The More Music I Make, the Less I Want to Be a Musician
I don’t ever remember not wanting to be a musician. But what that meant has really shifted throughout the years.
I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be adored as a musician. I wanted to walk into a room and have people say, “There’s the musician.” And this kind of grew in me over the years, even though I wasn’t really making music. I was giving myself a hard time about it, but what I was really doing was listening (which nbenifits me days after day today).
And the need to make it wasn’t strong. When I got a horrible guitar when I was little, I didn’t fight for a better one. I took my bike up to the music store to play this one bass all the time, but I didn’t fight to get a job or whatever to get it bought. And I did for other things. So that’s interesting.
But now—later in life, I do music all the time. And the more music I do, the less I want to be, air quotes, “a musician.”
I don’t go to work wearing a Fender shirt or bitch about musician problems on the internet. I just kind of put music out there on a weekly basis, cut tracks, release them, and move on. A lot of my friends know I’m super musical via what I share on social media, which is largely music based. I have a lot of other aspects to my life, but that’s what I choose to share there because I just want people to listen and hear.
And the more music I make, the less I want to be known as a musician. It just isn’t as important anymore.
It’s interesting that if you’re not doing it, you want to be it. My desire to be known for it was so hot for so long, and now that I’m doing it consistently, I just don’t care—because I’m doing it. There’s something deeply psychological and spiritual here.
It’s never been a thing I could do without, but I didn’t do it for such a long time. Now that I’m doing it consistently, it’s almost like I’m fulfilled in that regard. Obviously I still want to make music every day. Generally practice every day. Generally play every day. And finish a lot of music as well.
I’ve been joking lately that I probably have the biggest ratio of finished music to unpopularity ever. And honestly, it’s comforting to say it out loud and really own it.
I’m trying to be funny and self-deprecating and somewhat pitiful, but at the same time, that gets me in touch with why I’m doing it, which is just to do it.
I know it’s in me. I know people would call it a gift, and I mean that in the most un-self-congratulatory way possible. It’s just in there. I feel like it’s my duty to use it and make things with it, and I believe something comes from that.
Currently that means writing, composing, performing, and trying to work a small but growing sync catalog. This morning it was house music on the EP-133, which I talked about yesterday. Tomorrow it’ll probably be something else.
The more you do it, the more the work just kind of stands for itself.
And I’m not worried about meta-JD anymore.
Which it turns out no one probably cared about anyway.