Anyone NOT want to be a pro?

Steamer said:

That's true but it also depends where you live. I've you're hungry to really want it enough regardless of age to keep the dream alive you have to place yourself accordingly in the "right" place to "make it happen".

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It's got to be tough, though. If I was seventeen today, the same age I was when I "turned pro," I'd have no idea what to do to get my foot in the door. I mean, where is the door these days?

con struct said:

It's got to be tough, though. If I was seventeen today, the same age I was when I "turned pro," I'd have no idea what to do to get my foot in the door. I mean, where is the door these days?

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Good question.

I recently posted an update in another thread from Neil Peart discussing how Rush can't even get an advance to record a potential next album.

Music is mostly DIY these days.

Steamer said:

Really it truly all comes down to something all about your personal attitude and the learning process to me. We can limit what we can do based on many external factors for sure as we get older. I'm no stranger to personal sacrificies to keep doing what I do above other things many others feel are far more important in life to grab onto, its about making choices. When I saw Roy Haynes right after his 80th birthday this point came home in spades in the most humble of ways believe me. We are only limited by the boundaries we self impose on ourselves i've learned in life and the realistic choices we need to make to achieve our personal goals. Everyones goals are very different in that regard without casting judgement on wanting to be a pro or not.

I was the young guy in my latest percussion ensemble project for Vancouver 2010 for the Olympics combined with Canadian and French players and during a casual meeting with the leader yesterday I stated clearly to him what an incredible enriching learning experience it was for me to be kicked into a different direction out of my usual acoustic jazz based comfort zone. I told him this experience opened up news doors for the "old guy" musically speaking I can add into my overall musical output into any further situations as a professional player I come across down the road.

Being too comforable in life can lead quickly to growing moss..... you have to be able to push yourself and continue to take chances from what you feel most comforable doing if you want to stay "young at heart" and learn and push yourself all the time to learn even more most importantly.

The creative growing and learning process never stops based on your ATTITUDE and realistic hard choices you have to make towards it.........

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Relationships, kids, money and the wish for security are huge in this context. The choices you speak of are almost inevitably based on that.

One thing I came to realise is that having talent isn't enough. What made me realise that was, over the years, as my bands failed to make a mark despite have a fair amount of talent in the ranks, bands with more talent than we had overtook us. That's the thing - there's a helluva lot of talented people out there. So even if you are a journeywo/man and work your brains out it's not easy to keep up if the really talented ones have a good work ethic.

The arts isn't like accountancy or law (haha - thank goodness), where people can go into it in a relatively perfunctory manner and make a living. The joy associated with the arts attracts so many people that the level of competition is much higher than in most professions. Science is another field where there's far more people wanting to do it than there are opportunities available. I've come across a few administrators with a background in anthropology. Actors serve a lot of food. I've seen the office cleaned by a painter and a science buff. Their passions were relegated to the sidelines.

That's because almost no one grows up hankering to one day be a human resources consultant. That's what happens after your artistic dreams go kaput ... or at least are having a hiatus or being rejigged

It finally struck me - with enough force to change my priorities - that the goodies I had to offer weren't of high enough quality or commercial enough to compete successfully in this hothouse market. I was in my late 20s at the time and the roaring success of INXS was the last straw. They were younger than us and started out around the traps later than we did - yet they had done fabulously and we were still bottom feeding.

I decided to get real about the fact that groups coming up were well ahead of us in terms of quality; there was a good reason why they succeeded and we didn't. I would have rather seen them play than us too - they were more dynamic, clean, cohesive and solid. We had some nice musical goodies IMO, but not enough to coax people to part with copious amounts of their hard-earned to hear them.

I had a defacto relationship going on at the time and I was sick of doing crap work to make ends meet. Now I'm in human resources. 'effin tragic, really - lol. Good money, though, and now I don't worry about being too uncommercial. They're the perks.

If I had the chance being a pro muso, despite its pitfalls, it would have been a more enjoyable path for me. No sour grapes here - it is what it is. Still, settling for second best ain't the end of the world for me - it still beats 10th best or 100th best. Thing is, some people MUST play to keep body and soul together ... music is the only way they truly express themselves. I love music a great deal but I can express myself better in words and cartoons than I can with drums, so it's different. I don't NEED it.

So it's probably for the best that people like me get out of the way for those whose emotional wellbeing is intrinsically tied to their music. I play with passion but it's the people who absolutely pour their heart and soul into their performances who truly enchant audiences. My role now is to play to see them and lap it up

con struct said:

It's got to be tough, though. If I was seventeen today, the same age I was when I "turned pro," I'd have no idea what to do to get my foot in the door. I mean, where is the door these days?

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I know many younger players doing very well for themselves. They are smart and talented and have made some hard choices to make it happen for themselves. Many moved to Europe..some to NYC and elsewhere and they are hungry enough to make it happen against the odds at first.

For the established older players in the right city they too can continue to regularly work and challenge themselves to make it happen even more to add to what they've already achieved.

The work is still out there...its just a case of how willing any individual is to go after it and the important elements of personal sacrifice that might be involved in doing so to achieve getting it.

Steamer said:

They are smart and talented and have made some hard choices to make it happen for themselves..

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It's a good thing for me and a lot of other guys that being smart and talented wasn't a pre-requisite for getting into nightclub work back then!

Seriously, though, where is the entry point to being a professional musician these days? I'm not talking about being in a band that makes it, I'm talking about a young free-lance drummer looking to get into the life, to start working and building a career.

con struct said:

It's a good thing for me and a lot of other guys that being smart and talented wasn't a pre-requisite for getting into nightclub work back then!

Seriously, though, where is the entry point to being a professional musician these days? I'm not talking about being in a band that makes it, I'm talking about a young free-lance drummer looking to get into the life, to start working and building a career.

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Go where the action is happening, be prepared and flexable, and give it your best shot.....

Steamer said:

Go where the action is happening, be prepared and flexable, and give it your best shot.....

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Well, suppose a kid asks you where to find that action, where's it happening. What would you tell him?

Myself, I really don't know. Not to be a total downer but I'm not sure that even exists anymore.

con struct said:

Well, suppose a kid asks you where to find that action, where's it happening. What would you tell him?

Myself, I really don't know. Not to be a total downer but I'm not sure that even exists anymore.

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Didn't I just cover that in post #84?

Numerous current success stories with younger players I could share.......

New York is a tough place to be when you're in need of a gig, and the competition is beyond fierce. And even when you get a gig in New York you're not going to get paid much at all unless you can break into the wedding/corporate scene.

Europe? At least you can get free health care there.

And anyway, what do I know? I'm a relic from a whole other era.

con struct said:

It's got to be tough, though. If I was seventeen today, the same age I was when I "turned pro," I'd have no idea what to do to get my foot in the door. I mean, where is the door these days?

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The door these days is the one you build yourself and ask others to step through.

My old man's in his 50s too. For what he wanted then, he'd start with the Glenn Miller band, learn the ropes, hope that Kenton, Woody Herman or Maynard Ferguson gave him the call, move to Basie, then Art Blakey, then try to put together his own thing. Then when he got tired of all that he would go for a Masters, then become a professor, or just go for it and reach for studio work.

A good young jazz drummer would start with Miller, then Lionel Hampton, then Woody Herman, then a hard bopper like Cannonball Adderly or Horace Silver in the hopes that Miles found you. Then if that happened you'd be the new guy.

You're right, none of that stuff you talk about is around today. I've never seen it personally. To me it's just stories I've heard. So the mindset is already different.

Now it starts with a much, much younger young guy finding a niche that's his and his alone/ in other words something he's known for/ developing slow and careful associations with instrument companies even before you're ready for them, test out your ideas and theories on Internet places/the new place where young musicians network/, go to those 1 or two year intensive drum places/ AIM, MIT etc/, develop more connections, then when you're out of the AIM place you go to a part of the world where you can do your thing as cheaply and as often as possible, and because it's a really big world those places really do exist.

Then when you feel as complete as you can be for that point in your life, take those companies and developed connections up on their original proposals, head back to the States and give it your best shot, with the realization that there's no such thing really these days as recording contracts and long term employment.

And yeah, I guess that's why it's a lot tougher and why so many older musicians don't understand what's going on anymore. That especially includes the Internet part of it which is a lot more serious than some seem to want to accept. The whole thing is being rewritten as we speak.

mattsmith said:

And yeah, I guess that's why it's a lot tougher and why so many older musicians don't understand what's going on anymore. That especially includes the Internet part of it which is a lot more serious than some seem to want to accept. The whole thing is being rewritten as we speak.

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i hear you on that one! i was all signed up to go to the studio with a singer/songwriter i know. he had some hot shot producer on board and everything was set. then the other day i met him at a show and he said he did the whole thing through the internet. he found some hot drummer in australia (one of you guys?) who drummed along to his tracks and sent him a WAV file. he found internet musicians to do the other parts too. sheesh! i gotta get with the program!

I'm glad I only do this for personal satisfaction. I would hate to have to rely on my drum playing to pay my bills. Matt is right, it's being rewritten as we speak. Dairyairman's account of getting strangers from across the planet to lay down tracks...it's a whole new set of rules of engagement. I don't even have the old rules down yet!

I will likely just stick to what I have been doing, rehearsing with my mates the old fashioned way, playing bars, festivals, partys, recording in my studio. Keeping it real and unquantitized. That's the great thing about music (or life in general) You can do it however you prefer.

And remember alot of the older established players are using what is available today {and becomes even more available as we speak} to their advantage too to continue to have successful careers in music. When the rules change so must the approach to stay alive......

Adaptation and change are a few other key elements I forgot to mention in helping gain any further form of success in this crazy business.

peter erskine said that he got his latest recording gig due to someone contacting him through myspace.......need i say more?

Well, in a purely definitional sense, a professional is anyone who receives money for doing what s/he does. So to my mind, it's altogether possible to be a professional this and also a professional that, even if the professional this happens during the week and the professional that happens only on weekends. Besides my time in the Army Band I've never toured on drums. I've done some studio sessions for which I was paid, but these were few and far between. The musical element to my professional life has mainly consisted of casual one-nighters playing (or reading) jazz songs and charts, whether these have been country club gigs, weddings, corporate functions, regional jazz festivals or private parties in the spacious family rooms of wealthy homes. For a couple of years in Orlando I did hold down the drum seat in a commercial pop five-nighter band, but aside from getting regular money and regular something else (I was dating the female singer who owned the band) that enitre "being in a band" idea is something that has never, and still doesn't--appeal to me. The thought of playing the same songs the exact same way night after night almost turns my stomach, and I don't care whether it's highly demanding original music or simply a cover band of any variety.


Personally, I really don't believe the music business has changed all that much over the years. Granted, there is no more Count Basie or Woody Herman band on tour 50 weeks out of the year. Granted, jazz music receives only about 3%-5% of total recorded music sales--but there's still a scene. It all depends upon how good you are, and whether you have developed the skills necessary to "make it" in that style. I think that jazz is still where the real professionalism is, regardless of which instrument you play. The most successful players I've known over the years have generally followed a rather distinct pattern: 1. They happen to have been born and grown up in a major market city (LA, NYC, New Orleans, Chicago), 2. They devoted themselves to taking serious drum lessons from the absolute best teacher in their respective area very early on, 3. eventually they developed their talent to the point of their "well-connected" teacher recommending them for one-nighter gigs with established players, 4. they attended college or university and whether or not they actually earned a degree, continued to develop their skills and professional-level acquaintances, (OR) 5. they auditioned for one of the military bands, attended the Armed Forces School of Music then played in a regular military somewhere in the world (OR) they made it straight into one of the elite service bands stationed around Washington DC, (or maybe they, as in my case, did BOTH the Army Band and University thing), 6. they gradually began to realize that there's more to life than playing music and developed other interests which eventually they parlayed into a day-job (sometimes that day job is directly related to music--like heading up a university jazz studies program or teaching music at the secondary school level, but more often than not, their day job is something else entirely--like working for a company that designs corporate logos or developing their own private piano-tuning and repair business) and continued to work with excellent musicians when the opportunities presented themselves. To me, these musicians are the real heros. They are the ones who have really loved music enough to fully develop themselves to the best of their abilities on their instrument. And generally speaking, these are the same people who continue to progress musically throughout their entire lives. That's what being a professional musician is, at least to me. And it doesn't necessarily have to be in the jazz genre, but it just so happens that only the jazz genre provides a solid and workable foundation for being what, in my opinion, is a true professional musician. After all, university music programs don't have "Heavy Metal Studies" programs and you aren't going to get into a military service band program if you can't read music at a high level and are unable to display a wide range of musical abilities.

Here's a little story-- Back in the late '70s I was stationed with the Army Band in Tokyo. I attended a concert by the Tohshiko Akioshi--Lew Tabakin jazz big band. The drummer, in my estimation, was simply the best drummer that you've never heard of. His name was Peter Donald and at the time he must have been around 30 years old. He'd attended the Berklee school in boston, then moved to LA where he began, based solely upon his professional abilities and attitude, to get loads of studio work playing drums on film soundtracks, gigging around town with top jazz groups and going on world tours with internationally recognized artists. Now this man was a real player. He played everything French grip (thumbs on top) and you could just see the carefully-developed Stone Stick Control sticking patterns and technique oozing out of his ideas in an absolutely staggering musical sense.

Around 10 or 12 years after having met him backstage in Japan, I was living in Pittsburgh and decided to give him a telephone call, since long before he'd indicated that he was up for that. Peter told me that he'd quit the music business because it simply was no longer possible to earn a living sufficient to support himself and his family by playing drums. He simply made the decision to hang up his sticks, to never play again, and he got a desk job out in LA with the Culligan Water Treatment company. I didn't pursue him to further explain the decision, but I believe that I understand it-- had he decided to continue playing drums on a part-time basis on weekends while holding do this (or any other) day job, he would have had to compromise his musicianship by playing with lesser musicians. After all, if you happen to be playing with John Scofield in one-nighters around LA, you don't have the option to pick and choose which gigs you are going to play and which you aren't going to play--choosing to play only the in-town gigs but refusing to travel out of town for anything.

So I do understand that decision he made. And while I've never played at the level Peter donald has, at the age of 56 I've also pretty much made the same decision. I'd rather work a day job that is totally unrelated to music than to go out on a regular basis playing music with a bunch of clowns, even if those clowns are willing to pay me decent money for one-nighters because I'm able to handle playing their clown music.

At this time, I don't want to be a pro. I have a job that I enjoy which is hopefully going to become a great career. However, I do want to get better and improve. If that some how, in some way, leads to me being able to get paid to play, then so be it. But I doubt I'll ever get to that point. I just enjoy playing.

larryace said:

I will likely just stick to what I have been doing, rehearsing with my mates the old fashioned way, playing bars, festivals, partys, recording in my studio. Keeping it real and unquantitized. That's the great thing about music (or life in general) You can do it however you prefer.

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I could not have said it better myself.

The personal love, thrill,and excitement should be sufficient. However, if you are doing things correctly, people are going to want to see you perform live.

When that happens, there is almost an inevitable guarantee of at least SOME money coming through.

The amount I am fortunate enough to be making right now can pay basically all of my bills every month ( except the BIG one ) if I needed it to, which I don't.

I know there are a lot better players than me out there, so it's something I am very thankful for.

Keep the love, man. Everything else will follow.

Well I have been playing out regularly since this thread started. Recently left the old band though. Joined a new band of older guys that have been there and done that. No pressure. and joined another band fronting a kid friend of mine. Will get me through this snowy winter and then who knows. Despite my invincable desire to not be a pro, I am improving!
And it gets to be more fun as you improve. The bandmates are all quite good as well. Refreshing really

jim_gregory said:

So..for my 52nd birthday I decided I wanted a drum kit. Needed the exercise for my Type II diabetes and I wanted to bang on them anyway. So got a TD3 roland kit. Then figured I could keep a beat so I set up a jam room downstairs. Guessed If I built it they would come. Added some old broken amps and guitars, bass, PA and keys. Fixed everything to good working order and they came. Sometimes too many but I always had fun. Till the puker showed up. After that I was a bit more discriminating.
It filtered down after a while to two fairly gifted guys and a few not so gifted. Me being one of the "not so". Well hey..What do I know. So these guys decide "we gotta gig" So I get me some real drums and away we go. Having a pretty good time this winter but remember this started as a way for me to get exercise without really exercising. Laziness is the mother of invention after all.
I had to be prodded at first to go on a stage and play. I know I'm a poser but what the hell. I wasn't born into this and don't have a lifelong love of drums and I don't know a 16th note from a paranoodle and frankly don't give a damn either. Can't solo my way out of a paper bag but I mind my business and everybody cheers and claps so I guess I sound OK.
I have no desire to be a rock star, though I do enjoy watching girls dance. Sadly I can't just watch girls dance. Probably get arrested! But I'm getting into this slowly, and finding out quickly just what it takes to be a "real" drummer. Biggest problem is, I don't want to do all that. Hell I just wanted to bang the drums in the basement with a cocktail and a smoke! Now these guys are getting gig's left and right, and we are quite well received oddly. However I have a day job and a life that I am unwilling to screw up. Of course it should be known that I only stay in one career for about 6 years before I move on to something else. Dunno why and gave up wondering a long time ago. But I signed on to my latest job as a sail designer/consultant/professional sailor and I gotta do it. These boys are gonna have a rude awakening come summer when I am off sailing or racing. And I tell them ONLY dinner sets on work nights. I am the ONLY one in the band with a job that isn't self employed. And I have to lugs drums and PA stuff and stands and all that crap. Still they say, hey we got a gig at so and so and we go on at nine and I gotta be a dick and say I won't do it. I'm just a hobbyist drummer. My hopes and dreams consist of sailing off to a distant port, tossing out the hook, having a nice dinner on board and snuggling up in the berth with the bride. Wake up, have a smoke and read a book, then do it again.
So, while I do actually love my drums, I like tuning them, modifying them, buying stuff for them and reading stuff about drums, I don't actually love playing them. I don't love playing on stage though it's fun and different. I like different. I am not sure what I am asking here, if anything, but I reckon I'm going to have to tell these boys to move on if they really want to go to the next level with this. Believe me it's no secret how I feel about it. problem is I have the rehearsal space and a lot of the gear so that may be an issue. Oh well. I want my jam band back!
Anyway this stuff has been rattling around my head for a couple of weeks now, and now it's free. I feel better!
Apologies for stealing 5 minutes you will never get back!

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I'll be honest with you Jim, this story made me smile.

It made me smile for a couple of reasons, A: you were very honest and that is good, B: you have a great manor about you and I can tell you have a great sense of humour and C: you seem to be really laid back and I like that.

I started playing drums because someone told me to so I could start a band with them, no joke. I had no desire before that to play any instrument to be honest.

However as I played I felt something I've never felt before and that was passion, I've never felt passionate about anything really until I played drums. I would enjoy going to the music block everyday after school and I would sit and play for hours, teaching myself new things etc and I loved that. Then joining a band was a real buzz and playing to an audience.

Then a few years later I tried lessons twice and I packed them in a couple of weeks after I started, there was just something unappealing about it and it wasn't why I started playing, I didn't want to learn everything correctly or how it is 'supposed to be done' and I didn't want to have to practice because I had stuff to learn for my tutor the next week, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do and I still do that now.

Being a pro would require things that my heart wouldn't be in, like moving away to a pro school and leaving my friends and family behind, playing in bands whilst having to read music, playing music you don't particularly like and being judged on a technical level by your classmates, it just really seems unappealing. You need to want it more than anything and I would rather play drums than do anything but if it means sucking the life out of it and the fun out of it, what's the point?

This is just my opinions and I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone who is or wants to be a pro in fact I respect that on a massive scale.