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How To Soar Like An Eagle
I fly because I believe I can
Between 2010 and 2020, I was a full-time professional musician in the South of Spain. One of the biggest problems with working in the performing arts anywhere is that almost everybody thinks they can do it. Some can, some can’t. But let me tell you, the ones who can have spent a very significant part of their lives learning and practising. They have put in long hours of dedication, usually four hours a day minimum. Over my lifetime, I put in something like 73,000 hours!
At the same time, they have invested a great deal of money not only in classes but also in buying expensive instruments and amplification often running into thousands of pounds. Over those ten years in Spain, I must have spent over five grand. In my lifetime, including the recording of three albums, plus another two or three albums worth of singles, I have spent over thirty thousand pounds!
Of course, I fully expected a financial return on all that investment of time and money. I did not just do it for the fun of it, even though I did get an enormous amount of do as well as hoped for. However, I didn’t do too badly from it. It would be impossible to put an exact figure on it, but I reckon I just about broke even at $35k.
I have to say, one of the biggest, very irritating problems was rank amateurs who were…