On Better People

Better People^TM can play the piano really well. They know all the quick things and the slow things and the flashy things. But they're not just playing machines - they've soldiered through intense drama with a broken wrist/family/relationship, so now their musical interpretation has depths you can't even begin to grasp. To support these yogic guru -depth emotions, Better People^TM read a lot of serious books and watch serious series. This helps them be better than the people who read and watch the normal shit. The serious stuff has helped them grow as persons, and by now they've reached towering heights.

Better People^TM have their own chamber music festival, a concert series or at least an opera house. They know how to write grant applications in ways that make cultural foundations send truckloads of money to their direction - the projects Better People^TM do are so new, so now, so inspiring that the foundations compete for their support. Press is charmed to write lovely things, and the festival/concert/thing will continue next year with more money and prestige.

Better People^TM also practice regularly and take care of their physical and mental health. They have a balanced diet, but in parties they can be relaxed about food because they're not uptight, just annoyingly Better. Probably they shit rainbows. And because they're balanced, they don't burn out. They have a lot of work, but not too much, and they don't stress and worry and panic because music is really about being in harmony with your soul. Somehow they're in harmony with their wallets as well, and they make a decent living out of music while you starve.

Look around you. They're everywhere, these Better People^TM, taking over the world while you struggle in the dark and envy their things. They're your colleagues, your friends, and oops, it looks like you're one of them. Because there's someone somewhere thinking, oh how can she get all those nice things - her life looks so easy and polished and lovely. I wish I had that.

'I wish I had that' is good because it makes you aspire to things, it makes you work and hope and reach for something new. But it turns toxic when envy gets involved. In the music world - this tiny bubble we all try to work in - it's so easy to see others doing great, and so, so easy to see the jobs other people got and you didn't. And it's easy to forget the jobs you already have. The gigs you got, the projects you did. How proud you could be of this corner you've cleaned for yourself, this career that you've nurtured and fretted over. 'I wish I had that' could be replaced with 'I'm glad I've got this' and the Better People^TM would start looking more like normal ones.

Of course I might be wrong - there might really be people out there who shit rainbows.

Well. I'd pay to see that.

On Things That Never Will Be Music

Emails

There are so many emails. Imagine you're trying to arrange concerts, for example. First you have to email the possible venues to ask if they want you. Most don't. Staring at the negative answers you curse the day people stopped appreciating music and wallow in self-pity - and then send more emails. The venues that do want you require a lot more emailing back and forth. Agreeing on the details takes time, typing, and scanning.

Pro tip: If you don't have a printer/scanner at home, find friends who do, and then ruthlessly abuse their patience and machinery.

Texts, Messenger, Whatsapp...

Booking rehearsals. Booking meetings in which to discuss future projects. Booking rehearsals for aforementioned future projects. Endless group chats in which there's always 1) A person who doesn't use the app in question and has to be informed via smoke signals 2) Another who never answers anything, except to tell they're unavailable at the exact time everyone else has laboriously managed to agree on 3) A member who'll post all sorts of unrelated spam that you have to read every time the phone beeps because the one time you didn't it was real news. 

You send pictures of outfits to match them to others, you send cvs and biographies, promotional pictures, scores, tax cards, id numbers, bank details, drafts for program notes and grant applications and hundreds of thousands of things that are not and never will be music. You just sit in front of your computer and/or phone and click, click away while your life passes you by and all your creativity slowly withers and dies in the corner. Then the phone rings:

Calls

It's a gig! ...not. It is a salesman offering you a magazine subscription, an insurance, or cheaper electricity. Every week someone vomits their sales pitch on your hopes and dreams. You have to answer, because every call from an unknown number is like that lottery ticket you bought in order to win gazillion euros. And who knows? Next time it really could be work. 

Pro tip: Always, always when the electricity guy calls gasp in bewilderment: "Electricity? For me? What on earth would I need that for?"

Facebook

Leaving Facebook is a thing, because Facebook is evil. I'm not disagreeing, but I'm not leaving either. I follow a couple of groups that actively post things about work - people looking for substitutes,  links to new job openings and grants to apply for, events looking for music and students looking for teachers. 97% of the posts are not relevant to me, but it's the 3% that I'm interested in. I've actually got work like that, by reacting to a post, so I know it can happen. You just have to spend some time scrolling through stuff including cute animals and your friends' doings. (Okay, things could be worse.)

Websites

"What if they google me? They won't, but what if they will?" You have a website because of this. There might be other reasons, but this is the real one. When someone somewhere wants to know who you are, they'll find information you yourself have edited and polished, instead of mildly embarrassing ancient facebook history or random concert posts and articles. It takes time to maintain, however - unless you want people to see only the concerts from before 2014, you've got to keep regularly updating the site. You will not want to do this, but you'll force yourself. You will develop whole new ranges of methods of procrastination during the process.

Instagram

You should have Instagram because "everyone's there". As a pianist working with singers the important thing is not to let the singers forget you exist, so you should try to post something every once in a while. You're not really into Instagram, you're just using it as a tool. Only when someone confronts you about the relevance of seagulls or food to your work, you notice the machine is now controlling you - you've already been tagged, you've been caught in the net of arbitrary gratification, and not knowing how it happened you find yourself compulsively checking for likes and scrolling through air in your sleep - walking around seeing not objects and events but a continuous stream of hashtags and filters.

Pro tip: Watch out. It's scary business.

Teaching

A whole new world of more messages. A concert time change? No big deal. Just 22 texts. Then the replies: "What concert? Where? We have a soccer game and jazz ballet and could it be 47,6 minutes later and earlier and at the same time? Maybe on another planet? Could it have subtitles in Sanskrit?" The answers to these questions: 138 more texts. Sick on a Monday? 10 texts. A teachers' meeting? 17 texts. Students playing together with other students? What a lovely idea. 58 texts. Students playing together with other students in a concert? 18.229 texts and possible carpal tunnel syndrome.

Conclusion

Being a freelance person and teacher means you are your own pr manager and secretary, and that is a lot of work. Know it. Accept it. Embrace it. 

Pro tip: Rant about it to colleagues. Always helps.

On Fear

​Dear reader, I'm scared. Worried, stressed, and anxious about The Career Of A Freelance Musician. I live with a man who has a Nice Normal Job, and while he sleeps peacefully, I lie awake thinking about how nobody will ever hire me again.

You know the feeling when you're wide awake, it's way too much o'clock, and you have super constructive thoughts on failing at life? Night is obviously the worst time to think, so I'd strongly recommend you to sleep instead if you can. If you can't, here's two things to do instead: play solitare (there's an app for that, no need for actual playing cards. Very handy if you want to stay in bed while someone next to you is sleeping and would little appreciate lights being switched on) - or read a book. No time to think when doing either. I've tried the Constructive Method of writing my worries down, but that creates an uncomfortable paper trail - read in daylight, all those very serious concerns and fears look more like ramblings of a delusional half-wit.

When there's a quieter period in my calendar, it easily feels like the quiet will last forever. That's when I'm most worried, anyway. Busy is good, even if it sometimes gets close to burnout. (No more of that, now. That's a whole other blog post.) So, ladies and gentlemen. In order for you to feel better about your  saner selves, I'll share some of my delusional ramblings with you. Here are some thoughts that, after midnight, have entered my drama queen of a head:

1. Oh no, I don't have almost anything this ________(insert the current time of year)! I have done my last concerts in life and I'll never get to perform again.

2. They have finally caught me out: I suck at teaching, and I'll soon be fired if all my students won't quit first.

3. People practice and work insane hours and never get tired, and they still go to the gym, only eat beans and have calm, enlightened minds. I'm the only musician who feels worn out after teaching, and who doesn't always (usually) have the energy to excercise and socialize, and who eats popcorn for breakfast.

4. X years ago in that project I  ________________(insert a thing you should've done different), and now everyone that was there hates me and thinks I'm an incompetent nitwit.

5. Next year I can't be a pianist any more because nobody wants to play with me, and I'll probably end up working as a cleaner or cashier except they won't hire me because I'm too lazy and I'll die alone and unemployed. 

6. Everyone else has so many fancy gigs - they all work from morning till night and then party like crazy. I must be the only person in the entire music industry who has days off and watches Netflix.

Don't get me wrong - a lot of the time I'm optimistic about the future, grateful for the projects I've already done, and happy with the stuff I'm currently working on. I know very well that some have more and fancier stuff, and others less. I also know that You Should Not Compare Your Life With Other People's. But seriously, who doesn't? Another wisdom I've heard is Just Work Hard And Things Will Happen. No Need To Worry, Regret, Anything.

Bullshit, I tell you. I exist, therefore I worry. 

Conclusion: A part of being a freelance musician (for me) is being awake on some nights playing solitare on my phone, whilst posting only happy stuff to Instagram. And somehow life just happens to continue, and there just happens to be new mornings, opportunities, and ideas. And new exciting games in Google Play for the sleepless nights to come.

On Audiences

1) Friends and family

They are your cheerleaders sans pompoms. Filled with pride, armed with flowers they sit and listen to you doing whatever it is you’re doing. Afterwards they’ll tell you you were wonderful, you looked terrific, well done you.

They’re the all-important support network you need to stay sane, so appreciate all the compliments, do a twirl in your concert gear, and smile to the camera. You earned it by being onstage, no matter what you did there. Just going there was brave enough for now.

2) Colleagues

After the performance they come to thank you, and seeing them approach you immeadiately start pouring out all that went wrong with the performance. Yes, you’re very aware of your shortcomings, yes, you know it wasn’t that great. Only if you happened to play superbly well, you might find the courage to say “oh it was quite okay I guess”.

Usually your colleagues want to congratulate you instead of mocking you, and on a purely theoretical level you know this (having congratulated other colleagues yourself). However, the adrenaline of the performance turns you into a mad conspiracy theorist, so in your ears “it was great” sounds like “you’re an ape”. It’s all in your head. Remember that.

3) A jury

You’re playing, and suddenly from the corner of your eye you see one of them write something down. Immediately your mind starts racing: was it the phrasing, balance, rubato, my face, my shoes, what? WHY DO THEY HATE ME? It takes all your willpower not to run away crying, but you soldier on.

The jury member was probably writing down a note to buy milk after the exam, or he was drawing a completely innocent flower, or a chicken. He’s being paid to hear you out and say intelligent things after, he’s done this a million times already, he’s tired and wants coffee. Also he’s a kind person who doesn’t particularly enjoy crushing other peoples hopes and dreams – he’d rather give some generic, inoffensive feedback. But you don’t know this, so hearing the sound of his pen your soul shatters to a million pieces and your blood pressure reaches record heights.

4) Children

They are the best and the worst audience. You never have to guess whether they liked or hated you – you’ll notice it from the things they shout and/or throw at you mid-performance. If they like the show, you feel like you've discovered the true meaning of music and you dance all the way home.

Let’s not think about the other option.

5) The person paying you

The thank you -handshake after the performance is not just a handshake. It’s a code to be encrypted: Was the handshake firm enough? What did that raise of the eyebrows mean? Was the smile approving, did the “let’s be in touch” sound a tad sarcastic?

Will I get to do another concert here ever again?

6) Non-musicians that aren’t related to you

They just sit there and enjoy. Plus they’re not obliged to talk to you after, which is great, too.

7) Critics

“Mr. Critic, please say nice things about me, please. Put those nice things on the front page and you can have my soul and my children.”

8) A full house

Oh the joy, oh the nerves! You’re shaking, but you feel like a million dollars when the hall bursts into applause in the end. Everyone loves a full house, but it takes a real connoisseur to love…

9) …an empty house

Nobody showed up, but you play anyway. Hell, why not grab a drink and make a party of it. The walls will like your stuff.