The hardest and saddest decision about making music..

[Aleatoriac]

Interesting.
I don't see that any of us actually has any choice. Yes no such thing as libertarian free will, blah blah.

I am a survival organism, responding to stimulus in the environment, dragging along a helpless, perhaps serendipitous probabilistic percept sorting "algorithm" made of metabolic pathways that sucks excessive amounts of glucose and generates a bunch of false-positives, spews out linguistic expressions of abstractions, and just... won't stop.
In hindsight, the memory module deludes itself into thinking it has some control over what it does; but the reality (as revealed in many experiments) is that the non-aware bits of the physiology have already responded to stimulus before the aware bits get the data. And all the aware bits get to do then is either take credit, or make up an excuse for what the non-aware bits have done.

Because it is magnificently stupid? Maybe?

Who knows. But since all of our language is built on the absurd presupposition that we are magic beings capable of altering the causal chain in some uncaused fashion: I say survive! And wherever possible make noise!

Maximize your non-survival-oriented (non-job) time, wherever possible, into working toward supporting yourself in our backwards fucktard of a culture with making music! Never give up! Never let the bullshit eat away at your resolve!

Make that music! Destroy anything that gets in your way! DEVOUR ALL LIMITATIONS!

THE WORLD WILL GROVEL AT YOUR FEET AND BEG YOU FOR MORE OF YOUR MUSIC, AND THEY WILL LIKE IT WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT!

[Bombadil]

I'd ask you how old you were, whether you had talent, ambition, decent looks, and whether you were willing to sacrifice for your art. If you are under, say, 21 (quasi-arbitrary choice), no dependents, I'd say go all in. You can always go back to school later. In the meantime, you will have gained significant life experience, which is one of those intangible things that many employers find important.

OTOH, I've known people who went all in, got shafted, and came out of the whole thing with absolutely no more desire to write/play/ record music, which is a shame, because they were very talented dudes. I find that very sad.

[sqigls]

i think the first mistake you made was thinking music was gonna make you money.
maybe it will, i wouldn't rule it out, but if that's the motivation...?

Personally, i've just been through a HELL of a ride in life, deaths in the family... some very sad times.
The thing that pulled me through it, was my love for audio engineering.
Tweaking synths and effects.

There were times when i felt the pressure of other people (financial mostly yeah)...
and felt like an asshole for retreating to my cave for my daily session.
but then i realised the awesomely powerful truth of it all.
it's a meditation.
no different to a monk sitting there cross-legged.
People wouldn't badger a MONK would they!??
Then i realised, f**k what people think.
Synths are fuckin awesome.
and people's opinions are basically of the system, which wants me suffering anyway, so f**k it all. Keep mixing!

that said. maybe don't give up your day job

[Zexila]

OTOH, I've known people who went all in, got shafted, and came out of the whole thing with absolutely no more desire to write/play/ record music, which is a shame, because they were very talented dudes. I find that very sad.

Seems familiar, recently got back to it and with new perspective on things, these days having a blast making music and having sleepless nights again, but this time have no desire to even show my music to anyone, that's how much I don't care anymore about whole jazz, it's for my own soul.

[foosnark]

music can help with one's survival in ways other than monetary.

This. Survival requires more than money.

And life should be more than survival.

And lifestyle is more than just work.

I love music, and because I love it I would advise against trying to make a living making music. Because if you do, the primary activity probably won't be making music but marketing yourself. If that's what you want to do, well... okay.

At any rate, until the world moves past capitalism as we know it (probably inevitable with increasing automation, but we are in for one rough ride until then) -- build yourself a career that puts food on the table and buys your gear.

Having a full-time job doesn't mean you can't also dedicate yourself to music and make a lot of it. Granted, I spend some of my work time browsing KvR and Muff Wiggler and other sites and coming up with plans for gear and musical experiments, but I also have a reputation at work for Getting Shit Done, so everybody's happy.

[Numanoid]

I mean how long can i keep making what i like and expect others to feel the same way?

Being a professional, means you got to cater to the masses, and not your own personal taste.

That goes for more or less every job in life, do you think people working as typewriters in offices, or handy men at building sites do it because they love it? They do it to make ends meet.

[ghettosynth]

I'd ask you how old you were, whether you had talent, ambition, decent looks, and whether you were willing to sacrifice for your art. If you are under, say, 21 (quasi-arbitrary choice), no dependents, I'd say go all in. You can always go back to school later. In the meantime, you will have gained significant life experience, which is one of those intangible things that many employers find important.

OTOH, I've known people who went all in, got shafted, and came out of the whole thing with absolutely no more desire to write/play/ record music, which is a shame, because they were very talented dudes. I find that very sad.

I've never gone "all in", that would be foolish for me. That said, there was a time in my life where music became more of a second job than a hobby. I made enough money playing guitar in a cover band that it significantly impacted my taxes, but, certainly not enough to live on.

At any rate, it didn't take long for me to start hating music so I chose at that point to never let it be a job again. I'm ok if I make a little money making music, but I won't put myself in the situation where I have to make music.

[donkey tugger]

At any rate, it didn't take long for me to start hating music so I chose at that point to never let it be a job again.

When I was teaching I never got to the point where I hated music, but got pretty close to hating the 'musicians'. At the start of every new course I'd go round the new group and ask, "what kind of music do you wan't to make using this wonderful, liberating technology we now have?" "'Ouse an Garridge" was invariably the reply. I'd than have to say after a few weeks, "Yes, that's interesting what you've done with that kick drum there on every 4th beat.."

[Googly Smythe]

The prime prerequisite for success in any endeavor is supremely overweening ego. Do you have this? Because everything else is secondary.
And yes, I am being serious!

[foosnark]

The prime prerequisite for success in any endeavor is supremely overweening ego. Do you have this? Because everything else is secondary.
And yes, I am being serious!

I disagree. It really depends on how you define "success."

[harryupbabble]

The prime prerequisite for success in any endeavor is supremely overweening ego. Do you have this? Because everything else is secondary.
And yes, I am being serious!

I do have a supremely overweening ego. The problem is that it's only at playing speed scrabble. I have a very very low ego when it comes to music-making because I suck at it. So I spend more time trying to better myself at music-making and no time to study scrabble but just play. But I decided I will do both even though both eats a lot of time. It seems sad. But both are fun even though one is super-hard to be good at. Fun negates sad?

[RichieWitch]

Nice tunes by the way, though your obviously heavily influenced by BOC

Didnt sound like Blue Oyster Cult to me.

omg, best laugh of the day.

[fluffy_little_something]

Before you make such a decision, maybe go and have your talent evaluated by a professional, for instance a music teacher.

[cron]

My day job (boring) pretty much entirely funded my second job (music).

Never got paid to DJ (maybe in free drinks if I was lucky, but I'd usually just bring a few cans of Red Stripe), never got paid to do radio, one release of seven on the record label broke even.

You can still do what you love, it's just that it's probably not all you'll be doing.

[Terrafractyl]

My day job (boring) pretty much entirely funded my second job (music).

I started kinda like this, although my boring day job was also music(Classical) and my hobby was electronic music production.

After about 8 years of that, I decided to ditch my boring day job and focus on electronic music, as it had started to feed myself and sometimes my dog.

Now about 7 or 8 years later, I'm still into it! although some parts not nearly enough. Self promotion for example...uggh I absolutely hate it! especially now I've been doing it for 15 years or something.
Right now I'm really enjoying basically a year off FB and spamming people whilst I have a break to watch our baby daughter grow up a bit, before I start slinging myself again and get back on the road. Getting back to it could be hard!

So I agree it is not always easy maintaining your relationship to music when it is your job, for sure. I often have to make a conscious decision to go to my studio and NOT write music for those people out there, but instead write whatever comes out of me in the studio regardless of genre or dance-ability.
Writing something Down-tempo or chilled out or just something I havn't tried before stylistically.

This has always helped tremendously not only jolt me out of these creative ruts / or the feeling that comes from the pressure of having to keep on making more.... but also to remind me of the beauty of music and how lucky I am to be able to spend so much time exploring the math/music of the universe.