I've been working my spuds off (long hours, mentally intense work) at non-music jobs for, hmmm, a long time.
I can't afford to give up working forever but was thinking of taking some time out to really focus on music and accelerating my progress on guitar, anywhere from three months to a year.
Has anyone got any experience of doing this? Does it work or will I just find myself getting cabin fever and wishing I had my old colleagues back?
Any thoughts or experiences much appreciated.
I wasn't thinking of going to a music college, but I'd plan this experiment in advance and probably do twice weekly lessons with a decent teacher to make I didn't end up totally wasting the time and surfing the net :-)
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I took 10 months off 3 years ago, not just to play guitar. My playing improved, didn't take any lessons though, just bought new kit and played more. I have a lot of other interests though, some people would get stir crazy, I could happily quit work permanently if I had the cash.
If you can, taking 1 day off a week might work better if you are able to. I couldn't, it was work or stop, and like you I'd been doing long hours, away from home, Mrs & kids a lot for work and visiting my ill parents, but from all the work I had 10 months money in the bank. I got to pick the kids up from school every day, take them to the park, etc. And play guitar. Did me a lot of good I think. I call it a chunk of retirement I took early, you never know how long you'll live after all!
Glad to hear you enjoyed it! There are a couple of other things I'd do alongside the music too, some of them related to work so hopefully I'd avoid going stir crazy or getting burned out with music but I don't want to underestimate that possibility so it's good to hear of other's experiences.
I think I'd depends what kind of personality you are. I've taken time off a few times, but I find it can be quite difficult to stay driven in general, once you arent compelled to like.... do stuff (o:
I have less time when I'm working, but I'm more on the ball in general, and more efficient with the time I do have.
I would say still working or studying part time, is the ideal scenario. Then you have a good balance.
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Tarquin and I decided to spend a year learning guitar whilst touring India. What we discovered was that you don't need money or guitars. It's all like a western concept. It was incredibly moving and when we got back to Chelsea we both decided to sell a guitar each and give £10 of the profits to the local Oxfam.
Seriously though, knowing the discipline it takes to work for yourself when paying the bill is at stake, to have a effective training regime avoiding the obvious distractions (including those guitar related ones) would take a seriously impressive level of self-discipline.
Yes, £9k a year to sit in university lessons looks expensive to me. My BSc was 20-120 people in a lecture theatre for 12 hours a week, with a few optional tutor sessions with 102- people in each, for 28 weeks a year
£321 a week, so if we say 4 tutorials, that's £20 an hour to sit in big classes. Pretty poor value
btw, I worked in universities for 6 years, and back then there were a lot of people doing very much less work than they should, some professors I worked for went to the pub 2-3 afternoons a week, and slept in their offices in the afternoon if they came back in. I hope that's all been tightened up now.
I thought about doing a part time music production degree, but it's just so expensive, like FVH says, you could arrange your own education and pay less. Unis need to sort themselves out I think.
Cutting down to 4 days a week can be an issue, I couldn't do it in my profession very easily, since I tend to work on late projects usually, but you can get it by applying for a new post with that in mind. In my last job I was running a section, and I recruited one new permie on a 4 day week, and let another valued person switch to 4 longer days, with less days in the week.
you've mixed us up, I took 10 months out. In fact I try to take 1-3 months out between every new job
I have an innate curiosity, which means I fill up my whole days, I know this is not the same for all though.
I may well do some things like that camp in a few years. Doing a week with MD guitars building a guitar too
Just need to save up enough to retire first, even if only temporarily
maybe if you were to try out a few teachers, and then take lessons once, or maybe even twice a week - that would give you the motivation to keep being productive.
Thats what I should've done in hindsight.... but at the time it felt that the next job was a long way off.
These are good points, and I think part time is more sustainable, because even if I take a year out I'm still going to have to come back to work and then I'll have the same problem again of having a ball busting job...hard to find a perfect way forward!
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
So yeah, take a year out if you can financially do it, and you might never go back!
All I want is a fair days work for a fair weeks pay :-\"
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself