Struggles of a utopic music journey

Music can be a good, fun, exiting and wonderful thing that you can dive into, but is the most outrageous activity that you can get. As a musician myself it can be fun, but at the same time it can be very frustrating. The fact is, however, that is a thing very hard to do, I'm not talking of the process of grabbing a instrument, learn it, play it, digest music theory, learn the fundamental of music and create your own style and approaches, this can be archived very easy and is by putting hours into it.

I have been screwing up with music since my 12 years, embracing it, learning it, playing it, digesting it, putting hours to it, but every year that pass is more and more difficult, I will explain WHY music is so hard to do:

First of all, for music, you have not only to write it, but produce, you have to make your music in form of a medium to get to people. This is the thing, you have to record your music, produce it and put it on a product for you to sell/distribute. Money can be a barrier to any kind of project not only music, but get music recorded, engineered and produced, is pricey.

Not only get lots of money to buy studio hours, but have good gear, good instruments. The other thing is that you have to get all that founding into a musical project, it can be a band, a live show, a music festival, etc. For me be in a band is a change of pure luck, period, think about it, you have to connect with musician that share the same vision, the same musical tastes, the same flavor, and even the same future plans, and this folks, is difficult.

I myself feel guilty for this, and simply put, I have embraced other activities in life because you have to drain yourself and have a lot of money to put your music out there, believe me, I have passed years and years of pure pain and struggle. I have met musicians who have a different goal with their music though, like film scoring, session musician and/or teachers and this is a very different approach of mine and it really is very interesting. Having said all this, I can blame myself, I know that I dis-motivate a lot very easily and it happen very often in my life, It happened with my guitar playing, it happened with girls, with people, with friends, with my career, with music in general and this is really bad because you lose all motivation and drive to do something.

Nevertheless, a goal, a plan can wait, and you can prepare even more to do it right, I always encourage fellow musicians to do something, anything with what they have, a cheap guitar, and cheap gear, I can fell into this, and my current goal with music is now gone, not completely but is more of a future plan. A lot of people and friends always try to drive me in this sense, even my family and that is good, but they don't know how hard it is really do get a band, record, produce and even make music for the masses and that's why a respect a lot the ones who made it. With all that said, music for me is a future thing, friends and people always is telling me to drive in a hype motion and just to it blindly, but sometimes I think really what's the purpose of it, deliver a message?, show off my guitar skills?, show off my production tricks? for fame? for money?, show off my proggy songwriting? if it is for the latter, I'm really wasting my time, so it is better don't do nothing and focus on other things; business, friends, or another hobby. The purpose and focus of it is really important and it is really the core drive of it.

Still, I know that I am a really good procrastinator and I don't kill myself for that, I know that great thinkers in this world were like this, so, you, don't kill me for that either. Life change a lot too, you get more economical power, but you get less and less time, more projects to dive your talent and attention into, and as I say, I cannot be in a lot of things at the same time, you really have to be organized in all that.

Either way, my music goals are very clear, with a vision and a destination to explore and do, but is a struggling and utopic journey, a mission that have a lot of steps and objectives in it. It harder than you think believe me, but here I am, learning, growing, making mistakes, living, playing, and moving slow, slow but accurate. I began to think in lots of things regarding this topic, and I think that my talents could be portrayed in a jam with musicians in a paid studio environment, that can be fun, but doing all the work myself, writing, engineering, producing, recording, can be exhausting, but, the future will tell, God will tell too and I'm just going with the flow, don't matter what musicians are, the motivation, the style of music, how proggy can or cannot be, as I grow I learnt something, do SOMETHING, but do it, it can be bad music yeah, I screwed up with a lot of bad songs and compositions to be the composer I am today.

As an experienced guy in all this, I tell you, that grow in music every day, stray from hearing the same every time, stray from just focusing in the technical side of things, dive into music theory, write, learn and feel. That's all.

Att:

Iros Rodríguez