something would happen
Jan. 21st, 2019 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesse_dylanI used to always just expect something would happen, that all the pieces would fall together. I thought things were "meant to be," and for me as a young person, there were a lot of things (which must not have been meant to be, because they weren't and aren't).
From age 17 until... 30? I thought music was it for me, my destiny. It was one of those things. For most of that time period, I practiced for hours every day. I wrote and wrote. I did shows all the time (rarely, if ever, getting paid). I never had to look very hard to find venues. They came to me, and I always said yes. I didn't even need plans or a set list. I didn't worry about that.
Eventually I did begin worrying about a setlist. In fact, eventually I just plain began worrying, and it seemed like a lot of work to do a show every few weeks and practice for hours a day.
Maybe once I stopped doing shows is when I stopped playing so much. Maybe that's also when I stopped writing so much. But maybe it wasn't all sustainable. Maybe even if I got paid, even if I had all kinds of professionals behind me, maybe it still wouldn't be sustainable.
But, whatever the case, it was something I thought was meant to be, and I thought if I just kept showing up, something would happen. Nothing ever happened. Maybe I had hit the saturation point, didn't realize it, and quit right before something was about to happen. Or maybe I was just doing it wrong.
Of course, it's possible I always sucked and didn't realize it, but if that were the case, I must have been in the narrow margin of suckitude where I'm not good enough for anything to happen, but not bad enough for people to stop asking me to show up and play.
From age 17 until... 30? I thought music was it for me, my destiny. It was one of those things. For most of that time period, I practiced for hours every day. I wrote and wrote. I did shows all the time (rarely, if ever, getting paid). I never had to look very hard to find venues. They came to me, and I always said yes. I didn't even need plans or a set list. I didn't worry about that.
Eventually I did begin worrying about a setlist. In fact, eventually I just plain began worrying, and it seemed like a lot of work to do a show every few weeks and practice for hours a day.
Maybe once I stopped doing shows is when I stopped playing so much. Maybe that's also when I stopped writing so much. But maybe it wasn't all sustainable. Maybe even if I got paid, even if I had all kinds of professionals behind me, maybe it still wouldn't be sustainable.
But, whatever the case, it was something I thought was meant to be, and I thought if I just kept showing up, something would happen. Nothing ever happened. Maybe I had hit the saturation point, didn't realize it, and quit right before something was about to happen. Or maybe I was just doing it wrong.
Of course, it's possible I always sucked and didn't realize it, but if that were the case, I must have been in the narrow margin of suckitude where I'm not good enough for anything to happen, but not bad enough for people to stop asking me to show up and play.