lowquality.net

I just spent some time perusing the 1998 - 2003 directory of Berklee alumni on myspace. It seems like I am about average on the success scale, with some old friends doing extremely well in the music business and some doing absolutely nothing at all. I suppose it makes me feel a little better, but not for very long. I don’t know what I expected from my college experience but I don’t feel like I have done anything. In 1998 I knew that I wanted to play music, but (as I have said time and time again) I had no plan. There’s a picture of my dad on the wall of he and I when he was re-enlisting in the Navy. He was 26. I am 28 years old and I still don’t really have any idea what I am doing with my life. I know Information Technology, interesting as it may be, will never fill the void that music seems to be capable of. I love playing music, but for the last 4 years or so, music just wasn’t any fun. It was something I did, and still do, but it wasn’t the answer to my prayers or anything. I guess it’s significant to note that at one point, it used to be. Kim has been with me for three years now and I think she’s just realized in this past year that I play an instrument.

Some musicians are just naturals and they would just as soon shoot their parents than quit playing music. Their passion and enthusiasm is unrelenting, it is an inspiration to witness these specimens and also it can be a real shot to the ego. For all of the great experiences I had at Berklee, it was meeting people like this that really made me think about whether or not I was cut out to be a musician. I had some natural proficiency on the bass but I was so far behind in what I needed to prepare for Berklee that, when I finally got there, I was los at sea for a good year and then spent the next four trying to catch up. I’d never had a good teacher before Berklee and I had very little playing experience before Berklee. For what I had available to me, I’d say I did fairly well. I’d say this is true for a lot of players from Virginia Beach and it is ironic that someone like Victor Wooten would come out of Hampton Roads, being able to boast such an incredible musicial childhood, when the exact opposite has been true for so many of the musicians I know here.

Anyway, I see a lot of alums not doing much at all with their degrees. I am at least teaching a little a studying on my own. Not everyone gets to blow up. I’m fine with that. I feel rusty though, and I want to be a better player. I feel like wherever I end up after all of this lethargy is over, I need to start taking lessons again. This is what has me considering the pursuit of an IT job at Berklee. We could still spend every weekend in NY with Tom and Tiff and I could study with some of my old teachers. It’s worth looking into at least. But it’s not like I couldn’t find instructors in NYC.

I have an audition of sorts later this week, for what would seem to some as a very unlikely project. I’m excited at the prospect of playing in a group that my friends would actually be interested in. I had some moments in my last band (ah.. the anonymity!) where, after the shows, my friends and family would just look at me, tired and glassy eyed, searching for the right way to say what they felt. I know how they felt, because I felt the same way. I didn’t feel comfortable in that group– it was too ridiculous. It was musical gymnastics. I was barely capable of playing half of the songs, and my only personal goal in the group seemed to be not messing up. My heart wasn’t in it, at all. I was not inspired. It was almost a boon to me that school and work required me to quit. No disrespect to those guys– on the contrary, I have the utmost respect for them– but I was never the best fit for that group and I think they knew it. We live in an area where I was probably the best fit they could find. Now they have a much better player than me, and they probably sound amazing (and if he ever leaves they are done for).

I guess I am kind of taking an inventory. I really want to play some music and I miss my friends from college more than anything. I miss just drinking and jamming and having a good time and having THAT be what music was about. Not some elusive concept called a career. Fuck a career. I don’t care if I ever make another dime playing music. I just want it to be fun, and I want to do it all of the time.