Is This Really The Direction I Want To Head For?

I’ve been openly telling you, my readers, that I don’t want to go back to the corporate world anymore. The reason, based on this article series, is that I want to make a career out of music. Recently though, I have had these doubts, which made me ask that question in the title.

Here are the things that have been scaring me a lot lately.

1. Saying goodbye to my “homebody” days

Since I quit teaching, I’ve been just a ‘stay-at-home’ online side-hustler. Like most of you here. Maybe you’re thinking that the COVID pandemic made me the ultimate homebody. But the truth is, I’ve always been that kind of person who rarely leaves the house. Ever since my toddler days, and up until I became a career woman, I rarely go out.

Apparently, my home is where my heart is. And due to the pandemic that plagued this world of ours, I have to say that the corners of the house are the best fortress of my solitude – nothing beats the feeling of staying within its halls as I earn some extra cash online.

But then, this guy named Gifter, from a far city arrived and changed my routine a lot. He told me that if I expect to make a living out of music, I must come out from my comfort zone and hop into “the gig life” that most serious musicians are so accustomed to.

He told me that after we publish our album digitally online, we should start looking for gigs at bars in many cities. In that case, then we’ll be traveling a lot, which is the end of my homebody days. Now, that scares the living hell out of me, greatly!

2. Nightlife scenario

Being a homebody, I never had a compelling experience with that thing that my friends call “nightlife.” Having experienced years in the underground music scene already, my pal, Gifter had his fair share of nightlife encounters already, and oh, there were a lot of “not so pleasant stories” that he shared with me.

I can’t really spell out the details, but even Gifter, a tough-as-nails guy who’s a frequent patron at bars told me that nightlife scenes are often unpleasant, from his perspective, that is. “Drunkards, perverts, and even drug users will most likely be there,” Gifter told me while we were making plans on how we will execute our gigging plans soon.

He even told me that years ago, there were times when “illegal substances” were given to him and his bandmates for free some kind of freebies that they could avail themselves of as performers. Being the principled guy that he is, he never tried taking any of those. I had to commend him for that.

One thing that I like about Gifter is he hates drinking liquor. He revealed that he doesn’t like the taste of any of the alcoholic drinks he tried in the past. For a rocker, that’s very surprising to me. Gifter being a non-drinker is a huge advantage for us, it means he will always retain that strategic mind he has endowed with. For sure that will bring us closer to the success we hope for.

Once we go around gigging, he promised he would protect me from those aggressive male audiences who might harass me. But could he ever control the crowd that would cheer and applaud for us soon? What if they’d resort to rudeness as we perform? Speaking of rudeness,

3. Rude audiences

Throughout his years of performing, Gifter admitted that he’s been humiliated, booed, and even evicted off-stage plenty of times already. Gifter is the “kapalmuks” kind of performer, which makes him kinda immune to any form of embarrassment whenever he’s onstage.

But having heard his stories of how he suffered those, I’m asking myself, “Can I really handle such scenarios?”

Gifter told me that there are 3 kinds of audiences:

Those who are balanced – They will clap and cheer if you’re good but would give constructive criticisms if you screw up. For Gifter, these are the best kind of audience.

Those who only look for mistakes – These are often rival performers who do nothing but wait for you to flop while performing. They will be very happy to see you fail, and Gifter is often on the lookout to detect these people because… he wants to prove to these people that he’s far more skillful. Oh, the egotistical teammate that he is!

Those who clap for you even if you’re a bad performer – How I wish all audiences are like this, but Gifter said we won’t improve any further if these are often the kind of audience we encounter.

When he taught me this lesson, he summed it up by saying. “Rude audience members will be everywhere. You have to expect them to humiliate you when you least expect it.”

Dear God, this is really, really scary!

Thinking about all of these makes me shiver in fear and doubt. What do you think my friends? Should I proceed? Or quit?

Thanks for reading.

Keep safe everyone!