Play prompt
When You’re Performing Music, Are You Working or Playing?
Discuss.
I absolutely LOVE to sing. And I’m pretty damn good at it.
That said, I am not famous. I am not a professional vocalist. I’ve never cut an album. People are not queueing up online to buy tickets for my latest tour. Let’s just establish that.
But I do front a rock band that plays in local bars and restaurants. I have many musician friends who invite me up to sing when I come to their gigs. I’ve written songs with one of my musical colleagues and we’ve recorded them in his home studio. We even made a 4-song CD that we used to sell at our gigs (Just $5!). That was 20 years ago, but those songs still sound fresh to me, still mean something.
Singing is more than a hobby, more than something I do in my spare time. It’s a passion. But it’s not a job. It’s not WORK.
Meanwhile, my boyfriend is a professional musician. A drummer. Music is his passion, for sure. But it’s also how he makes his living. Therefore, when he’s got a gig, he says he’s “working.”
One night when we first started dating, he wanted to know when my gig was the following week. “What night are you working?” he asked.
I burst out laughing. “You mean what night am I playing?”
Ah, semantics. It’s now an inside joke between us. Playing the drums is his job. His work IS play. And he “works” very hard at it, and by that I mean, he spends a lot of time practicing and perfecting his craft. Which is why he’s so good at it, and why he’s able to make a living doing it.
I am a creative writer at heart, but I make my living as a marketing copywriter. I enjoy it, but I wouldn’t exactly say it’s fun. And it’s certainly not a passion.
Fun is singing for three hours on a Saturday night and providing a live soundtrack for other people to sing along, dance, and have fun themselves. Even though I make a few bucks, I don’t think of it as work. Because it’s FUN. In fact it’s a gas.
That’s not to say I take it lightly. I am very focused on giving a good performance, on making sure that people are enjoying themselves. You could say I work hard at doing that, but again, it doesn’t feel like work.
When I’m sitting at my computer writing pharmaceutical marketing content, that feels like work. I’m thinking hard. My brain is percolating as I craft manuscripts for a range of promotional vehicles, ensuring that each word, sentence, and call-to-action aligns with the brand’s strategic direction and engages its target audience.
On the other hand, when I’m singing, I’m letting go, unleashing my inhibitions and freely expressing whatever emotions the song is trying to convey to MY target audience — the people who have come to our shows. The song’s emotions become my own. With the lyrics locked in my muscle memory, I don’t need to think. I simply need to feel, and let my vocal chops do the rest. That’s not work, IMO. Anything but.
So in my world, work is something I do for a living but am not passionate about. Singing is something that I AM passionate about, but that doesn’t support me in the style to which I’ve become accustomed. In other words — it’s play.
In my boyfriend’s world, work is something he is passionate about AND from which he makes a living. So “work” has a different meaning to him than it does to me, and to most people.
What’s that expression?
“Do what you love for a living and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I believe it.
So last Friday night my band and I played at a packed restaurant with many of our friends in attendance, while my boyfriend worked with a band he sits in with from time to time.
Working/playing, playing/working. What’s the difference? It’s just semantics, and who but a writer cares about those? We both made some money (he more than I) AND had a blast.
What are your thoughts?
