Double Bass I gave up all my gigs.

[Uncletoad]

While we're admitting stuff. All joking aside. I feel real selfish sometimes. Music often comes before family. I lose very little sleep over it though. I can't help it. If it were the other way around the level of resentment and regret would make me impossible to be around. I try my best to keep the balance but it is just not always possible. My wife has always known me this way as have my kids. While my wife is VERY understanding there are times where we have some pretty heated 'discussions'. I consider them worth it.

The coolest thing happened lately though. My daughter, 7, has a blog. She asked me to take pictures of marquee and stage of all the places I've played. She is blogging about all the 'cool places my dad plays'.

I'm forever trying to find a balance point with all this. The birth of my boy presented the first real challenge to priority one, My Music....that includes my wife, the mama.

I'm going to bounce back and forth on that for a long time...

 

[martinc]

Phil:

I suspect there will be a point in the future when you will conclude, regardless of your situation, that the Music was the equivalent of "the other woman".
Many of us in later life have concluded that we spent too much time on it when instead we should have given some more of the Music time to our young families.
Unfortunately the Music passion is tough to kick when we are young.
It seems having the talent or the interest in Music is something that has to take it's course no matter what.
With youth comes the insatiable desire to make our mark on the musical world. With age and often too late, comes the realization that it can not replace the needs of children and wives.
The Music is always there in you. It can flourish again at a later time.....and can often be more rewarding than it ever was.
Perhaps it's because the tug of war between the Music and family is no longer there when the kids are grown...and your wife no longer needs you hanging around the house.

 

[Monte]

I gave up 1/2 of my gigs a few months ago. My leader, who is the drummer and a very close friend, booked every other weekend at a club I despise and I said I wouldn't do it.

The club is a PIA in/out, the gig is $50 for 8-11, it's a very tight bandstand, and I dislike the owner. We've got all of the other weekends booked for Fri/Sat 9.3-12.30 for $100.

I told him I didn't want these gigs in advance and he booked them anyway. I don't want to spend every weekend in a club.

The drummer is a retired pilot with $1M in the bank. He doesn't care how much he makes, and he wants out of the house on the weekends. The piano player's only income are the jobs with this band and the Klezmer band which we are all members. (~$700/month total) PP's wife is a grad student and he's got 2 daughters under the age of 4, so if I told him I booked a $25 job in the WalMart parking lot he would take it.

I teach music time full-time. I need this time and I don't need to sacrifice my relationship for $200/month. Furthermore, musically the gig is unsatisfying- it is in a restaurant/club where we play standards at minimal volume, which is too loud.

The s*&^ hasn't hit the fan yet. We don't have a lot of great bassists locally, so the ones that can play stay booked. One of the local 4-years just hired a new guy (for $30K) so he's getting all of my overflow.

While somewhat unrelated to Phil's OP, when I saw this come TTT I needed to vent. Thanks.

(Last weekend we sounded AWESOME, so I sincerely hope that this band doesn't fall apart)

LOL......gee does this sound familiar.

I may have had some of the same words with the same drummer, about the same asshat owner of the same club.

Issei stayed out here with me the last couple of days and it was fun getting to play with him again.

OKC is a good scene with some good players though....I miss it.