The music man
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Almost fifteen years ago to the day I was preparing to sit down for the first of my GCSE exams. I managed to get ten GCSEs in all. The two I scored highest in were English Literature, which came as a surprise to me at the time but makes a lot of sense now, and Music.
I loved music back then, as I do now. I'd spend hours playing my guitar. I only had the one at the time; a blonde Fender Squire Stratocaster. I thought it was awesome. I still have it. Next to the others it isn't as great, but I keep it for sentimentality. My passion inspired me to take A-level music when I progressed into the sixth form. Not knowing what I wanted to do, I picked subjects I enjoyed (including IT and history). I assumed, since I loved it so much, that music would be a breeze.
I was wrong. It took me about three months to realise my mistake and a further six months of trying to persevere with it before I had to drop out. The problem was that learning about music took a lot of the fun out of it. I love the flexibility and spontaneity of music, but if anything the course discouraged that. I wasn't doing the bits I enjoyed and I gradually lost interest. By the time I left the course, I hardly touched my guitar and it took me several months to find my passion again.
Fast forward to the present day and I find myself working in an IT-based role (as a developer). One of my A-levels paid off. It led me through higher education and into a string of roles that might vaguely resemble a career, if careers moved sideways and left a trail. I like my job. It pays me a decent wage, even if I'd rather it were higher. I learn a lot. And I get to keep music as a hobby that I can enjoy when I have the time. I fell into IT because, like music, it came very naturally to me. But unlike music, I never thought of it as a hobby. It was something I could do, and do well, but I wasn't precious about it. There was enough distance to make it work.
I've been asked on a couple of occasions if I'd like to take my music more seriously and push to try and make a living from it. Like many people I've always dreamed about being a rock star, so I make sure I give these occasions some serious consideration. More recently, however, I've realised that my answer to this question is "no". It's not that I wouldn't like to be a rock star any more—far from it. It's just that I already have one job and in order to keep on enjoying my life as I do now, I need to keep it.
Music won't pay my bills. At least not in the short term. If I work very hard at it, there's a very, very, very slim chance that, at some point in the future, it might. But it doesn't yet. If I were to pursue it, I'd still need my regular job and music would have to become an additional job on top of that. I can see myself losing interest in it if it became a job, just like I did when studying it became too much.
I don't want two jobs. And if I needed another job, I wouldn't want it to be music. Not now. Once upon a time, maybe. But after fifteen years, I'm happy with my lot. And I'm happy that when the mood takes me, I'm always able to enjoy music. Because it's not work. Because I don't have to.