Sunday, February 21, 2010

First Month On The Job

As you can probably understand from my previous posts, you don't become rich from being a jazz musician. At least not right away.

After graduating from college a few months ago, I ran out of excuses, and decided it was time for me to find a full-time day job. It was a long and at some point tiresome journey that had finally come to an end about a month ago. I was able to secure a full time job that will keep me busy during the day and leave me time to work on my music at night.

The very thought of a "day job" may cause some artists to shiver with fear, or to scoff at a person as not being a real artist, an amateur. But, I am not worried about those people. I am more concerned with being able to devote the fair amount of time to my craft, and my newly acquired profession.

I have to say, it hasn't been easy. Learning all the facets of a new job can be very tiresome on the body as well as mind. The last thing you want to do after you come back home is to compose something, or practice a challenging song. I guess some people can ration their energy so they spend very little during work so they can focus on their craft later in the day. Unfortunately, I am not the kind of person that allows himself to do a half-ass job, no matter what I am doing.

Luckily, the trend is beginning to change. As time goes by the daily routine becomes more familiarized, and therefore less demanding on the mind. I find that I slowly but surely am able to do more tasks with less energy. Hopefully with time I will become more and more proficient at my work so I can still feel fresh after I'm done.

Interesting fact is since I started my new job I find myself getting more and more involved in it. I actually kind of like it, even though I never could have imagined myself doing this for a living. I don't know if it's related or not, but I also began thinking differently about the music I want to do. After years of being primarily focused on my saxophone playing, I again started to focus more on the composition aspect.

Only time will tell if this is the beginning of a new chapter in my life, or just a side note of an existing one.

Thanks for reading.

Yaron.