# If you could change one thing about your musical journey, what would it be?



## NekujaK (Aug 28, 2022)

For me, I wish I had been exposed to jazz piano as a child instead of only studying classical piano throughout my childhood.

While classical piano is wonderful for many reasons, such as technique, reading music, basic theory, appreciation of musical history, etc. I feel like it put me in a box where what I learned most was how to replicate notes on a page. It did very little to encourage creative freedom, improvisation, or even composition.

It wasn't until my mid-teens when I abruptly quit piano, taught myself to play guitar, and discovered improvisation via the blues, that a whole new musical world opened up to me. I should've started studying jazz right then, but my life was busy with other interests and activities at the time, and it just wasn't in the cards.

I've never been able to fully shake the constraints of my classical upbringing, given that it was ingrained in me so strongly from an early age. Consequently, in my musical life, I constantly struggle to break out of the "classical box". Yes, studying classical piano certainly enabled me to do many things musically, but it left out a lot of important things.

Nowadays, whenever I meet parents who are interested in having their children learn music, I always encourage them to seek out jazz lessons, or at the very least, expose them to musical improvisation.


----------



## liquidlino (Aug 28, 2022)

In a similar vein - I wish, thirty years ago when I was doing my piano grades, that someone had sat me down and explained what music theory was good for... I just didn't understand why I was learning all this boring as bat-shit stuff at the time, being a young teenager. Only now, 30 years later, when I return to music, suddenly a light bulb has gone off.

And yes, jazz theory - things like Dominant Fifth7 as passing chords (fifth of fifth), are just so simple ideas, but until someone explains them it's like a dark art. Whole worlds have opened up. And also unlearning that there's only two scales, and everything has to be diatonic - there's just so much emphasis on staying in key - whereas in reality, most interesting music modulates in one way or another.


----------



## CT (Aug 28, 2022)

I would change nothing except to have been star student/apprentice to someone like Shore, Williams, or Newman, celebrated around the world, with my pick of high-profile scoring projects.

(real answer: don't be a lazy bastard when it comes to ear training, relentlessly do the lame drills and exercises very early on)


----------



## Cyberic (Aug 28, 2022)

The one thing would be to not have jacked it in as a recording engineer at age 22 and then going into the music _business_.


----------



## Saxer (Aug 28, 2022)

I wish I had piano lessons as a child. My father played the piano and is was more or less "his" instrument. He wanted my sister and me to learn different instruments so we could play together. I learned violin but never loved it and quit after a few years. A few years later I started plying flute and later sax. But I like composing and chords so I self taught playing piano chords from lead sheets and so on... but never really learned to play piano.


----------



## SyMTiK (Aug 28, 2022)

I wish I started learning an instrument earlier in life. My parents are not musicians so I don't necessarily blame them for not exposing me to learning an instrument at a young age, but I never started really playing an instrument until I was 13 with drums, and 16 with piano. I envy the skill level of those I know that were taking lessons from early childhood in an instrument - I feel that I am fairly competent at the instruments I play to a level where I can fumble around and make the music I want to make, but I feel that if I had been taking lessons at an instrument from childhood on, I would be far more technically proficient at my instruments than I am. Though to be fair, I have never really been much of a performer, and have instead focused more of my time into tinkering inside a DAW  I always was more of a tinkerer when it came to creating


----------



## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 28, 2022)

There are some fairly expensive sample libraries I wish I hadn’t bought.


----------



## liquidlino (Aug 28, 2022)

Henrik B. Jensen said:


> There are some fairly expensive sample libraries I wish I hadn’t bought.


Come on, you can't tempt us with juicy content like that and not share which ones and why!?


----------



## giwro (Aug 28, 2022)

When I was in my mid-20s, I had a period of about 2-3 weeks where I practiced 6-8 hours a day..... my technique and sight-reading took a quantum leap.

I have always wondered what I could have done if I'd been able to keep up at that pace....


----------



## José Herring (Aug 28, 2022)

Warning Rant below:

I learned a lot going to school because I was exposed to so much in NYC. My only wish was that I hadn't been exposed to so many professors. Of the dozens and dozens of professors I had, only a few actually knew what they were talking about. So in the end I ended up just teaching myself everything I know. It was mighty expensive as a method of being self taught. 

Being self taught is just fraught with self doubt, uncertainty, you always have the feeling that somebody or some professor that you long ignored knows something you don't. Or that you can't figure out for yourself. I had many a professors basically tell me that to my face. One big German doofus told me that I would never understand orchestral music because it wasn't part of my "culture". Straight up racism. It's amazing how people reveal themselves behind closed doors. Another german dude from the Berlin Philharmonic admonished me for playing mozart in too "jazz" a style. Dude, it wasn't like I was there improving licks and if I had, I bet that even Mozart played Mozart in too jazz of a style because his music IS jazz with sharp 4's flat 7ths and flat 9's used as melodic flavor all over his otherwise diatonic harmonies.

Two years ago I ran across a FB message from my first college clarinet professor trying to contact me. The message was 5 years old and I had overlooked it all this time because I never check messages from people that aren't my friends. This professor did all he could to discourage me, turn me into a bad player for nearly 2 years until I finally just started standing up to him in class and creating my own style, which of course he hated. When I was audition for the conservatory in NYC he told me flat out that I wouldn't get in. He ended up being fired from the university job for hitting on his female students. Some I guess complained and he blamed me for starting some rumor mill against him because he heard the dean called me in to discuss the matter. All the dean did was ask me if I had seen anything. So dirt bag tried blaming me for his own investigation. I'm like whoa dude. I'm not the child molester in this duo hitting on my 18yr old students. 
So here we are nearly 35 years later and this jackass wants to be FB friends. It was a time in my life that I wish I had long forgotten. But, I did go on youtube to hear one of his recitals that he did a decade ago and was amused that after all that torment I ended up being a way better musician than him. Though I never think about that time until I heard from him again, hearing him play after all these years was a cathartic moment. I ended up just being better than him in spite of it all.

These predators just do the most damage when you're at your most vulnerable.


----------



## José Herring (Aug 28, 2022)

giwro said:


> When I was in my mid-20s, I had a period of about 2-3 weeks where I practiced 6-8 hours a day..... my technique and sight-reading took a quantum leap.
> 
> I have always wondered what I could have done if I'd been able to keep up at that pace....


I did that for 2-3 years. Your technique would have just become permanent. Even after not practicing for years I can still throw down on the clarinet. I don't even consider it my main instrument any more but I start playing and it's like riding a bike now.


----------



## Great Zed (Aug 28, 2022)

I started composing and creating music early on the piano, but was never properly trained. If I could do it over, I'd have proper lessons. I never enrolled in college because I couldn't perform or sight read my way out of a paper bag. However, lessens may have dampened my curiosity and passion for creating music, so it's a double edged sword.


----------



## Marcus Millfield (Aug 28, 2022)

Going through with my conservatoire study when I was 16. I figured I wasn't able to get a decent job in music at the time, which was a good call at that age, and quit that dream. Now, 25 years later, it was a good call, but still bang my head against the wall sometimes for not going through with it.


----------



## Henrik B. Jensen (Aug 28, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> Come on, you can't tempt us with juicy content like that and not share which ones and why!?


Hehe


----------



## bosone (Aug 29, 2022)

I wish I would have continued to take flute lesson when I was a kid...


----------



## osterdamus (Aug 29, 2022)

For a couple of years my teens I made house music on the Commodore Amiga. Because of this my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to pick up an instrument - piano. The gap between what I made at home and what I was taught at the (basic) piano lessons was so large that I honestly couldn't connect the dots. I stopped the piano lessons. 
Working with this tech was a gateway for me to software engineering, which I eventually went with. It became my career for 25 years. I did dabble a little with music along the way, but nothing serious, because I went deep into the tech rabbit hole.

For the last two years I've been self (re)learning all things production and, most importantly, worked on my musicality by studying music theory, jazz theory (recently), learning to read notation which has enabled me to be able to analyze my favorite songs. @José Herring mentions elf doubt and uncertainty as a self taught is definitely a thing, trying to stitch together often opinionated information on your own is difficult. I'm still not as good as I'd like to be, but I'm working on it.

Sometimes I kind of regret that I didn't follow through on the piano lessons, but try not to linger on it too much.


----------



## Alex Niedt (Aug 29, 2022)

Wish I'd learned earlier how much I detest combining music or audio with business (and also how much I detest the music business, in general). Could have saved myself a bunch of years of not enjoying either nearly as much as I should have.


----------



## Markrs (Aug 29, 2022)

Alex Niedt said:


> Wish I'd learned earlier how much I detest combining music or audio with business (and also how much I detest the music business, in general). Could have saved myself a bunch of years or not enjoying either nearly as much as I should have.


There has long been that idea that if turn what you love into your job it won’t feel like work. This narrative is everywhere with people turning hobbies into side hustles into full-time jobs . Whilst it works for some, for many it just leads you to hating what you used to love.


----------



## TomislavEP (Aug 29, 2022)

I'm almost completely self-taught as a multi-instrumentalist (primarily pianist), composer, and producer. The famous artists who had the greatest influence on me and who I admire, mostly don't have a classical background either. While I never really felt limited in a creative and musical sense for being self-taught, after more than a decade of struggling to get by only with music, I sometimes regret not having a formal education. It seems to me that formal references and points often have a bigger impact on capitalizing on your work rather than the talent, passion, creativity, and even potential. At least from my experiences so far. Especially if you don't have much luck in general and are not fortunate enough of being surrounded by those who are in a position and are willing to help you.


----------



## timbit2006 (Aug 29, 2022)

I wasted at least 10 years of my life playing music with "musicians" that had no real end-goals in music.
If I could do it again I'd re-evaluate that and take my current ideals and not make the same mistake. Simply put if another person doesn't add value or happiness to your life it is a risk and a liability to be around them. I wish I had learned that sooner.
I guess in a way it helped out though, the bitter resentment of wasted time and life drives me to work harder to achieve my goals.


----------



## Markrs (Aug 29, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> I wasted at least 10 years of my life playing music with go-nowhere deadbeats that had no real end-goals in music.


I can understand this if you are ambitious and those around you are not. Personally, I have never had end-goals with music and can understand the pleasure of playing music for the fun and love of it rather than where it can take you.



timbit2006 said:


> Simply put if another person doesn't add value or happiness to your life it is a risk to be around them. I wish I had learned that sooner.


This is very true, where possibly to surround yourself with people that make you happy, that are positive and life affirming.


----------



## JimDiGritz (Aug 29, 2022)

I wish that I hadn't waited until my 40's to start making music, I feel like I've progressed quite a lot in the 9 months that I've been doing it, but I do wonder what might have been had I started in my teens, 20's or 30's....


----------



## giwro (Aug 29, 2022)

José Herring said:


> I did that for 2-3 years. Your technique would have just become permanent. Even after not practicing for years I can still throw down on the clarinet. I don't even consider it my main instrument any more but I start playing and it's like riding a bike now.


I suspect you are correct. What I did find afterwards, was that if I needed to learn something really challenging I could discipline myself and get it under my fingers and feet pretty quickly. But, I think if I’d even kept to an hour or two a day, I might have been able to retain some of that benefit. 

The other key thing I took from it was that structured practice make the most difference for me. I’d do 30 minutes of technique (scales, broken chords, hanon exercises) 30 minutes of sight-reading, 30 minutes of repertoire. Rest 5-10 minutes and repeat. Later in the process I added 30 minutes of improvisation….

That concept of disciplined, structured practice was what enabled me to learn music more quickly later in life - some of the other tricks like slow practice driven by metronome I used also… it was one of the things I used to force myself to keep going when sight reading.

At 57, I don’t know if I have the physical stamina to practice that long anymore, so the time is passed for me to be a concert musician, I’m afraid. I’m not angry with myself for it - the reason I didn’t keep it up was because I like people and having relationships… if I’d kept it up, music would have become my spouse and best friend (to the exclusion of some really wonderful friends). I loved the practice very much, and it was addicting…


----------



## jneebz (Aug 29, 2022)

I would not have sold: 

Roland JX-3P
Roland S-50
Ensoniq Mirage 

Doh!


----------



## AceAudioHQ (Aug 29, 2022)

I would have started selling music in my 20's instead of in my 40's


----------



## Awoo Composer (Aug 29, 2022)

Definitely wish I started playing guitar earlier. Or that I never gave up that weird keyboard thing and instead took it more serious.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Aug 29, 2022)

Lots more money.


----------



## ZeroZero (Sep 3, 2022)

Have parents that would encourage me. Have the ability to choose a saxophone or piano lessons at school.


----------



## toomanynotes (Sep 3, 2022)

I wish John Williams was my dad


----------



## Vik (Sep 3, 2022)

I should have sticked to my statement about never owning a computer (for music work).


----------



## PeterN (Sep 3, 2022)

My advice to myself - back in time.

_Dont try to be too different, in the end, you must compromise, and incorporate about 90% of the standard music production shit sound in your own sound. If you throw in more than 10% originality, the blizzard of the soul crosses the threshold. In 2020s the masses are such an ignorant homogeneous - and naive - entity, you should cater for that early. You may even market music with some corporate logo - such as McDonalds, Marriott or Moderna. This will appeal to their alleged existential safe zone._


----------



## Thymos (Sep 4, 2022)

I wish that I had never heard of harmonic mixing during my dj days. This concept makes djing unnecessary complicated without a huge impact...


----------



## BassClef (Sep 4, 2022)

I am a formally rained musician and music educator. However, I wish I had spent more time on ear training and piano when I was in school!


----------



## Fidelity (Sep 4, 2022)

Like NekujaK, also wish I was trained in Jazz (or even any other genre than classical), not that I was given a choice. Also wish my parents didn't turn it into fuel for their egos rather than letting me learn at my own pace. Extremely likely I would've ended up working in music in some capacity rather than just doing it as a hobby otherwise.


----------



## MusicStudent (Sep 4, 2022)

Later in life I realized I should have studied piano and not guitar. By then it was too late.
Otherwise, no regrets I did the best that I could do with what I got. The fact that God gave me no musical talent, well, nothing I could do about that.


----------



## jbuhler (Sep 4, 2022)

I wish I had learned piano when I was a kid. Begged my parents for lessons but to no avail, so I only took beginning piano when I got to college. Also wished I'd taken up the clarinet rather than the trombone in band, and maybe learned the viola. I may still learn the viola after I retire.


----------



## Nico5 (Sep 4, 2022)

BassClef said:


> I am a formally rained musician


Over the years, I've also had many of my musical parades rained on. Sometimes informally, and at other times more formally.


----------



## Dirtgrain (Sep 4, 2022)

Jam more with others (maybe not like Timbit2006 describes). I was way too shy as a young man, studying jazz when I was around 20, taking classes and guitar lessons, but I played alone, while a record was playing, soloing, figuring out chords, key changes. It was good practice, but playing with others makes one grow much more.

I would also get some formal piano training, as I am self taught with that. I can improvise, comp chords, and noodle around pretty well. Still, I know my fingering technique is awful, and worse, I have no left hand. I cannot play a melodic/rhythmic line with my left hand and then solo a different melodic/rhythmic line with my right hand--either what the left hand is doing breaks down--or what the right hand is doing. I've fossilized with it. Any tips?


----------



## KEM (Sep 4, 2022)

I started playing guitar when I was a kid but I didn’t _really _start playing until I was like 18, so for almost a decade I was basically just noodling around and learning small easy riffs I liked but I had no routine and wasn’t disciplined at all, I would’ve been a lot better if I had a better work ethic back then and I’d probably be a much better composer by now

And to take that even further, growing up all I listened to was metal, so for the majority of my life I was never really exposed to harmony as a result, pretty much everything I listened to up until like 4 or 5 years ago were single note, bouncy riffs and to this day my harmonic language has always been severely lacking but I think I come up with some pretty cool rhythms, I just wish I was exposed to more harmonically rich music so I would’ve developed a better ear and understanding for that


----------



## mybadmemory (Sep 5, 2022)

Simply that I shouldn’t have stopped doing it between 20 and 35. That’s 15 years of potential lost there. But at least I found my way back. 

That and maybe that I wish my childhood piano lessons would have focused more on improvisation and less on reading sheet music (that I didn’t learn properly anyway).


----------



## GtrString (Sep 5, 2022)

I wish I have been able to network more with musicians in my teens & 20s. But I lived in the country, and I knew nobody with interest in music. It was before Internet, so all contact had to be analog, and the music kids looked so cool that I felt too intimidated as a country boy. 

If anything I would advice musicians to appear less cool, as that makes you more approachable.

I had to study music through books, and all of the reading brought me into the university, however not in a music department. I basically forgot about my interest in music while I was there.

Another advice, you'd have to be a lot smarter than me to get into music and make it. Fortunately, that's the easy part. The less cool advice still apply.


----------



## Loïc D (Sep 5, 2022)

I wish I had changed my guitar strings earlier in my life. Now I’d have all my fingers.


----------



## Arbee (Sep 5, 2022)

I wish I'd recognised the need and value of learning composition as a distinct, separate skill while I was busy being a studio musician, jingle writer and arranger/orchestrator.


----------



## KEM (Sep 13, 2022)

Another thing I wish I could change would be learning to play guitar right handed instead of left handed, I wish someone would slapped me across the face when I was a kid and forced me to hold the guitar the proper way, would’ve saved me a lot of self-hatred later on in life lol


----------



## The Gost (Sep 13, 2022)

48 hours a day !


----------



## Vik (Sep 13, 2022)

I should have said yes to the offer about getting cello lessons.


----------



## Jacob Cadmus (Sep 13, 2022)

I wish that I didn’t wait for so long to work on my mental & physical health. I felt like I had wasted the past decade being someone “who has great potential” and letting multiple career bump opportunities slip through my fingers, only to find out recently that I’ve been depressed AF this whole time. 

It’s only been about a month since I’ve started working on myself, and mainly because life kinda forced it on me - I dug myself a financial hole, had to move out of LA and back to humdrum Jacksonville FL, no computer or other studio gear to do any composing or sample dev until I can build up savings, credit, etc. and learn how to be an independent and proper adult.


----------



## PaulieDC (Sep 13, 2022)

Two things, long and short:

1) In '92 I bought the Proteus MPS+ 61-key with the extra 4MB Orchestral expansion sounds (yes, 8MB of sounds total WHOA), plus MasterTracks Pro and Principles of Orchestration (spiral bound Alexander Publishing version, still have it). And I noodled around and put together one short track, but I didn't know what I didn't know and back then before YouTube University, there wasn't anything to see an example of to show how to get all this going, so it all got shelved. BUT, there were others who somehow knew how to see past the bedroom wall and make it happen. I wish I buckled down and did that, how far along I might be. The bug bit again in 2016 and here I am, totally immersed. But I tell you this: stepping TOTALLY away from technology like that in 1994 and then waking up 22 years later and seeing what's available... my mind was blown! Ha, understatement. That part has been pretty cool. And since I already had my tower built for video editing, I had a machine ready to jump in and start adding sound libraries.

2) I want to take all I know now about libraries and controllers and libraries and interfaces and libraries and get a huge do-over, so I can go back and just buy what I use now, lol! OK, not all of it was there in 2016, but OT and RME were.


----------



## osterdamus (Sep 13, 2022)

PaulieDC said:


> I noodled around and put together one short track


Ever considered remaking the track, to tie the past into the present? I did that some time ago with 3-4 tracks that were 9 years old. I only had a single file for each track, so it was like going crate digging for an old song to sample, chop up, and add new layers. Fun experience.


----------



## PaulieDC (Sep 13, 2022)

osterdamus said:


> Ever considered remaking the track, to tie the past into the present? I did that some time ago with 3-4 tracks that were 9 years old. I only had a single file for each track, so it was like going crate digging for an old song to sample, chop up, and add new layers. Fun experience.


Hmmmmm, that could be an interesting one! I'd have to recreate from memory, I'm not sure my Mac SE/30 will boot up, often I have to slap the side to get the hard drive to spin (haven't tried it since 2018), and then it finds the OS and works about 10% of the time. Previous sentence is 100% serious, not a joke, lol. The QuickTime MIDI "library" would give me decent enough playback to work it out.

If you are under 30 and reading this, we attempted to make music on one of these. NO audio recording capability, just MIDI sequencing. I did have a really cool dot matrix printer however.


----------



## HCMarkus (Sep 13, 2022)

KEM said:


> Another thing I wish I could change would be learning to play guitar right handed instead of left handed, I wish someone would slapped me across the face when I was a kid and forced me to hold the guitar the proper way, would’ve saved me a lot of self-hatred later on in life lol


My youngest son played Guitar Hero like a fiend, playing the controller left-handed. When he tired of the limitations imposed by the game, my wife and I suggested he might try the real thing. He told us he wanted to play left-handed and want3ed a left-handed guitar. 

As a left-handed person, I had experienced the impediments imposed by my non-standard handedness. I told my son a story of not having a left-handed mitt around for pickup games on the softball or baseball field, and my resultant frustration. We basically told the lad, "We've got a nice, standard guitar here already. Why don't you just play it?"

He did, and because a fine, finger-picking/strumming rhythm guitarist. 

The funny part is, I believe he would have gravitate toward lead guitar had we allowed him to go at the instrument left-handed. My son absolutely SHREDDED on Guitar Hero. But, since the hand he used to push the note buttons now picks the strings, the potential Lead player went a different direction. 

The moral of my story, if there is one: don't discount the things you've done that weren't necessarily obviously productive. Everything we experience is rolled up into who we are now, in this moment. And if you are making music today, you've done at least a little bit of something right along the way.


----------



## KEM (Sep 13, 2022)

HCMarkus said:


> My youngest son played Guitar Hero like a fiend, playing the controller left-handed. When he tired of the limitations imposed by the game, my wife and I suggested he might try the real thing. He told us he wanted to play left-handed and want3ed a left-handed guitar.
> 
> As a left-handed person, I had experienced the impediments imposed by my non-standard handedness. I told my son a story of not having a left-handed mitt around for pickup games on the softball or baseball field, and my resultant frustration. We basically told the lad, "We've got a nice, standard guitar here already. Why don't you just play it?"
> 
> ...



Yeah you’re right about that, I’m happy with my style of playing so I guess I ended up in the right place, but I’m definitely NOT happy with the amount of guitar choices I have


----------



## HCMarkus (Sep 14, 2022)

KEM said:


> Yeah you’re right about that, I’m happy with my style of playing so I guess I ended up in the right place, but I’m definitely NOT happy with the amount of guitar choices I have


I guess you'll just have to be a Custom Customer. It will thus be easier for you to avoid the "must own 100 guitars" disease afflicting so many six-string aficionados.


----------



## MarcusD (Sep 15, 2022)

Rant inbound... 

Never like to talk personal experiences, mostly avoid doing so...

I had a pretty spoilt start, then one day the bubble burst. Was about 6 when the old man made some mistakes, house got raided and he went to prison. Me, mum and bro were put under surveillance (for our safety) from other people. Eventually ran out of money and ended up in a 1 bedroom flat. Wasn't really allowed to go out and do anything for some time, really messed my head up.

When I was a teenager I had great difficulty socialising, was a real odd recluse. Didn't really know how to behave, didn't know any other kids that had the same experiences as me, that I could talk to. Struggled with health problems, dyslexia and found it very difficult to learn. Got bullied a lot, spent most days skiving school and playing video games. Zero motivation. Really wanted to play piano but couldn't afford to have lessons. At the time I liked listening to movie themes, classical, punk and ska.

When the old man got out (after a second time) things were always little rocky between him and mum but he worked hard and did his best. Got me a guitar for my 14th birthday and made £20 from b-day cards. Went the record store and bought Ozzy Osbourne's Greatest hits 2000. That was the CD that blew my mind and inspired me to learn guitar. Spent hours and hours teaching myself by ear or by reading tablature.

The better I got, the more I started to understand that music was a language and I could use it to escape or vent without fear of judgment. This 'tool' was easier for me to communicate with appose to awkwardly socialising. By the time I was 16 my interests turned to recording, mixing, software etc... bla bla bla

Long story short, I suppose it would have been nice to have had a mentor to teach and push me early on. Maybe have piano lessons from a young age. I'd be interested to see where that path lead. But to be honest, If I'd have had the perfect start in life I'd likely have become a total asswipe with no perspective. Ultimately, I don't think I would change anything about my journey.


----------



## Chris Schmidt (Sep 15, 2022)

Supportive family.

Even now, none of them care. 

They always supported my sister in her dancing and the competitions she was in. We went all over the country in support of her when I was a kid. I think we might have even traveled internationally once or twice.

But my parents would never stop by my room to listen to anything I was working on. If anything, they would just close the door on their way by. Only my grandparents (feigned) any interest in it at all. I thought it would change when I actually started making money with it, since all they cared about was me having a "good job", but even then — noone gave a fuck.

In my 20s, I got accepted into some national programs that I guess you could say were fairly-prestigious, won some competitions, etc. Nothing. Strangers on the internet cared more.

When I was like 23, I did this soundtrack for a local video game (got paid for that one too so I though maybe they'd care) and it was on display for all to play in the "technology" sector of the city's annual summer festivals. They straight-up didn't give a shit. No family or friends cared or bothered to check it out.

Whenever I was able to support myself for a time with music, my parents and extended family didn't give a shit. I would tell my mom about it, and expect that maybe she'd be happy that things were going well in what I wanted to do, but the conversation would invariably go "Oh yeah...so you ever hear back from that place you applied at like 6 months ago?"

No you stupid bitch, why would I when my bills are being paid at something that doesn't make me want to rope? I also have never had to borrow or ask for money from anyone, for anything, ever in my life.

But when things were going less good, and I went out and did whatever I had to, like delivering Pizza (which is something my family would have always said was essentially a punishment job for being a slacker) you'd have thought I was Brad Pitt or something. Constantly asking me about the job down to the most mundane details, which for some reason terribly-interested them all.

I've come to the conclusion it is crab-bucket mentality mixed in with favoritism toward my sister.

People who are slaves to the grind just hate it when someone else refuses to get in line and dreams of something better, I guess.


----------



## HCMarkus (Sep 15, 2022)

Chris Schmidt said:


> Supportive family.
> 
> People who are slaves to the grind just hate it when someone else refuses to get in line and dreams of something better, I guess.


Many share your experience. It takes courage to persevere in the face of familial indifference or outright rejection. 

I hope you have found some good, supportive friends inside or outside the world of music.


----------

