Posted by Sean Chisham on August 08, 2001 at 21:30:12:
In Reply to: Re: More thoughts on the future... posted by job hungry on August 08, 2001 at 20:38:23:
Amen to everything you stated.
Although it is possible to get a playing job after a long absence from the horn, it ain't easy by any means. I took off about 2 1/2 years from playing after college. I played maybe 1 hour total per month. Just enough to remind me which room the horn was in.
Coming back to a state of being at all competitive took almost 2 years. All this while working a 9-5 job. It took some real determination. 6:00am practice sessions, racing home during my lunch break to get in 30 minutes of playing, and practicing every night until 10:00pm leaving just enough time to squeeze in 7 hours of sleep or so. It surely would have been much easier to do this as a student when I was not forced to leave the horn alone basically from 8:30am-5:30pm every weekday.
If you aren't mentally in a place to totally block out life for a few years with no guarentees of fruition in order to chase a dream, then I would say don't. You won't give it the energy required and it can make you bitter when you constantly fail because of that.
Once you come to a place where you are ready, patient, and can enjoy the journey as much as the destination then put on the blinders and go for it.
sean