nothing wrong with that.
I kept a pay/expense tally when I was touring the north country, mostly to do a reality check on if it would be viable long term. After 3 years it was obvious that it wasn’t the way I wanted to be living when I turned 40 (irrespective of the dollar math).
So...I took my pre med qualifications and set out to fulfill my ‘real world’ master plan.
I get it!
I started out with a backup plan of getting a law degree, and wasn’t planning to actually practice, but when I got the degree, I practiced for 15 years before breaking out of the mold and doing music full-time. 30 years later, I still think I made the right call going into music (my wife might not agree
).
Whether I wasted those early years when one establishes a reputation by practicing law, I can’t say; people definitely thought of me as a lawyer, not a musician, for a long time, and that was a drag and a hurdle to overcome in my early days of music.
Believe it or not, practicing law turned out to be a good entree into scoring music to picture, because scoring is all about listening, team collaboration, stick-to-it stubbornness, and paying attention to details. But that’s 20/20 hindsight, of course.
I’ve thought it’s kind of a shame that people pigeonhole others based on preconceptions, but “Welcome to the real world, Les!”
