly "successful" music career. Not extremely profitable, but successful.
What was the point of all this? Perhaps that if you've got a goal, do what you can to attain it, regardless of what others think, but you need to define for yourself what "successful" is. Another might be that talent may be able to take you farther than hard work, but even with talent, you need to do the work (which my college roommate, a talented singer, didn't realize: he ended the year with a .36 average). Or maybe I just wanted to up my postcount.
I started playing clarinet in the 5th grade, or so. I initially wanted to play trombone, but I failed the rather stupid test for it: the instructor gave me a mouthpiece -- no instruction, mind you -- and asked me if I could make a noise. I couldn't, but could on the clarinet.
From that point on, I began a love/hate relationship with the clarinet, which switched back to "love" in about the 8th grade, when I found out a different mouthpiece made playing easier
.At the start of 9th grade, I found out that the HS band had 25 clarinet players. I asked to switch to bass clarinet. I did this for a couple months, until I was asked to switch to bari sax. Additionally, at that time I got my first paying job: assistant to the director at my church. This job eventually became two part: a) computer work, from transcription to fixing computers and b) playing whatever part wasn't covered on one of my various instruments.
This position not only allowed me to get fairly skilled on a variety of things (including MIDI and electronic instruments), it also allowed me to play in a variety of different groups (jazz, small ensemble, etc.) and with some very interesting studio and pro musicians, most of whom you wouldn't know, so I won't belabor that point.
I also started singing. I was told I sucked. That's ok, though: from about age 12, I was a bass. They needed basses, even those that couldn't sing.
Fast forward a couple years, to graduation day (or somewhat before it). I had been offered a full-ride scholarship for biology at $school in $far_away_state, but I really wanted to pursue music, so I got myself accepted at SUNYC at Fredonia to study with Dr. Wyman, a 1st-gen student of Sigurd Rascher. Unfortunately, he didn't have any openings in his degree-classes (i.e., I wasn't quite good enough to get in), so I had to do a different major. I practiced for 6 hours or so a day. I got incrementally better, but realized: I have no talent at this, I just work hard and I'm not getting much better.
And then I got married (for the first time). I needed real money. I got a job as the head of a music department at a church in Tucson -- which promptly went bankrupt a year later. I did get another music job, as a director at a different church, but no pay. Hey, I worked as an accountant: it paid the bills.
About 6 years after this, I was no longer married to wife #1 and I was working as a computer tech. My techie job required me to learn HTML to get stuff posted on the intarweb. Fooling around with that led to the creation of my old website, saxpics.com. I also moved to Phoenix, AZ and started attending another church -- the music director of which said my voice wasn't half-bad, but I could use some lessons. I got them, from two different pro musicians (one toured with a gentleman named Larnelle Harris, the other was formerly Miss Arizona). I got pretty good at voice, but had no real need or opportunity to play sax or clarinet, so hung those up.
Throughout all of this, I've also been on TV hundreds of times and played at least that many gigs with dozens of different groups. I've also recorded two CDs, one singing bass and one singing tenor (yes, I have a rather extended range). I'd call that a fairly "successful" music career. Not extremely profitable, but successful.
What was the point of all this? Perhaps that if you've got a goal, do what you can to attain it, regardless of what others think, but you need to define for yourself what "successful" is. Another might be that talent may be able to take you farther than hard work, but even with talent, you need to do the work (which my college roommate, a talented singer, didn't realize: he ended the year with a .36 average). Or maybe I just wanted to up my postcount
.
