burnout

A good few years ago I remember visiting a friend of mine, a very successful movie composer. I was (still am) in awe of his talent and accomplishments. We had a cup of tea, chatted about this and that, then we went up to his study. The room was absolutely chock full of scores, music books, CD's, vinyl records, there was a piano and even some recording equipment. Cassette tapes and loose music sheets were piled up three feet high on every possible surface. At the time, although I was already doing music full time, I was not busy at all and basically scrounging for gigs and teaching jobs. I told my friend how much I envied the fact his life was this full of music. I'll never forget his reaction: with a large gesture, he swept a mass of sheet music and cassettes off his desk, scattering them in all directions. Then he looked at me and said: "I can't wait to retire and be rid of all this crap!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I thought it was sacrilege to speak of this wonderous vocation of music this way, especially for someone as successful.

Well, here we are, about a decade later, and while I would never utter anything as sweeping as my friend that day, I can say that I am pretty burnt out right about now. For the last four weeks - just after coming back from L.A. - I've been holed up in one recording stuio or another, while Toronto is having the sunniest and warmest autumn on record. I've been working on a couple of my own projects as well as doing production work for a couple of clients. The endless cycle of music is starting to get to me: recording bed tracks and overdubs, listening to click tracks, making production decisions, cutting and pasting violin solos, polishing up harmonies, writing horn arrangements - all great work but at this point it's all blending into one stream of unmelodious cacophony and I just want to scream: STOP!!!

In a few days, my current project will be mastered and then I'm taking a two week break away from any and all microphones (aside from a few small gigs) I long to reconnect with the place inside of me that motivated me to get into this business in the first place. I'd like to practice, write a little bit, spend time outdoors, gee, I probably need to take up a hobby. The problem with hobbies is that I am really only interested in three things: music, reading and writing. Fishing or building model cars holds no allure for me. Neither does stamp collecting. And I'm sure that were I to write every day as much as I record, I'd be pretty burnt out very soon. So that leaves reading. My good friend, Lynn MacDonald has lent me Bill Crow's "Birdland to Broadway". I hope the good weather lasts a while yet, so I can spend a few days sitting on a park bench, reading about Bill's exploits in the Big Apple back in the day!

P.S.
I just got my copy of the "No Direction Home" DVD - the Martin Scorsese film about Bob Dylan. I saw some of it on PBS and it's absolutely fascinating. Looking forward!