First: are you serious about music, are you passionate for what you beleive in and work hard and long for it?

If so. How do your family and friends react. Are they taking what you do and love seriously? Do those around you realize what it is that you are doing?
Or are you that kinda person with a secret second life in some dark room, and everybody wonders why you’re always short of sleep.

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For me personally it has always been kind of a struggle. My mother likes the ambient and moody stuff I make. My father and older brother are very rational business persons and don’t really see the value of art... or anyway.. don’t see me earning a living with it. The “why don’t you get a real job” talk is all to familiar haha.

Some friends think I just like music, others support me all the way and know what I do.
Yesterday I had a conversation with one of my uncles... it’s hard to explain to them what I do on that computer, and why I’m using the internet, soundcloud, facebook, twitter and the likes... haha.
But most people understand the concept of being passionate, working hard for it, and creating something that has some sort of value.

As a student or sometimes working dayjobs... I really have to squeeze in those extra hours at night to get done what I think is actually important. Since I was 14 I’ve been doing with an average of 7 hours of sleep or less at times... you know what I mean right?

What’s your story?

Personally, I don't have much faith in being a musician as a career. That's not based on my skills (or lack there of) just the idea that music seems to be devalued more and more. I think the important thing is finding a good day job that is easily able to balance with the time needed to be a musician.

That being said, my struggle has been to provide for my wife and son, and be able to find the time to work on music. On top of that, the other producers and DJ's in my group all look up to me as far as what to do next. Even though I'm probably the least talented, I have the best grasp on what it takes to run a business and typically do pretty well on marketing and promotion.

Those two groups pretty much are my family, and while my wife is crazy supportive and my artists have more blind faith in me than I probably deserve, the over all the stress and pressure of the situation can get pretty intense.

I'd say 4 day's out of the week its all worth it, and I know if we just keep working everything will be fine. But those other 3 day's the world feels like it's crumbling around me. When I make a mistake every one around me feels it, and that overall guilt is pretty crushing.

I'm pretty serious about making music and my family is 100% for it. In fact, my grandma came to a show I was opening up for about a week ago. Friends are weird I find as most of them just are like "yo dude, dope." for pretty much everything I have ever made. Which is great for the ego, but not so good in the creative criticism department. I am constantly trying to refine and improve my sound and I find it somewhat aggravating when people are not providing some sort of feedback.

I don't know about ever being a musician for a living, but I think that would be awesome. I'd honestly just like to tour. I'm not looking to become some crazy famous dude and take over anything. But I would like to travel and have my music pay for at least some of the basics.

Currently I work mornings on an organic farm and the rest of my day is usually spent working on sound for about 8 hours. I also just took the last five months off of work since I had a fair chunk of cash and have been living off of that. I literally sat in my place working every day on my music and I feel I can hear the difference in the sound I am making now.

Epic question...

Yes, i am passionate about music and yes, i do plan on having a career based around music (even though with every passing day this is seeming to be more and more impossible)

My family is AWESOME. They're totally supportive of whatever i'm into as long as i do well and give my all (pretty much).
Friends..... what friends? The more i got into music the less time i had for any real friends. I live with my gf (who is super supportive about my music/whatever im doing) and i rarely see anyone other than her or clients more than once a month. Not including my parents and gf, i have 2 real life friends. 1 is like my brother, who i havnt seen in at least 6-7 weeks and the other is a more casual buddy who owns a super successful web company (always inspiring to see what he has accomplished).
I have a lot more people who im friendly with and what not, but no one who i'd just call up to hang out.
I dont think any of my old friends really have any idea what i do... doesnt bother me too much. I try to only surround myself with creative/awesome people these days, and a lot of my old friends definitely dont fall into that category.

Music has given me some of the most amazing friendships ever, but its also destroyed them and seriously fucked with my head/heart on multiple occasions.

My life before music:
Super stable, had a successful photography company with a very normal life. Hung out with friends every day, had normal relationships and life was pretty chill & casual

My life after music (got more serious and career orientated):
Completely disconnected from society, pretty much spend all my time locked in my apartment working/researching/whatever, i'll spend days without even thinking about leaving. At least once a month i generally go through a totally depressed phase where i think the music industry is completely doomed and anyone trying to make a living with music is a complete fucking retard..... but then i brush myself off, keep working and come out stronger every time.

Man, that was a bit of a weird ramble. Either way, my loved ones support me whole heartedly and i never thought i would have accomplished so much/lived the life im living. I wouldnt change any of my life/music choices for the world, even tho its given me a weird lifestyle and the inability to turn off work mode to save my life.

what do you do in the industry tobias? i've been making hip hop beats lately.. just started, but they're dead easy to make. I'm looking to make some money off them.

you do work for music libraries or something? i heard kraddy does licensing stuff or something too.

as far as my life goes, i've just started taking music very seriously. i 'played' in production for about 8 years but just now do i feel like im ready to make it a career. or die trying.

i do all sorts..
producer, songwriter, mixing & mastering engineer. getting into starting my own publishing company and potentially a label (but actually focusing on a&r, image etcetc)

i work on everything from radio friendly pop/electroy pop to dubstep to rock n roll to lounge music.

Right now im super busy, i have mixing and mastering projects stacked up, im producing and building up a local artist and i just got asked to write a song for save the children canada that should hopefully be viewed by over 60,000,000 people.

i'm kind of a renaissance man i suppose, my passions are for producing, djing, visual art/design, screenwriting, acting and journalism/blogging. the music stuff is more of a hobby that i take seriously, but i'm actually trying to make a career out of visual art/design and writing to support my other creative endeavors.

it affects my life both positively and negatively, the positive reasons are pretty obvious - creative expression, networking, constantly learning, challenging myself to be better every day, working towards locking down a job doing something i really enjoy.
on the negative tip - most of my spare time is consumed by my projects, leaving very little time for socialising. generally the people in my life are pretty understanding but i can tell sometimes it pisses them off that i'm not available much of the time.

I'm already getting a sense that there's some real entrepreneurs here

@jake & @Plus 2: I don't really see a career as some sort of superstar DJ or super famous producer either. But I could see myself producing music/sound for animation, shortfilms, games, commercials etc.

Alltho this field is pretty competitive in itself... i think it's more business based and can take you to a lot of different places (I don't mean geographically) instead of accomplishing a 1-hit-wonder and then trying to keep your head above water for the 10 years that follow.
I think it would be much more satisfying to just have clients that are pleased with a job well done and getting proper recognition for your work. While growing ever so more in what you do.



Good note Tobias, about surrounding yourself only with creative/supportive people.

I myself have kindo' left my old friends behind me... since they were basically a bunch of pot smoking no-goods with no real future visions other then doing a simple job and starting a family.
All the people I hang out with now are Producers, DJ's, Photographers, Graphic Designers, Illustrators, cute girls that like artsy stuff etc etc

Respect for those who've already started their own families and still make time to be successful at some sort of business they started for themselves.

good thread

I keep the two lives separate at the moment, 9-5 during the day then all evening in the DAW and weekends out and about. However music is my life.

2 years ago I moved back in with my rents to pay off some debt which was taking over my life, this allowed me to stop faffing about and go completely head first into production (not so many friends nearby / lots more spare time), however in doing so I’ve also moved away from most my creative friends. The majority of my friends nearby don’t really know too much about it, would rather not bore them with it too much either, so I really am living two lives at the moment.

However I’m now in a position in the next 6 months to move my ass back into the city and re-surround myself by likeminded people which I’m fully excited by. However ill still have the 9-5, but hopefully in something more interesting / forward thinking, so it should become less Jeckle and Hyde.

I not sure whether music will ever be a full time career for me, if it happens it happens, I enjoy having money / living comfortably. Nether the less ill make it a damn good hobby which hold more importance than my job for the rest of my life.

Word, I totally know the feeling. Almost any regular dayjob feels insignificant when you're constantly thinking, living, breathing music

In my case, I live away from the major cities where my music- and likeminded friends are staying (very tranquil place).
This allows me to create my own unique bubble and not be influenced by what all the others in the scene are making. Meanwhile I keep in touch via the internet.
Every once in a while I visit there and plant my own sounds

Supportive, yes. Creative, unfortunately not.
Actually.... my family are pretty creative, but business creative, ya know?
My girlfriend isnt a creative type, but shes really really supportive. Its awesome, but i find when i get into a super creative headspace she quite often gets in the way of that (pretty impossible not to, considering we live in a studio apartment.....)

I wish i was surrounded by creative people, when i've been more involved with other artists/musicians or when i had more of a life (running a magazine & photo companies etc) i was always so much more stoked and creative... now i almost feel like im in a big slump and just plowing through...
HOWEVER, saying that whenever im down i always think that the work/music/whatever i was doing before was so much better, when in actual fact it was much worse and i think i was just caught up in the romanticism of the situation. (that being said.... im a HELL of a lot better at what i do now than i was before...)

It's hard to beleive that there's no creative people around you... there's bound to be some in your area

Go look them up, get inspired... go t some gallery or artsy fartsy things. Find a record/thrift store and pull out the gollums .. erm DJ's digging for was

Oh there are FOR SURE. loads actually...

I dont feed off of random creativity tho. I get REALLY inspired when i meet someone who i have that weird musical/life connection with, thats when things really click for me.

Man, threads like this are what I dig about the internet.

I always felt like creative folk naturally gravitate towards each other. I'm kind of a shut in outside of my core group of collaborators, so it's really rare I go to bars, clubs, shows, etc... What's funny is when I do go to these types of things our group always kind of snags the ear of some wandering artsy bastard who's just as anti social and strange as the rest of us. .

Another thing is some people you'd never think of as creative individuals have just never had the opportunity or the tools to express themselves. This was the case with the cat who is now our main DJ. Dude listens to, watches, reads, plays, exactly what he's told and nothing else. Set him up in front Serato when we first got it and his whole world changed. Now he's better than all of us at DJing, and has totally changed the way we all listen to alot of music.

Rambling a bit but,

music being the main source of my income i had to cut down on alot of the unnecessary things on a daily basis. Figure out the things I need based on the things I want. Sucked at first cause I felt like I was always poor, but now Ive got a better understanding on things that really weren't helping my pocket book and can live comfortably. I spend all my time working on music that I possibly can so for me it perfect. I like having my determination be the only factor to wether I succeed or fail. Helps keep things in perspective for me. I love the fact that I am constantly being challenged to improve my work by the amount of kids pumping out utter sickness. I do unfortunately dj shit I do not like just to pay the bills some times. It really sucks cause most of the time you have to play for a while but I do like making up some stupid random dj name to go play a top 40s night or some bullshit like that. And Ive totally done the birthday 80's party and some frat parties and shit out @ CU. BUt even at its worst its still better than a desk job or waitin tables, so ill take it.

Very intentionally, I called it "How does being an Artist affect your life?"

Does anybody have a job or hobby in photography, graphic design, video editing/camera, painter, illustration etc. ???

- And how does that affect your life?
Do people take you "snapping pics" or always hanging in photoshop/editing software/painting seriously?
- Maybe the most important: How does it influence your music?
Are they the same creative process to you, does one inspire the other?


(Haha, true on the DJ-ing shit tracks... beats other jobs.)

Then yes, i have a job in photography..
I'm actually waiting for some clients to show up right now. I'm shooting 3 salons entries for contessa (big hair competition)

At first a lot of people didnt take me seriously having photography as a job... However they changed their tune when i was making 10x as much as them and spending my days shooting 6ft tall, 115-120lb fashion models on the daily. Photography led me into a short lived (but pretty successful) stint in magazine ownership (which everyone took very seriously, considering i was vip at every single event in vancouver and hanging out with all the artists my friends were drooling over )
Life was pretty dam awesome as a fulltime photographer, however it wasnt as satisfying as music..

Very, very different creative processes. Music inspires photography, photography doesnt really inspire music.... (unless its someone elses... mainly influenced by photo manips/digital art/hybrid)

yeah if it wasn't for music i probably wouldn't have decided to go to school to study design. when i was promoting events i would do our flyers and i would also do the cover art for my mixtape releases. at the time i was doing pretty bad design but i enjoyed the process enough to want to learn how to do it better, so i kept at it. after a couple yeas of that i decided it was time to go back to school and wasn't sure if i wanted to study design or screenwriting, but after careful consideration i decided an education in design would offer me a better chance of getting out of the 9-5 day laborer hell before screenwriting would.

Damn, this topic is so relevant for me right now...

I am passionate as one can be about music, have been for years. Finally got myself together and got serious with Producing and DJing, and just got more and more driven as time went by. I took time off of everything (life) to go to music festivals and escape the boring drivel of a failed relationship and my home town and family being in the same hole they've always been in. Met a girl, traveled more and had a baby. His birth drove me into an even more serious state of wanting to really go somewhere and take myself seriously with my music. But, here's the catch, we settled again and i started putting my studio back together, and everything fell apart.
Me and my girlfriend now live separately, and therefore i see less of my son (6 months old) than i did.
Not to mention some of the friends we share now see my passion as the cause of our split. It wasn't, although it had its place amongst it.
My family don't really understand, but they live miles away. I too find friends really just say "wow, awesome" to anything i play them, and find little real constructive opinion coming my way... And the new friends im making thru this are reluctant to be to involved because im a new dad, i don't get wasted all the time, and im serious about the good side of life.
I work 3 times a week, and am doing my daddy duty as often as you have too, and this leaves a quite disjointed amount of time to write music, promote myself, and put sets together. Not to mention learn more, and then socialize!
It is strange, and i am trying to find a rhythm, and my music has improved. I learn quickly, and adapt quickly, but i also tend to confuse regular ppl with my ways of doing things. I get the nerd thing alot from some ppl, get told to be more social. I am not against being social, but i am driven and find i want to spend all my spare time writing tunes, or learning more...

Hopefully, with a bit more recognition, ppl will realise what i do and why!

Thanks for the awesome question, and all the insight from your answers ppl

Peace

It affects my life on all levels.

My family is supportive, my girlfriend is supportive and my friends are supportive. At time it can be stressful, I still rock a day job to pay bills, as music doesn't pay them.

For me music is a personal challenge to make each project better than the next. It keeps me active and keeps me busy. I don't know what I would do without music being in my life, but since it is, I make the most of it.

I have been reading this thread for a few days and I love it.

I don't know though, it makes me feel guilty. I honestly think about music every second of the day, and every spair dollar I have (which is very very few at the moment) goes towards music, but have I sacrificed anything for music? I don't think so.

It feels like some of you have suffered to make music, I honestly don't feel like I have. I was lucky enough to tour the country with my old band on a record labels money, and have met so so many people through music.

In January I left the city that I grew up in, the city that made me the person and artist I am.

The things I have noticed are, firstly that when you don't know anyone and aren't obliged to do anything you get a lot of music done! My god I've been productive.

The second, more interesting thing I have found is that the only people who i have really stayed in touch with from back home are people in my music group of friends. They're the ones whohave gone out of their way to contact me, and they're the ones I want to talk to. I've even almost accedently got into contact with people I've worked with on music from back in the past.

So in other words, I struggle through life on a budget, and feind to get back home and onto my computer to make/listen to/talk about/read about music. It's completely what I live for, work is just there to permit me the free time to make music.

Wow, now that you mention it. I moved here "alone" to this town about a year ago.
Like I said I, left all my old school friends in the small village I grew up in. And all my fun/creative/music friends live in the big cities which are a minimum of 1 hour train rides away (do-able).

But yeah, I'm "alone" here in this quiet town near a river, and there isn't much to except for working and making music . Keeping in touch with my friends over the internet is something that keeps the social juices going.



This put a smile on my face... call us geeks.. but it's the art we live for, and probably die for to if necessary.

Word

This is exactly what tipped me over the edge into taking it a lot more serious. Doubling your spare time really does throw you further down the rabbit hole.

I think once you’ve upped your skills quite a bit your in a better position to base your social life around music / making beats rather than just meeting up to have a mix / get trashed a couple of times a week. Its all very put more in get more out so cant see me wanting to waste too much time socializing when I could be doing something music related even when I get out of the small town.

I believe if you really are passionate, committed, and maintain your focus for long enough you can easily make a living out of music. A little luck helps as well. You might not be getting paid a grand every weekend to rock huge shows but you will definitely succeed in making a good living out of it. Ive been grafting my arse off in my city for years, doing shit for free, pouring what little money I had into club nights and losing it, and all manner of shit to make contacts and get my shit out there. I can now live quite comfortably without and 9 to 5 doing what I love.

For me it came down to making a conscious decision that i was going balls deep and dedicating all of my time to what I want to do. The next day I quit my job, got a bar job to pay the bills and spent the rest of my time getting my shit together. My family thought it was a dick move and have never been supportive but years later they see that ive made a somewhat successful career for myself and have some sort of respect for what I do, although they still dont get it.

I reckon at some point you gotta go all in at some point if that what you really want to be doing with your life but be prepared to work your fucking ass off for nothing for a good few years.

It is definately a big deal to go all in, but when it never leaves your head, when every sound you hear tweaks new ideas, when you can't get thru a movie without wanting to sample something... You can't ignore it.

I know it has gotten in the way of what the world see's as a regular, fitting life. But i would be a miserable old man if i didn't try, stay honest, and be who i am.

Its really nice to read all about this from so many perspectives...

Peace