I have to get back to immersing myself in music.

For a while, all I was, was music.

When I was in high school, I would lose sleep over writing music with my band mates. I was connected with drum corps all over the country just because of who I knew. If you would walk into my room after high school, you would still see sheet music laying around the room next to guitars and a computer. There was a time when I would walk into a club and I would already know who was the person in charge for the night.

I'm taking baby steps to get back to a full stride again, and I feel like some of the momentum is starting to hold. From lessons, to services, to new projects in the future, i'm planting seeds to keep myself busy in the future. But as of right now, i'm trying to find more monetary situations to be a part of.

I've been scouring Craig's List, and I just got on to a site call Hourville.com. I think just about anything you can charge for is gonna be on that site... But it's still in Beta stages, and I just threw up a thing on there for people that wanna get some DCI chops. You can check out the post here.

Keep your ears open for anything drumming for me! I wanna be a part of it.

I came home from the Amplify Music Conference the other day.

I haven't been the same ever since.

I've been playing out since I was 16, and i've always dreamed of doing music professionally since I was a kid. And once I got older and began doing bigger shows, I learned that music is a business. It's never been something that i've put out of mind, but I always thought I was ahead of the curb. Everything I know, I had put behind me when I had joined LMX. Stuff I had gotten tired of: Selling tickets, promoting at malls and music stores, high schools, it's a numbers game. I had always tried to put it out of mind the impossible odds I was up against, but it all came rushing back in when I was sitting through the conference.

I was never in it for just the money, you stick with what you love for the love of doing it. But to be reminded by the very people running the business, like the VP of Atlantic Records and touring manager of Hawthorne Heights, is just jarring. I've always known the truth, but it hurts to hear the truth from someone else.

I'm too mentally and emotionally exausted to try to survive in a business where the gatekeepers aren't able to support influx of new clients. The market is being flooded and oversaturated everyday, and it's become a lottery of people that don't know the facts. With the internet aimed at being the new medium for sharing and buying music in the next 10 years, everything that bands used to do to make it to the top is basically out the door. It's not a "Get a band, get an album, and someone will pick you up at a show" game anymore, although given my age, how can I really know.

I haven't learned anything new, i'm just accepting the truth.

I am eternally happy that I will always have a penchant for writing and playing music. I've never needed money, but I had always hoped that my love for music would be hotlinked to my musical career. I can and always have been happy without money, so I guess I AM still ahead of the curve.

A true musician will play for nothing.