Recently I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated with where I am in my playing. This is nothing new at all; as a matter of fact, if I didn’t feel a little frustrated every now and then I would begin to wonder what was wrong with me. I don’t think frustration is necessarily a bad thing. It can be a good indicator of when I need to up my game in the practice room. It is no coincidence that while I am feeling frustrated in my playing, I am also frustrated in where I am in my career.

Driving home from a gig the other night, I fielded a phone call from the band leader. This particular gentleman and I have a long history playing together on and off for many years in many different settings. I have come to value his opinion as he is not someone to dole out compliments, nor will he hold your hand and coddle you. That’s why I listened a little closer to what he was saying. 

We spoke for a long while about a great many things. The kind of real talk that you get maybe once every six months from someone who knows exactly what you’re going through. Eventually, we got to the “Where am I” phase of the conversation. He was telling me that he spent a couple weeks pitty-partying with himself over where he was in his career, eventually realizing that his gig wasn’t so bad. He gets to play music multiple times a weekend and he gets paid well for it. He also realized that many people who play main stage festivals in some pretty big bands also play these types of gigs. It’s actually not uncommon to see a big name in music playing a low-profile gig. He ended the conversation with a “Sounded great” and a promise that we’d play together again soon. 

Cliches can be so annoying. I can’t even begin to imagine how many times I’ve wanted cliches to be wrong. Pretty much all the time. But here is one that will always be true when it comes to music: The fun is in the journey, not the destination. 

I got to thinking about where I am in my career, and by proxy I began to think about where I am in my actual playing. These two things are intertwined, and one cannot happen without the other, so it stands to reason that I work on these two things at the same time. I began to realize that there is no “Making It”. There will never come a time in my life where I am content in my playing, and I am learning to accept that. It makes it a little easier knowing that if I practice every day, I will get better, but the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know. The journey will not ever stop until I quit playing drums, and my career will work in much the same way. There will be big gigs, small gigs, and everything in between – if I am lucky. There will never come a time where I don’t want to play music with people, and if I can do that in front of 10 people or 10,000, it makes no difference to me. 

My career is not a destination, it is a journey. I’m coming around to the fact that as long as I don’t ever quit, I will have made it.