Welcome to my blog. I document life as a failed musician.
All in Professional Musician
Nothing much good has come from the coronavirus pandemic. Sure, for the individual, the chance to learn something new or get something done that you’ve been putting off for ages during lockdown isn’t bad.
The dream of never having to work on ships again didn’t last long. One year after last ferry contract, we’re back at sea. And it’s awful.
Good gigs seem to be coming one after another at the moment. In this case from an unexpected place.
After the fairly miserable rant that was my last post I have been hoping to have something positive to write about.
As far as most jobs go, musicians have it fairly good. I’ve mentioned before that if you are able to make a living from performing, you should be relatively happy with yourself, as well as counting yourself lucky.
Just over two weeks ago I arrived back in the UK from a three week contract at a hotel bar in Monaco. It’s always a nice change from the ships and as nearly everything work related went well, it looks like we’ll be working there a lot more than usual next year.
I presumed I’d be feeling slightly sadder than I am at the moment. Last night was very possibly (hopefully) our last night performing on the Baltic ships after coming here for over seven years. Instead I can’t wait to leave.
For me, the biggest joy of being a professional musician has to be the travelling. Like I’ve mentioned in a previous post, it has for now only been around Europe but it’s still great to experience places I may not have thought to visit otherwise. The one obvious downside to working abroad however is the worry that your instrument might not make the trip in one piece, if at all.
