Hi there JP I don't know if you've seen this before http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html One particular section may just strike a chord with you. It says the following Outsiders do not understand this, and feel that it should be time for you to "get over it" and rejoin the land of the living. Just knowing that your desire to be alone with your sad reflections at this time is normal will help you deal with outside pressures. You are acting normally. They just don't "get it".
I'm a junior in college, my parents are spending boatloads to get me a BA in music. I've got two years left but I'm not sure I need them, I think I can make it in the industry without a degree and without shooting my parents retirement out from under them. I'm going to talk to them when I get home for break, but I'm anxious and don't really know what to say. I don't want them to feel like I'm kicking them in the face by having them spend all this money and then me "quitting" on them.. but I really will feel like I'm kicking both of us in the face if I suck up more money just to have two more years of security. It was a big deal getting into the school and they'll have to face the shame of the small-town-back-home inquiring about why I dropped out, and the anxiety of knowing their baby boy is out there on his own working a day job. I learned a lot here and if I hadn't come here I don't think I would have learned enough about myself as a person to come to this conclusion - that I can do it without the degree. Maybe it was a pivotal step but maybe the typical route isn't the route for me and the next step is leaving it behind. The school obviously has a lot to teach but I feel like I know enough and I think getting into the industry is more about the passion and the green thumb than it is about the slip of paper saying you wrote good enough music to pass a class.. I don't think it's worth all that money either. I'm 20 so if it really wasn't working out and it's a big deal to them I could just go back. The workload is heavier than a conservatory and so most of my free time is spent on assignments and arbitrary projects, leaving me little time to compose. Composing is my trump card and as any artist knows ( my dad is case in point ) if you don't use it you lose it, the fire'll go out if you don't stoke the flame. I don't have any time to stoke the flame because I'm busy doing assignments, but if I worked some job somewhere I'd have a ton more hours each week to hone my skill in the thing that matters most to making a living in this field, and I really don't mind working menial jobs. I've got a fetish for working food-service. I think the main thing that'll concern my parents isn't that I won't get the degree, because it's a music degree after all, you can't really bank on something like that. I think they'll fear for my safety and not consider me mature enough to be "on my own", though technically I am "on my own" in that sense anyway since I live across the country in the middle of a city and I'm doing alright. The only thing that would change is financial dependence but they know I'm a hard worker and can hold down a job so I wonder what the difference really would be? Maybe it's that I don't understand how bad it is to work a full time job in the service industry but I've worked 25/hr weeks in the service industry while going to school full time and I really didn't find it too stressful. I think my parents are very afraid of my independence because it is a naive independence, and I think they're right to be, I really don't know who I am or where I'm going but hey I don't think getting that degree is going to get me any closer to finding out. Just a long spiel to articulate my thoughts for when I talk to them. If anyone's been through something similar I'd appreciate your thoughts too.
Get the degree!!!!! Oh my god, get the degree!!!! I'm assuming you know that the life of a composer is pretty much abject poverty if you try to make that your career. But the most important way to get ahead is through universities and conservatories, and more importantly, through the connections you make there. You're right that it's the kind of career where you need to create opportunities wherever you can, and that isn't really something you need a degree for, but the people you're going through this with are going to be some of your most important allies in the years that follow graduation--your classmates, lecturers, tutors, etc. That alone is worth the tuition. I also think that in some ways, a BMus or whatever degree you're getting isn't enough...the professional composers I know all have Masters degrees, and trained alongside professional composers...it really is the kind of career where it has to be all or nothing for you to make much progress. So yeah. I think you should study as much as you can, and make the most of the connections and opportunities you'll get there, because once you leave uni, people don't go out of their way to help you like they do while you're studying. Make the most of it! Forget about the expense--your parents obviously want you to follow your dreams if they're paying for a degree in music, so honour that.
Seconded. I don't think that having a degree will ever hinder you, and it's much more likely to help you further your career. You have the opportunity to finish it, so my advice would be to push on and get the degree, so that you'll be in a better position to start your career.
I feel like if my music is good then I'll make it and if it's not then I won't and I should find another field.. yeah I can blanket my entire future with the insurance of a piece of paper and having it can't hurt but it's a stupid amount of cash for a degree in composing music, if my music is good no one will ask or think about the school and if it's bad no one will care where I went anyway. Maybe the common sense coming out of the last generation would say get the degree like they did, but the generation before might say with such a strange economy and scarce jobs that the only common sense thing to do is wait it out and see how you fare without dropping your parent's retirement down the hole first. Think any of the authors you read got their books sold because they went to some school somewhere? It could be that that degree is worth it but it just doesn't seem like it. I'll see what my parents think - it's their money.
There's also the fact that you do, in fact, learn rather a lot in the final couple of years during a composition major. It might feel arbitrary, but you are (presumably) learning things that will make your music better. And anyway, it really doesn't matter how good your music is unless you have the right connections. Like most creative industries, music is more who you know than what you know. And if it's anything like art, then the first question you'll get when you meet someone is 'where did you study?' Sure, there are probably a handful of exceptional composers who didn't study and still made it, but you can guarantee that the majority of professionals in composition have degrees. It's hard to say without knowing exactly what music you write how much you can really gain from school (although I assume you feel like you can gain something or you wouldn't have bothered to go), but you can always stand to gain from using university to make the connections that will help you make the first steps of your career. You might think no one will think about the school, but I guarantee they will, especially in social settings which is most likely where you will make the most important connections in your career.
Do you see the degree as a qualification, or do you see it as the acquisition of a lot of information and skills? If it's the former then it's practically useless in music. If it's the latter then it's probably priceless. The "assignments and arbitrary projects" are (or should be, if the degree programme is worth anything) giving you a lot more depth and breadth in your composing, although you might not be aware of it at the moment, just as all those scale and arpeggio exercises seem arbitrary and meaningless to somebody learning an instrument when actually they're building up fluency. If you are going to make it as a composer you need the skills that the degree programme will teach you, even if they don't seem useful at the moment, although you probably don't need the bit of paper at the end.
I feel for your pain, I'm in the same predicament. I'm enrolled in Kaplan and are failing two classes this semester. In between work and kids, I afraid I don't have the patience to keep up with it all. But I read this article on depression and certain things can aid you to help you through hard times, not necessarily depression but just when things get your down. It help a lot for me. Article It goes on to say the different things to do in the event of depression or helping someone else through it.
That article makes a lot of sense. Let me know what you end up doing if you don't mind, it might give me a little more clarity too.
The music industry IS an assembly line though, the really good music isn't even in production i.e. its behind the stage, and on free music sharing sites. Might be a side cynical there, but mass produced music doesn't interest me much any more. Its a matter of picking up a CD and throwing it away for the 'next music chart hit', I already have the music I want and need; for everything else there is the radio.
In reply to Ayo, post 229. I would think long and hard about this - what are your real reasons for wanting to leave, I know what you are saying but, deep inside you, what are your concerns? Could, at the core of your decision to quit be the fear of failure? Is the work load proving to be too difficult? You say it is costing your parents a lot of money - well you new that before you went to college in the first place. You say that you can work hard, then stick it out make your parents proud and the take whatever job you have to for however long it takes to pay them back.
There's assembly line and there's crafted. Most of the music I buy is directly from the performers, usually funded by the performers too.
I strongly agree. Though I think blackunicorn is referring to the mainstream music industry. The independent or affiliations of the music industry have more creative freedoms and better work. I buy too directly from the performers or from a record company that I do have strong ties to that offer a fair contract between the label/distributer and the artist.
Do I have a superiority complex? Even though I am 18, I consider myself an intellectual and a very rational individual. I just started my new job and the majority of my co-workers only care about insignificant things like sex, money, drugs, and whenever these people at work try and approach me and talk to me about this crap, I try to ignore them because I don't condone that type of behaviour and I don't like those values or beliefs that they have. I don't relate to that at all. I don't like that mindset and I just think it's stupid and juvenile. There are more important concerns in the world than the superficial crap they care about. I just feel like sometimes I exist in alternate dimension. It's just so hard for me to find people I can connect with on an emotional and intellectual level. I don't think I'm better than anybody, I just think that there are things I don't want to tolerate and people I don't want to be around due to their beliefs and values of the world. Does this mean I have some sort of superiority complex? I just don't know. I am just struggling to figure myself out and understand myself better.. I just have no interest in parties, sex, drugs, money, it's all juvenile and whenever my co-workers tell me about it, I just nod like I care but I really don't. I just can't tolerate these stupid people. I take life seriously and they don't, and that's why I can't stand them or care to listen to what they have to say. I try and remain polite towards them, but in the back of my mind I just wish I can get away from them because I feel like they are not even worth talking too. I feel like sometimes, I am from a different era or something. I just can't relate with anybody and I'm tired of dealing with these children and their games. Can anybody offer me some input to help me debunk this? I just need to know where I'm coming from and why I do the things I do. What could it possibly be? I mean, I have a few friends online that I keep in touch with regularly, and I really enjoy talking to them because of how profound and insightful they are, and they actually have meaningful things to discuss. As opposed to these people that talk about stupid things like what I mentioned earlier. I just hate how I can't meet anybody in real life who shares this mindset that I possess.
"I nod like I care but I really don't" Well, this is very much part of growing up process (or should I say growing old process ), learning to be what people expect you to be at work, at home... There's nothing wrong being so unless it is affecting you psychologically. Your friend at work who always speaks of sex, try to know him better, you may find that the TV channel he loves watching is National Geographic and he volunteers at the local orphanage. You should never judge people base on some chit-chat at work. For all I know, you may also have been judged as 'the guy who listens intensely whenever we talk of sex', which of course is not at all true.
You're in good company - others have noticed the exact same thing. And a lot of them happened to be writers, too.... It's not easy being an outsider, but it's the only vantage point from which there is a view on what's happening inside. It feels lonely, but it's in those lonely places within that the real stuff grows. So keep moving forward, you're doing fine. And I bet eventually you'll find yourself feeling compassion for - as opposed to distance from - these fellow human beings - for in the end, we really are all in this together....
just remember, in the private sector almost all of our jobs either are about making someone money, getting someone laid, or making them happy. Other than that get to know your coworkers. Its always awkward being the new guy, just give it some time and be friendly. Never know who or what you will meet at work.
It just sounds to me like you are arrogant. Nothing wrong with that, everyone goes through it. I remember thinking the same things when I was in high school. Some people never move past it, most do. What you have to realize is that not very many people (almost no one) will conform to what you consider 'intellectual' or 'sophisticated'. That the person behind the face you see every day could in reality be someone very different, and actually intellectual, or sophisticated, they just don't show it. I also find these two sections highly revealing of your personality: You write this from the vantage of being just a few years younger than myself, and I'm guessing from a position of some privilege. I find this statement quite dumb. Is money 'insignificant' to a person on the bread-line? Is money 'insignificant' to a person who has to scrape through bins to find their next meal? And sex is one of man's most basic impulses. Now there is such a thing as Asexuality, but very few people are actually Asexual. You are a member of the animal kingdom and prone to unconscious desires. You just are. Get over it. The more I analyse your wording and syntax the more clearly this conclusion presents itself: you just don't have very much life-experience. There is no problem with this either, most people don't our age, but it can be a problem for you accepting other people as they appear, because that can block people showing you as they really are. We all have facades we put up, even if it isn't intentional.
There's a time and a place for intellectual debate, and it's not a crime for some people to avoid heavy subjects in favour of more light-hearted ones. Stressing over intellectual subjects can be as pointless as someone talking crap about the football. At the end of the day all you're doing is blowing hot air and all the talk in the world won't change it; if people choose to pass the time more about talking about the 'superficial' things, then it's their prerogative and I wouldn't think any less of someone for doing so. As a person it might not be a bad thing to adapt to whatever company it is that you're in, as what stimulates one person might not the next. it's just not very likeable to dismiss someone because they talk about things that's not to your taste Oh and lighten up the serious subjects of the world will soldier on long after you're dead
I think the answer might lie in your statement: "I just started my new job and the majority of my co-workers only care about insignificant things like sex, money, drugs, and whenever these people at work try and approach me and talk to me about this crap, I try to ignore them because I don't condone that type of behaviour and I don't like those values or beliefs that they have. I don't relate to that at all." If you really don't like whatever it is that they're talking about, try listening to them and try to figure out WHY they like it and what it is that they like about it. Try to figure out their motivations. After all, part of what makes a good writer is figuring out why different people behave the way that they do. You could think of it as research for a book. So ask your co-workers about what they like. You can tell them that you personally don't engage in whatever activity they're talking about, but you'll probably learn at least something interesting about most co-workers.
Problem is money is not a insignificant thing. MatrixGravities coworkers are concerned with their finances and future incomes. They sound much more mature then he is, if he is not concerned with that as he claims. Honestly matrix reminds me of an ex that also needed to grow up and stop expecting handouts form family or society. Anywise hitting the rack got a certification class tomorrow, so I can get a job to make more money.
HI Matrix It's not easy to find likeminded people out there but keep trying! Before I went to uni (so about your age I guess) I had a great bunch of friends and we used to meet up and talk into the early hours about all kinds of stuff. I assumed Uni would be jam-packed with more of the same but I was wrong. They were mostly airheads. I perservered though and eventually found people I could relate to. as for all the others you meet along the way - assuming you're a writer - take notes, listen to how they talk, what concerns them - and use them as characters in your next novel!
