My body as a temple...

I went on a journey these last 10+ years- it was physically, emotionally, and mentally painful sometimes. Often exhausting. Often depressing. Often really frustrating. I gained weight, lost weight, gained it again. I tried diets that messed with my mind. I did workouts that injured me and left me in a bad state. I went to doctors, suffered terrible anxiety, and became a survivor of that anxiety. I became ill and injured at the drop of a hat. My blood test numbers were scary. I tried to pretend like I didn't have a disorder, and that dieting and extreme food choices would work on me the way it "did on everyone else." Instead, I lost weight (slow as a snail) but to do it, I had to make extreme choices. And *nothing really changed.* 

I'm currently in a body that isn't exactly my ideal, visually. It's not the body that I'm SUPER excited to be in. But it's a body that is finally being respected for its cues. Its needs. It's a body that actually feels FAR less pain than it has for years. It's a body that keeps me healthy (tfutfutfu) instead of constantly battling this illness and that illness. It's a body that works out including high impact and strength training every week, multiple times a week like clockwork. It's a body whose numbers are healthy. It's a body that eats what it needs, and is starting to remember how to tell me when it's hungry and full after dieting and bad choices took those cues from me.

So my goals aren't weight loss anymore. And this isn't some statement about YOUR journey, or anyone else's. It's not even a statement on that goal in general. Because I'm not you. 

My goal is making sure my head is on straight, and my body has what it needs. My goal is making sure that I'm hearing what it tells me when it tells it to me. And do I hope that things even out and I end up in a smaller body? For many reasons, yes. But that's not the goal. It can't be because that goal hasn't served me. 

The fact is that my good habits are what serve me. Eating foods that are nourishing, joyful movement every day, getting enough good quality sleep, keeping up with preventive medical things, taking my supplements, keeping up with my mental health... those are the things that are far more imperative. Those are the choices that will elongate my life. Ignoring my body's cues certainly will not. I DO have this issue, and it's not an easy one to deal with. No one even knows much about it. Doctors disagree constantly on its cause and its treatment. So all I HAVE are these habits. 

So here's to hoping everyone can get to that point, however you get there. And whatever challenges you have, I hope you find ways to overcome them with the internal strength you surely have. 

Love, 

Ladysingin 

Effort and Time and Money....

This blog post is going to be offensive to some. Especially non-musicians. Most professional musicians will be nodding their heads with fervor from the first sentence, until the last one.

Professional musicians spend more time, effort and money on their craft and their education, on the whole than ANY OTHER field over a lifetime. I know that's going to be considered a really offensive and possibly inflammatory statement, but if you look at the numbers, it's a true one. I am not putting down any other field. I am not minimizing any other craft, or art, or anything like that. Because heaven knows the arts are expensive, and there are other fields that require an amazing amount of specialty. But I just want you to take this in for a second, and you'll see why at the end.

A lot of musicians start their formal education around 5 years-old (some earlier, some later). So that means by the time they are 21, they have been formally studying their craft for SIXTEEN YEARS.

By the time they are 21, they may have spend anywhere from $8,320-$49,920 on lessons alone.

Over the course of a lifetime, musicians (including singers) will, more than likely, need to buy themselves some kind of gear. Since the focus has been up until the age of 21, I will continue in that vein: This gear could be *just* their instrument (a good one worth playing professionally is usually pretty expensive), but it could also be amps, cables, various effects processors, record equipment, live mics....etc.etc.etc...This total can range so drastically that giving a number is almost pointless, but let's go with a minimal here, and call it $30,000. That is clearly undershooting it. But I'm making a point.

Then there is an education. If you want to be a performer, many people just find themselves a band, orchestra or something akin to that and start performing as much as possible. Which is great! But guess what? The pay isn't so great, and you often end up SPENDING as well- you WILL do a lot of travelling- so gas, your car (because driving it that much will require a lot of maintenance), places to stay (assuming you do not have a friend who has a couch in every city in the world), tickets for trains, busses or airplanes.... etc....ETC.....let's call that $10,000, this seems a happy medium, even though it's clearly undershooting it. Again.

Then we have those who choose to first go to college and really hone their craft (and let's be honest, network!) OR they want to study a different field within music, like music business or engineering (both also very expensive. One often requires a masters after this, the other requires STUDIO EQUIPMENT ;) Or at least a good DAW!). The current cost of a good music college is around $50,000 a year, give or take. So that means over the course of a 4-year Bachelor's degree, you are looking at about $200,000 spent.

So by the time someone is 21 years old, they have already spent AT A MINIMUM, $50,000 on their craft....if we're being more realistic, it's closer to $100,000 without the education. Which will bring it up to about $300,000.

So why do I bring this up? Money obviously isn't everything. No where close. I think if it were, people wouldn't be spending that kind of money to then do something completely different from what they intended to do, living in debt...but still playing as often as they possibly can.

I say this because I am SO tired of the attitude toward working musicians, professional musicians, or people who have decided to dedicate their life to this craft and nothing else. NO other field (except perhaps within the arts!) are treated this way.

So when we get angry, or annoyed when people don't take us seriously. When we sit here and kvetch about those who write off our seriousness as, "just a hobby"....MAYBE this will clarify that no such thing exists here in our world. That we are willing to spend our blood, sweat, tears...and, yes, money, to be really, really good at what we do. We're willing to work and sacrifice absolutely ANYTHING just so that we can live our passion. So when you put down our choices, mock us, undermine our knowledge, or patronize us, it gets REAL old, REAL fast. And we wonder- what, exactly, qualifies you to do so? What makes you think that we are less than, somehow? Again- by the time we were 21, most of us had already been honing our craft for 16 years. Take that in for a minute. A lot of us had already been performing for nearly that long. Can you say the same thing about any other field (again, outside of the arts!)

Look- many people- let's take scientists for example- know what they love from a young age. They put time and money into it (chemistry sets aren't cheap, people). I will never deny that. Many working musicians happened to pick up a guitar trying to impress a cute high school girl and became very good. I also don't deny that. Those who love and study politics put their whole lives into that as well, debate teams, etc. etc....sports, you can say the same thing (because I know someone will bring that up! You guys have hospital bills to contend with, too. Again, no denial there.) BUT...when you look at a whole lifetime. Analyze it with the same scrutiny- why is it that people feel so okay putting us down? Why is that MORE okay than any other field?! It's not. So this is my formal request to the world- I'll make you a trade-off- if you all stop doing this annoying things, we will continue making music for you. Otherwise, we'll do it only for ourselves and leave you out of it. And I guarantee, you will not like that as much.

Love, 

Ladysingin