I'm a working musician, who is now divorced from a non-working artist. She wanted to paint and draw, and we bought plenty of art supplies, and set up a room in our home with a drafting table, shelves, supplies--and a door. She went every week to a private studio in the city and to open drawing nights. Our last year together she attended a week-long art boot camp. She even participated in a professional show. She has the talent and she had the time and resources.

But she was also clinically depressed and medicated, and seemingly everything, including me, was a burden that kept her from painting/working. As others have suggested, perhaps singing is not the issue here.

1) Go back to Rilke. "...[A]sk yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I [sing]?" If the answer to that is "yes," then arrange your life around this simple fact.

2) If you would just "like to sing" then the advice above is sound.

3) But if the issue is that you "want" to sing then this want is no different from any other consumer issue in your life. Wanting is not creating--and satisfying a want is only satisfying until the next want comes along. And, as wants go, wanting to work in the entertainment industry is a major pain in the ass, not a casual undertaking.

I read the following quote in this very column. I copied it down and posted it where I can read it every day:

"Your ego hunger is not your creative side. Your creative side is that which actually works."

I am not creative because I have the desire to be a musician, or because I am a musician. I am only "creative" when I am actually in the act of creation.

If you want to be creative, then create. If you want to be a singer, then sing. If you believe that is impossible then examine the forces within yourself that have created that belief.

Perhaps every generation needs to discover this anew... but the capitalist political-economic system we live under was NEVER designed support active classes of protesters/activists or artists. Moreover, that brief period in the 1960's when "everyone" was protesting was a fluke, at best. A relatively tiny number of people were actually either activists or artists, and the vast majority of even this small number were neither activists nor artists for long.

Since today appears to be autobiography day on Salon: I graduated from college in 1987, and from grad school sometime after that. I am also one of those people who falls in between the boomers and the X'ers. I spent pretty much all of my college years either involved in, or studying and writing about, left-wing politics.

What do I do now? Well, I'm a corporate drone, though for a very nice corporation whose values I can live with. But my position is not the slightest bit activist. I indulge my artistic side by playing music professionally - that is also not activist.

Even the campus Marxist must mow his lawn.

How can I stand it? Well, believe it or not, you can make decisions that actually buck the system, so that you are doing things that you believe in. And you can do it without volunteering or getting paid to be an activist.

I believe in public education. I believe in integration. I believe in living lightly. So what do I do? I send my kids to a public city school (which they love) and I live in a nice, cheap city neighborhood walking distance from my work. And I don't buy and consume a lot of junk (you want to save some money and decrease the kiddo-toy-cereal nag factor? turn off the cable - you'll never miss it. Buy your clothes at second-hand stores, etc.)

Get your head out of the false dichotomy that the only way to "make it" is to be an activist/artist who either lives in a large city ($$$$$) or commutes two hours every day to-and-from the suburbs ($$$). Get out of the sticks. Make the career choices you must make to live within the capitalist structure, but structure your lives around your values. Believe it or not, you can be successful and not have an enormous mortgage and two enormous car payments.

aarkay:

"But I don’t care what the engineers say, we shall never see a robot that can dance."

<<tongue firmly in cheek>>

Dancing Robots: http://www.wimp.com/robots/

Also, you MUST read: “How to Survive a Robot Uprising.” 8^D

Anonymous “Don’t quit your day job:”

As a professional musician whose lessons are targeted at the 30 – 50 yo’s who are just picking up a guitar, I don’t have too much trouble with pickup bands such as this – who are doing gigs to captive audiences – irrespective of the quality of their musicianship.

Why? Because they’re typically playing gigs for promoters/organizers who aren’t willing to actually pay for live music; that is, they’re not taking food out of the mouths of professionals. When “The Amygda Lids” start doing general business and society gigs I’ll start to worry.

As for not liking it, know this: 50% of a captive audience is going to love what you play and 50% percent are going to feel that it’s an imposition. That’s the nature of an audience that is ostensibly NOT there for the music.

And for the people who believe live music makes important contributions to society and culture… well, get out there and SUPPORT it! There are any number of opportunities to catch live music in any town of any size on any night. You can promote this by being there, bringing a couple friends, and enjoying the tunes. See you at the next show?

All in all, a very interesting article!