If you live with someone, tell me how you deal with this.

[Delmont]

One of my music hurdles is that I don't like practicing or writing when someone else is in the house - and now that I'm married, that's almost all the time. Alone, I could knock off five songs on Saturday and five on Sunday. (And one of them would be worth keeping.) Now I rarely write five in a year. So I do things like sit here gabbing online when I'd rather be snuggled up with my guitar.

 

I like playing WITH people and playing FOR people, but I'd rather be alone for the prenups: learning, writing, memorizing, getting the notes right, practicing, chop-building, rewriting, and so on.

 

Thoughts? Advice? Condolences? Pep talks? Swift kicks?

 

Thanks!

 

Del

www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

[Idunno]

Divorce. Srsly.

 

I had to do the same thing and the opportunity never returned to the level it did prior to marriage. I was stupid. She proposed to me and I idiotically acquiesced. I'm a dumbass and not happy with you at the moment for the reminder.

 

When the music plays

When the words get touched by sorrow

When the music plays

I hear the sound I had to follow

Once upon a time

 

- Justin Hayward, Once Upon A Time (Moody Blues)

 

Good luck.

[Delmont]

Glad to spread some sunshine!

 

Between a great hobby and a great wife, I'll take the great wife any time. Guess I'm not a true artist. Just trying to figure out how to get the most of my short stay on our funny planet.

[nat whilk II]

Oh, I totally relate. I've always had to be quite alone to write stuff. And if/when you have kids...that's when you can't get 15 free seconds of uninterrupted trains of thought.

 

Solutions? Well, you could talk about it with the missus. Maybe you would feel foolish - but hey, when you need solitude, you need it.

 

There's just the two of us home now that the kids have grown up, and I still have to deal with my need for solitude in a way that doesn't hurt my significant other. I built a little studio out of a section of the garage - it's my space, it's tiny, but I've got my gear in here (I'm in the studio now) and a comfy chair and my old vinyl and amp and keyboard and laptop steel and a bass and a computer and mic stands and mics and preamp and a line mixer and a couple of synths, etc etc.

 

I also just chill out here in the comfy chair, write lyrics, read, listen to music that's too loud for the house. The missus is actually pretty glad to have all this crap out of the "real" house.

 

You have to keep your little self-space to maintain the artistic activity, no question. It's not selfish to do so - it's being true to what you've been given as a talent. It's a sign of a creative bent that you need the solitude to begin with. Sure, you can live without it - but there's all sorts of levels of living.

 

Best to establish all this early on - if you try to ease into it later..well, then it can seem like a drawing back, a hiding away, a withdrawal, and the question "why now? what's going on?"

 

If you respect your own art, others will sense that and give you space. And sometimes they won't, but you can hold out when that happens.

 

Best of luck and all that -

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

 

 

[Idunno]

Choices -

 

1. You could take the stance that your hobby is important and she has to slot time for it, meaning, she must disappear somewhere. That's telling her that she cannot be a participant in your musical life. That'll win you dagger points no matter how tactful you seem to be (to yourself). So, you've laid down the law and she's an outlaw to it. Wonderful. Now she's questioning your devotion to her.

 

2. You buck up, grow a set and pursue your hobby in her presence. You'll have to overcome that innate fear of failure in her eyes to be her Mr Perfect. That will be the greatest thing you can do for her, by being humble enough to show her all of you, but for your music it's nothing but a compromise of the solitude you feel you need for the creative process. Hey, she may sense (on her own) that you need to focus in solitude and respect that, and you may come to outgrow your fear of failure in her eyes.

 

3. You bite the bullet and avail yourself to (2) above and it's a total failure. She can't stand being within earshot of your musical experimentation and feels it's detracting from her happy home, and moreover, she senses that you're just not caring about her enough by subjecting her to it.

 

4. Everything about (2) above comes true so, feeling secure, you switch to drums (kidding).

 

5. Everything about (3) above comes true so you switch to drums (not kidding).

 

When I got married I was at a level of play right around concert guitarist. I was 30 years old and had sewn my oats across the globe by that time, being fairly well traveled in my bachelor youth, and was set in my ways. In other words, my playing was not an ear-bleeding student-level barrage of newbness, and I was not a person to be impressed easily by companionship if it required compromise on my part.

 

She wasn't/isn't an audience of guitar music and regardless of how involved I am with a piece (instrumental, usually) she's apathetic of the study I'm making of it. Her idea of music relates to disco and other dance music I find to be, well, for people like her.

 

I did explain to her one time that when I'm playing a piece I'm focused on the study of perfecting it and that requires concentration. Her response was completely begging of me to dare to place my playing above her, regardless of why she interrupts my playing. As I do not play for a living she has credibility in her stance but, on the other hand, she also let's it be known that she does not respect my hobby. I have made a couple bucks teaching and performing session work, which kinda ruins the fun of the hobby for me, so I might break down and use it as a second revenue stream just to get her awareness up, and/or away from her for those periods of time. If I have to take the hobby to a studio to enjoy it my home is not a home. Hence my quick response to you with divorce. There's more to life than the partially fulfilling charms of companionship.

[Delmont]

Nat: That sounds like the right balance. My wife LIKES it when I practice and write. So the hang-up is mine, not hers. We're both in our sixties, so kids aren't an issue unless someone dumps a grandchild on us some day. And since there aren't any (yet?), that's ridiculously hypothetical.

 

Our house is tiny, but I do have a corner of the living room and a corner of the basement (where I did all the recording for the website) staked out for music-making. I just have to hold a gun to my head to use 'em more.

 

Idunno: I'll take Door Number Two!

 

Thanks, gang -

 

Del

www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

[Delmont]

Oh, I totally relate. I've always had to be quite alone to write stuff. And if/when you have kids...that's when you can't get 15 free seconds of uninterrupted trains of thought. . . .

 

 

 

 

PS - By the way, that's why Raymond Carver didn't try to write novels. He said it's impossible to go beyond short stories when you're sitting in a laundromat with a bunch of kids.

 

And Alice Munro said the reason she went to an office to write every day was that her kids didn't understand that when she was looking out the window, she was working.

 

[Danhedonia]

I'm similar and will give a very short answer: it's a life problem, sort it out.

 

You need 'alone space?' Find some, somehow. Accept that your bachelor pad days are done, and focus on the practicalities. Also, you're not going to be able to go down the rabbit hole for 10 hours at a time (or 36), so be sure to permit yourself time to tweak your workflow(s).

 

If you're not happy in the relationship, I really can't speak to that -- it's NOT a 'practice space' issue. But otherwise, you just need to adapt to changing circumstance.

 

You might even get some unexpected benefits, like not wasting tons of time on the 9 songs that get tossed, or perhaps your partner's surprisingly helpful feedback.

[Delmont]

Thanks, Dan! Good thoughts. You could pinch hit for Ann Landers.

 

Re happiness, see my posts above.

 

Del

[LCK]

A lot of writers go through waves of dry spells, too. So there's that...

[Delmont]

True! I read once in a Garcia interview that he sometimes went six months without playing. The first time it happened, it scared him, but after that he decided it was just the way his brain worked and stopped worrying about it.

 

Scroll down to "Introversion" here:

 

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/extraversion-or-introversion.htm

 

That's what I'm working on. It's not about marital discord or failure-phobia (both of which Idunno had some good comments on), and it's not about creative juice. It's just about that old craving to be alone.

 

Dan had a good comment on the opportunity to stop wasting time on the bad stuff (although it's hard to tell which songs that is - I'm often surprised at which songs people actually like), and his "alone space" advice ("Find some, somehow") might be the most useful three words so far.

 

Speaking of introverts, my wife gave me a great book about it called Quiet. Here's a Ted Talk by the author:

 

 

 

Thanks, LCK!

 

Del

http://www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

[Tullsterx]

I think get over it, but I don't really understand the problem. You guys live in an apartment? If you have any land-space you could build/buy a shack to play/write in. I've done stuff similar to that many times.

 

If that's not an option, what are your fears concerning experimenting with musical ideas in front of you wife? I've had former girlfriend's who wanted me to shut-the-hell-up, but. . . they're now "former". So, can you explain?

[Delmont]

I think get over it, but I don't really understand the problem. You guys live in an apartment? If you have any land-space you could build/buy a shack to play/write in. I've done stuff similar to that many times.

 

If that's not an option, what are your fears concerning experimenting with musical ideas in front of you wife? I've had former girlfriend's who wanted me to shut-the-hell-up, but. . . they're now "former". So, can you explain?

 

Build a shack?!

 

"I don't like" doesn't equal "I fear." And as I also said above, my wife LIKES my music.

 

It's not about fear. It's not about shutting the hell up. It's about wiring. Did you look at the link up in #11? Here it is again:

 

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-p...troversion.htm

 

There have been some good suggestions and comments. Glad I asked.

 

Thanks, gang!

 

Del

http://www.thefullertons.net

( •)—:::

[Tullsterx]

There's nothing wrong with creating private space for yourself. Many people around here have buildings behind their house where they play and write.

 

[Delmont]

There are more reasons why it wouldn't work than I'd even want to try to count. It did give me a good chuckle, though! Thanks for that!

 

=O]

 

Del

[Tullsterx]

Well, frankly I got nothing out of trying to help you. Thanks.

[Delmont]

I got my smile for the day, so it wasn't a total loss, right?

 

Anyhow, I also played my first paying gig of the summer - not enough to build that yurt, but enough to re-energize the ol' muse.

 

So it looks like it's been a good day all around!

[Tullsterx]

That's cool.

 

And "why don't you build a shack" is always good advice. I remember many years ago I told my good friend Ted Kaczynski to go to Colorado and build a shack. . . not sure what happened to that guy, but I'm sure it worked out great. He was such an outgoing, gregarious guy.

 

 

[Delmont]

Love his hats!

 

Anyhow, since a construction project isn't in the cards, any other thoughts on ways to create more music time for myself?

[Tullsterx]

Well, a nice set of headphones and you could set up a headphone studio. Unless you play a lot of acoustic stuff.

[Delmont]

I use an acoustic for writing because all I need is a guitar, a pen, and paper - no other gear to mess with. I have headphones for Tascaming, though, so I might try making more use of 'em.