5 Things (I) (Musicians) HATE to hear 

Dear non-musicians,

I love you.

Because I want to keep loving you, I have compiled this short list.

In no particular order, here are 5 things I hate to hear from non-musicians (NM).

1. Heah, you must play a lot of instruments!

NM, playing and mastering one string is difficult enough furthermore multiple instruments. Instruments are not like like condoms, you do not burst the package and get instant gratification. When you hear someone playing, they have spent untold hours just trying to make their instrument coherent. People that readily tell you they play 5 instruments professionally are not to be trusted with your family members.

2. You don’t know that song? What kind of musician are you?

Dear NM, in case you didn’t realise, music has been around since Adam sung  Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree to Eve. This means that there are millions upon millions of songs and since musicians are not DJs, it is highly unlikely they know all of them. In fact, learning a song is once again a time consuming exercise and in the absence of eternal life, musicians only know a mere fraction of what is out there. Although, even if musicians had eternal life, many won’t dedicate their time to learning Hit Me Baby one More time the DJ Shakukzki remix.

3. Oh, you must want to be famous!

Dear NM, not necessarily. The majority of musicians are doing gigs because they enjoy what they do and they are providing a service. Many of them are as comfortable with fame as the awkward accountants at award shows.  Those musicians you see on TV are not the majority….trust me.

4. What else do you do for living?

This is perhaps the most common thing said to all artists (including me) which gets their underwear all twisted. If you admit to being a professional musician, chances are you don’t do anything else for a living because emailing, teaching, practicing, accounting, gigging and learning songs can be a little time consuming. However, I am sure NM that if most musicians gave up sleep they could fit in a medical job or two.

5. Your life must be exciting!

To end NM, let me debunk this myth. Much like the fame thing, the lives led by a few of our number distort our overall image. There are a huge number of fields within music with some being akin to sky diving off the Burj Khalifa while others are more like watching paint dry in the Arctic. So while you might be thinking sex, drugs and alcohol, most musicians are more like text, mugs and parasols.

So that is it NMs.

Avoid these 5 and let us grow old together.

Love

Caribbean Music Man