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Lingering musical thoughts after the Maggie Rogers & Leon Bridges duet in Dallas

Music making really pivoted for me once I started asking what success in that realm meant for me. There are plenty of prescribed defenitions. The surprise came when I reached the end of a success script empty handed.

So, here are a few different voices in support of taking the time to answer that question.

From Derek Sivers:

Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be.

Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find those people and let them do it.

For me, I loved sitting alone and programming, writing, planning, and inventing. Thinking of ideas and making them happen. This makes me happy, not business deals or management. So I found someone who liked doing business deals and put him in charge of all that.

If you do this, you’ll encounter a lot of pushback and misunderstanding, but who cares? You can’t just live someone else’s expectation of a traditional business. You have to just do whatever you love the most, or you’ll lose interest in the whole thing.

From Mike Lowenstern:

While I was still doing the freelance/orchestra life, I never felt completely fulfilled. I was working, but I was working with a lot of people who would read magazines during concerts (no, I’m not kidding. They had them on their music stands) and complain during breaks. Many were very, very unhappy. And there I was, feeling their negativity pretty acutely, and thinking to myself, there are hundreds of musicians who would kill to do this job you’re endlessly complaining about. It was around this time that I decided to switch tracks, and to make an attempt to be successful outside of music, and to pour my energy into the business sector to see how far that would take me. It was a good decision for me, and ironically, it gave me the freedom to become much more successful INSIDE the music world.

... If you want to feel fulfilled as a musician, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

What fulfills you as a musician?... [And] What fulfills you as a person? Is it playing music you love? Teaching someone else to play and love music? Is it the freedom to do what you want (e.g. without needing to worry about money)? Again, each of these requires a different path.

From Dana Fonteneau:

Success is a process, not a destination; a becoming, not a formula...

If we don't stop to question the paradigms, we're blindly following someone else's map without knowing where we are or where we're going.

It's summer time and I'm feeling inspired to spin my "now" page back up!

Software

I've been in software for 3 years now! Still enjoying my time at AptAmigo.

So far, I've commited to learning a new programming language every year. This year, I've been having fun getting familiar with Java. The type system paired with VS Code intellisense is lovely.

Now having had a few years of experience working professionally, I've really taken a liking to sharpening my thinking by writing short tech articles. It's a great space to share what I'm working on and find clear ways of explaining it. My favorite part is when someone comes across a problem I've faced already. I can reach back to my own post to help them through the solution!

You can keep up with my tech articles through the tech tag on my blog. You can also find me on LinkedIn.

Music

I'm bouncing between playing guitar, piano, and writing my own music. To paraphrase W.A. Mathieu, it's fun to have many pots boiling!

After decades of communal music making and monophonic sound on the saxophone, I'm thrilled to be exploring independent and polyphonic instruments.

To make things even more interesting, I'm putting most of my focus on learning jazz on piano and guitar. A friend of mine told me that it's actually the way to go — to learn the vocabulary harmonically as opposed to in a scalar way.

For music writing, it's been fun to keep it loose! I take what ever I'm listening to at the moment, deconstruct it, and turn it into something new. It's a wildly fun outlet!

You can browse my mini albums here. You can keep up with my guitar and piano playing through the music tag on my blog. I'm also sharing recordings on Instagram.

Art

A couple of years ago I dedicated myself to learning how to draw and create digital paintings! I used to make my own comics growing up, but I always assumed my sister had all the talent. After switching from music to code, I realized I could learn anything. So I may as well learn a skill I've only ever dreamed of having! 🙂

I'm spending time balancing the fundamentals with just fooling around. This year has been all about figure drawing, direct painting, and making silly little digital sketches. The best part is that I have an excuse to revisit cartoons, comics, manga, and video games as sources of inspiration!

You can see what I've made so far through the Art tag on my blog. I'm also sharing drawings on Instagram.

Dallas

Living in Dallas with Miranda and our dog Lucy! We moved from Austin a couple of years ago so Miranda could attend Parker University for their Doctor of Chiropractic program. Only a year left as of this writing, then we'll see where we end up next!

So far it's been my favorite metro area in Texas to live in. Downtown is just a quick drive from where we are. But, in the other direction, artsy Denton is not far either.

All good things!

👋

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🚞 An oldie but a goodie

My original album cover for Noodle Bird was pretty crunchy. 😅 So I whipped up a new rendition!