..I feel I should be working harder at enjoying it all...
...Once again, I'm not entirely sure what this means, although it could have something to do with having led such a blessed life, having so many opportunities made available and having experienced so many amazing things, and still having days and moments where this is not right and that's a worry and if this isn't done then I won't get anywhere et al...
...like I'm just sitting here living my wonderful life and allowing silly, day-to-day, transient stuff, the flotsam and jetsam, just come and bump up against me, and letting it get me down, or not so much that, more like allowing these things to hinder me from experiencing life to the fullest...it's really something, how powerful those small daily miseries can be...
...I guess what I'm trying to say is that I seem to be having some trouble with self-motivation.
....In regards to career, the music business is full of the uber-motivated, and many if not all of my heroes fall under that category. I don't think I have trouble with becoming motivated about things, it's the maintenance of it, seeing projects through to completion, or even just sticking with a project, working at following through...
...As for enjoying it all, day to day....I went to a wedding with my girlfriend last weekend and met a lot of her friends who seem to have loads more fun than I do.....also with the show I work on, I seem to come across a lot of people like this, people not content with how amazing it already is, people who put their heart and soul into wringing from life absolutely every last drop of fun and enjoyment to be had...
...I think I'm feeling like this because of the age I'm at now....
...people seem to shy away from the dreaded thirty years old...maybe they're just saying that....It's been nearly five months now and I'm loving it....it's a particularly amazing time in this life, and even if it wasn't, I feel as though just being this age....it's like a new level of self-respect....after the various self-doubts and insecurities of teenagedom, university years and then the first ten years of being a musician (apparently the hardest according to an old lecturer), it feels like some sort of achievement just having reached this age, being able to take stock of that many years of experience and having them inform you on the choices that lie ahead....
....so, maybe it's the trick of just grabbing the bull by the horns and not letting go...
23 October 2009
06 October 2009
The Show
Currently Listening: Tomasz Stanko, "On The Green Hill"
Currently Reading: 'Underbelly'
....I'm so exhausted!...
This past week has been sometimes twelve hour days, rehearsing all day with the tour cast for the new Thriller Live World tour starting in a few weeks, then going to do the show in town at night....or it's been the usual weekend of doing two shows back to back on both Saturday and Sunday. I don't want to sound whingey by saying that I'm exhausted, it's just that I don't think I've ever worked as many hours on anything as demanding in my life!
Truth be told, it wasn't so hectic on Sunday though...rockstar guitarist D from the town band and I depped out the show (found someone to fill in for us, for those of you not up with show talk) and went and did our little originals gig at a pub in North London.
Show world and Jazz world are so vastly different, I'd like to write about them more in future entries....playing eight shows a week to audiences of roughly nine hundred, our audience on Sunday night began with two girlfriends of band members (of four in the band), and then progressed to about half a dozen...that's right, it was half a dozen because there were four people that paid, earning us a total sum of £20 (which ended up being, yes that's right, £5 each!).
But it was two sets of all original material, and unusually, it was loads of fun!
Just recently (last week in fact) I decided that for myself, playing gigs of original music is far more satisfying in the days and weeks following, knowing that you got your own thing out there, knowing that the compositions all work and are reasonably enjoyable to listen to and improvise over. These factors keep me optimistic about following through to the next one, and also keep me in a state of forgetfulness about how much of a trial they usually are (no money, tiny audiences, potentially psycho band members, difficult venue, rubbish improvising, general failure of realising any sort of artistic vision, et al)...
But then, last Sunday, a couple of things clicked into place with the playing, the tunes all worked on very little rehearsal, and for moments quite a bit longer than the wink of an eye, there were actually times where I genuinely enjoyed myself. And not enjoyed myself in the usual way at these gigs of maybe getting through a passage of music without making a mistake or playing with a passable time feel, but moments where I enjoyed myself like I was laughing with a friend telling a funny story (there was actually a point where I laughed out loud, along with the music)....so it is possible!...
Currently Reading: 'Underbelly'
....I'm so exhausted!...
This past week has been sometimes twelve hour days, rehearsing all day with the tour cast for the new Thriller Live World tour starting in a few weeks, then going to do the show in town at night....or it's been the usual weekend of doing two shows back to back on both Saturday and Sunday. I don't want to sound whingey by saying that I'm exhausted, it's just that I don't think I've ever worked as many hours on anything as demanding in my life!
Truth be told, it wasn't so hectic on Sunday though...rockstar guitarist D from the town band and I depped out the show (found someone to fill in for us, for those of you not up with show talk) and went and did our little originals gig at a pub in North London.
Show world and Jazz world are so vastly different, I'd like to write about them more in future entries....playing eight shows a week to audiences of roughly nine hundred, our audience on Sunday night began with two girlfriends of band members (of four in the band), and then progressed to about half a dozen...that's right, it was half a dozen because there were four people that paid, earning us a total sum of £20 (which ended up being, yes that's right, £5 each!).
But it was two sets of all original material, and unusually, it was loads of fun!
Just recently (last week in fact) I decided that for myself, playing gigs of original music is far more satisfying in the days and weeks following, knowing that you got your own thing out there, knowing that the compositions all work and are reasonably enjoyable to listen to and improvise over. These factors keep me optimistic about following through to the next one, and also keep me in a state of forgetfulness about how much of a trial they usually are (no money, tiny audiences, potentially psycho band members, difficult venue, rubbish improvising, general failure of realising any sort of artistic vision, et al)...
But then, last Sunday, a couple of things clicked into place with the playing, the tunes all worked on very little rehearsal, and for moments quite a bit longer than the wink of an eye, there were actually times where I genuinely enjoyed myself. And not enjoyed myself in the usual way at these gigs of maybe getting through a passage of music without making a mistake or playing with a passable time feel, but moments where I enjoyed myself like I was laughing with a friend telling a funny story (there was actually a point where I laughed out loud, along with the music)....so it is possible!...
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