Something to consider

It's worth my time because i like to do it, and I get better at it. Would i like to get paid a livable wage making music? sure. But, as a touring musician (nothing big), I've come to realize that being on the road kinda sucks, and you need stable people around you to make it happen.

I couldn't quite fit in with the dead lines that might have happen if i were to do this professionally. So I keep it as a very serious hobby. If and when the time comes for me to change my career path, I'll be ready. But, I just have to make sure I take care of my initial life investment first before I would have to entertain the thought further outside of just making siqq beats.

Quote from: Lydian on February 11, 2016, 04:30:14 am

there is so much pressure from society to focus on a career, get married, and have kids.

I sometimes wonder about this. I've felt the same way at times, but why? A society isn't a parent that can give you disapproving looks for not wanting to be a lawyer or a doctor, so who or what is really doing the pressuring?

The best answer I can come up with is that really we do it to ourselves. We all know what our society's norms are because they make themselves obvious in any number of ways, and we can't help but absorb them. But the feeling that we have to abide by them is completely within our control.

Quote from: Lydian on February 11, 2016, 04:30:14 am

I've reached a point where I've come too far and given up too much to stop writing music.

Sunk cost fallacy. If you're not finding it fulfilling, does it really make sense to give up even more of your time to it, or would you be cutting your losses?

Of course nobody wants to advocate 'giving up'. But maybe take a break from it for a while. A few months, maybe even a year or more. See if something else fills the space or you find you have more time for other things you find fulfilling. Or maybe you find you miss it and end up coming back to it, who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This makes a lot of sense to me. I seem to be putting unnecessary pressure on myself that doesn't really exist and it's killing the production process for me.

As far as sunk cost fallacy goes the main reason why I don't quit is because without music I would be seriously bored... There would be nothing else left for me to do really. I'm not going to pretend like making music has always been a story of flowers and rainbows. There's always been a 50/50 divide of enjoyment and frustration. Isn't that just the way it goes though? For everyone? Whenever you really care about something in my experience it's going to frustrate from time to time. It's like having kids... At least to me.

Something to consider

It's worth my time because i like to do it, and I get better at it. Would i like to get paid a livable wage making music? sure. But, as a touring musician (nothing big), I've come to realize that being on the road kinda sucks, and you need stable people around you to make it happen.

I couldn't quite fit in with the dead lines that might have happen if i were to do this professionally. So I keep it as a very serious hobby. If and when the time comes for me to change my career path, I'll be ready. But, I just have to make sure I take care of my initial life investment first before I would have to entertain the thought further outside of just making siqq beats.

Interesting perspective. I found your link to be a good read. Thanks for that. Even though you say you like to do it have there have been times when you've gotten any sort of creative burnout?

Is it really productive to think of life as a series of sacrifices? You have limited time at your disposal, so you have to choose what you do with it. Might as well be something you have fun doing.

Quote from: Lydian on February 11, 2016, 04:30:14 am

I've reached a point where I've come too far and given up too much to stop writing music. However I feel like I'm having somewhat of a quarter life crisis when it comes to thinking about whether all that time was worth it considering the things I had to give up because of it. I'm at a point where my music isn't good enough to be profitable and yet I've already dedicated so much time to the art.

This line of thinking gets you nowhere. If you don't like writing music, why would you insist on wasting MORE of your life to that?

If you accept music as a hobby, then you really shouldn't stress too much about this. Take a break if you feel like it, and just continue to improve yourself. What is it about Madeon's music that makes it better than yours? Whatever it is, work on that. And don't be afraid of having that nine-to-five job; Einstein did his most important research while he was working in a patent office.

If you do want to make a career out of music, you need a realistic plan for how to make money. It's bound to cause suffering if you just hope that one day you will wake up a rock star.

Hey arktopolis. It's not that I don't like writing music. Hearing a good new song is one of the best feelings in the world to me. It's just that the older I get the harder it becomes for me write music because of the obvious time struggles that come with having to make a living. (Money)

It's more opportunity cost than anything. Looking at all my other friends back from high school maybe this really was the right decision. At least I graduated extremely knowledgable about a specific subject. I may have had to miss out on some things but maybe this level of skill I've attained actually makes up for it. It's going to take a few more years of practice until I'm able to close that gap of doubt completely. If I'm one day capable of producing tracks likes my heroes then I'll have no regrets.

Five of my immediate blood relatives are professional musicians or artists, and another two are serious amateurs with day jobs. (I worked in the film industry for 7 years, though I tended to stick to more technical work.) So while I can’t speak personally on what being a professional artist/musician is like, I do have a solid “backstage” perspective.

It seems like art/music has its rewarding moments, and it’s nice to be able to sleep in every day and not have to dress up basically ever. And of course there’s a lot of prestige and glamor associated with success in art or music—if you’re lucky enough to attain it.

But other than that, I don’t see any advantages to being a professional artist over having any other job where you love what you do, and a lot of those other jobs offer HMOs, 401Ks, and (most importantly) regular hours.

My guess is that most musicians who have both headlined a festival AND gotten married and had kids would say this: both experiences are incredible, but if you only get to pick one, get married and have kids. You can make music until the day you die, but getting married and having kids gets harder every day past sometime in your mid/late 20s, especially for women.

As someone who is married and a parent, I’d say that the pressure society puts on you to get married and have kids is a GOOD THING. Most people agree that starting a family is the most rewarding thing they’ve ever done, even if they also have successful careers doing something they love. That’s certainly the case for me.

So my advice is this:

1. If you want to be a professional musician, think real hard about the reality of what that would mean and why you want it. Don’t sugar-coat it: not all of it’s as glamorous as it seems. If you do this, and still REALLY want that life, then go for it 100%. Don’t let anything get in your way. Live and breathe music and everything that goes with it. Emulate the success of others. If at any point you realize you’re not that talented, that’s when you need to start working twice as hard. You should basically only stop doing music to eat or sleep. You should be composing melodies while you take a crap or mow your lawn. Also, forget about ever having kids or a wife or a family—if it happens later, great, but you might as well assume it won’t. (You don’t have to do all this in most other careers, but this is just the way working in any media field is.)

2. If you do want a spouse and kids and a family, do that as soon as possible. Figure out a way to provide for them, and bit by bit nudge over to a way of providing for them that you also like. (Or if you’re the mom, make sure you marry someone who can provide for you if you decide to focus on being a mom full-time. A lot of women end up deciding to do this even if they didn’t think they would at first.) The thing you end up doing doesn’t have to be what you always dreamed of since you were little, but eventually you’ll find something that suits your skills and personality, and you’ll discover what’s interesting about it and you’ll become really good at it. You’ll develop a career and then, as worrying about money becomes a thing of the past, you’ll be able to free up some time and resources to have fun making music at night and on the weekends. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually plenty of time and it’s a whole lot of fun. Share the music you make with your friends, or put it online and enjoy the feedback you get. Plus you’ll have the incomparable experience of having kids and a spouse who loves you. I know it sounds very “ordinary” but this is actually an extremely rewarding way to live—that’s why so many people do it.

Five of my immediate blood relatives are professional musicians or artists, and another two are serious amateurs with day jobs. (I worked in the film industry for 7 years, though I tended to stick to more technical work.) So while I can’t speak personally on what being a professional artist/musician is like, I do have a solid “backstage” perspective.

It seems like art/music has its rewarding moments, and it’s nice to be able to sleep in every day and not have to dress up basically ever. And of course there’s a lot of prestige and glamor associated with success in art or music—if you’re lucky enough to attain it.

But other than that, I don’t see any advantages to being a professional artist over having any other job where you love what you do, and a lot of those other jobs offer HMOs, 401Ks, and (most importantly) regular hours.

My guess is that most musicians who have both headlined a festival AND gotten married and had kids would say this: both experiences are incredible, but if you only get to pick one, get married and have kids. You can make music until the day you die, but getting married and having kids gets harder every day past sometime in your mid/late 20s, especially for women.

As someone who is married and a parent, I’d say that the pressure society puts on you to get married and have kids is a GOOD THING. Most people agree that starting a family is the most rewarding thing they’ve ever done, even if they also have successful careers doing something they love. That’s certainly the case for me.

So my advice is this:

1. If you want to be a professional musician, think real hard about the reality of what that would mean and why you want it. Don’t sugar-coat it: not all of it’s as glamorous as it seems. If you do this, and still REALLY want that life, then go for it 100%. Don’t let anything get in your way. Live and breathe music and everything that goes with it. Emulate the success of others. If at any point you realize you’re not that talented, that’s when you need to start working twice as hard. You should basically only stop doing music to eat or sleep. You should be composing melodies while you take a crap or mow your lawn. Also, forget about ever having kids or a wife or a family—if it happens later, great, but you might as well assume it won’t. (You don’t have to do all this in most other careers, but this is just the way working in any media field is.)

2. If you do want a spouse and kids and a family, do that as soon as possible. Figure out a way to provide for them, and bit by bit nudge over to a way of providing for them that you also like. (Or if you’re the mom, make sure you marry someone who can provide for you if you decide to focus on being a mom full-time. A lot of women end up deciding to do this even if they didn’t think they would at first.) The thing you end up doing doesn’t have to be what you always dreamed of since you were little, but eventually you’ll find something that suits your skills and personality, and you’ll discover what’s interesting about it and you’ll become really good at it. You’ll develop a career and then, as worrying about money becomes a thing of the past, you’ll be able to free up some time and resources to have fun making music at night and on the weekends. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually plenty of time and it’s a whole lot of fun. Share the music you make with your friends, or put it online and enjoy the feedback you get. Plus you’ll have the incomparable experience of having kids and a spouse who loves you. I know it sounds very “ordinary” but this is actually an extremely rewarding way to live—that’s why so many people do it.

I found your post really valuable. I can't thank you enough. It's exactly what I needed to hear at this point of my life. What you said about marriage getting harder the older you get while music lasting forever made a lot of sense to me. The older I get the more I realize that the life of a musician truly isn't as glamorous as it appears. The media glamorizes artists with videos of screaming fans and everlasting money but that's only if you're in the top 1%. The rest of us sadly don't share a similar fate. The realities of being a touring artist would make being a husband or father extremely difficult.

I can't say that I've made my decision but I'll take things one step at a time and come back to this post for some clarity. Thanks once again.

Interesting post Nadav, props

Quote from: Lydian on February 11, 2016, 07:16:48 am

Quote from: RxD on February 11, 2016, 04:50:37 am

Why dont you believe in urself? just because its getting a little tough you're going to start doubting urself?  this world is full of people who give up be one of the very few who doesnt .understand that in order for you to have anything of great value you must suffer and endore

It's just real hard to listen to guys like Madeon, Seven Lions, and Virtual Riot and then listen to my own music. How can you expect someone to not doubt themselves when they're going up against these guys? You can understand that can't you? Don't get me wrong I know that these things take time but if you enjoy what you do should there really be any sort of suffering involved? It's not that I'm suffering but I just feel regret because I've spent all this time on music without much to show for it because none of my tracks sound professional enough yet to release.

That's a sign dude. 6 years is quite enough to get nearly as good at music as some Madeon or Seven Lions or VR.  Especially with how technology and internet developed recently.
You should reconsider what you're doing wrong in music production and find more efficient ways to get better. It's hard though. Many people improve slower than they could because they make lots of mistakes and they don't know actually what to do to improve their skill.

Also each year it gets harder to quit this.
Also I feel the same way as you sometimes but I can't quit anymore because it's too late

I suppose I must elaborate a bit. I've been into music for 6 years but 4 of those years were spent studying music theory, ear training, notation, playing instruments and etc... Those years were invaluable to me since they gave me the musical foundation I have now. None of them were spent studying music production, composition, and audio engineering though. Only the past two have I gotten into that side of the field. I didn't even know that it was possible to make music on computers which is kind of silly since I've been listening to electronic music since the day I was born (Not kidding.)

I agree that the internet has completely revolutionized the accessibility to music production. There's not much that Seven Lions or Madeon do that I don't understand from a musical perspective. Harmonies, Melodies, and Notes in general are a strong point of mine and I can write them quite efficiently. What I can't do is get my mixes to sound as professional or my sound design to be as advanced.

Excuse me if I come off as whiny. Looking at music production there seems to be a lot of similarities between it and learning an instrument. When you learn an instrument just because you've been playing for 10 years doesn't mean that you couldn't have done it in 2 or 3. Which brings me to my next thought. What exactly is the best way for producers to divide their practice time in order to achieve maximum efficiency? Is it wiser to incorporate an approach in which you practice all elements of making production separately or should you try to practice them all at once?

Quote from: Lydian on February 11, 2016, 04:30:14 am

All these hours we dedicate to our craft and people may never care about our music. Many people will never give it a listen. More people will just skim through it and move on to the next track.

I feel like I'm having somewhat of a quarter life crisis when it comes to thinking about whether all that time was worth it considering the things I had to give up because of it.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

Honestly, in the end, I think most artists feel this way...Or at least they have at some point. When you boil it down, all that really matters in creativity, passion, and just life in general is that you truly enjoy what you spend your time doing.

A very tough but important question every artist needs to ask themselves is: "Would I be doing this if I never made a dime from it? Am I just doing this because I don't have anything better to do?"

What you are feeling is normal. I think the most important thing at the end of the day is to let musical creativity be play, not work. Don't force anything. If you're not feeling creative, do something else for a little while and come back.

And never compare your music to anybody else's unless it's because you're using their stuff as a reference mix. Trying to compare your music to that of somebody who has already had major success isn't fair to yourself.

I think when it comes down to it the thing that brings us all to music is the way that it makes us feel. There's nothing that excites me more than hearing a good song. It's been that way since I was young and I think that's what makes music intrinsically satisfying to most artists.

I'll just be honest and say that I was being a bit too overly sentimental the other night. I struggle with these thoughts from time to time but whats more interesting is seeing whether any of you guys have ever felt the same way. Maybe seeing that there are other people out there like me makes me feel a little less alone in the whole producer pursuit. Not many people in my surroundings are into music so It's nice to not feel so alienated.

I'll handle it the same way I've always been handling it. By not thinking about the future and just making music. If one day somethings comes of it then I'll let that be a blessing. Just gotta take things one step at a time and not get so caught up in the imaginary pressure I'm setting on myself.

A lot of professional musicians downplay luck, but it's a matter of fact that some people work their arses off and get no where in the industry.

I thought about this once. When you hear a lot of those successful ones in all those interviews saying: "Everything is possible, follow your dreams and it WILL happen!" I get it, it's an encouragement, but doesn't it actually make it tougher for kids when they realize that it's not always true?

If you're able to make music (or any art for that matter) and you love doing it, even if it's in your spare time, you're already successful. I believe in the therapeutic nature of art in general, creating something makes you feel good, relieves stress and just enriches other aspects of your life.

This!