Music & Life : Passion As Fuel Part 1

Passion as Fuel How many of you know how to play a musical instrument? And how many of you are still playing? Let me make an assumption. I would say only a handful of 10% of you still play the musical instrument after you've started working and got a family. At least 90% of my friends are in that statistics.

The funny thing is most of them still have a little piece of their dream/passion stucked somewhere between their heart and brains. On one side, there's still the 'concept' of becoming a rockstar and make a living out of doing something they loved. On the other spectrum, there's the 'been there, done that, can't make enough money' group which has a more realistic view in life.

I'm not saying that you can't make a living through music, but its more of what the musicians went through and saw. Imagine that Mr A spends 80% of his time practising and jamming during his teenage years (being a teenager, you don't worry about buying a car or going for fancy dinners), spend 80% of his pocket money on jam studio fees, equipments, accessories, gigs, band merchandise and lets say he spent 5 years doing so. At the same time, his friend, Mr B, got a job, some got promoted within that time frame and Mr A is still playing music at payless gigs, without a line of merchandise to sell and trying to write and sell music for the local market.

Now, in movies and the rockstar dream, usually the musician will hit his big break and make millions and doing awesome tours around the world. How many of us actually make it? Especially in Malaysia. Of course we have celebrities like Amy Search, Hillary Ang, Datin Siti, Awie , Sudirman ,Ajai, M. Nasir and so on, but try taking that and versus the number of rockstar wannabes.....

It's demotivating when we put things into perspective, but it's the truth and everyone knows it including the musicians. There will be a point where majority of the grown up musicians will submit to the ugly truth and move on with their lifes. When this happens, it's like having your dreams shattered by an unseen force. The dissapointment will be doubled because there's no one to blame except yourselves.

Though the dream seems far fetched, having a dream is never a bad thing. And for us, we have a number of role models to look up to for inspiration and it gives us hope that it's achievable.

The most important ingredient to be a musician is passion because passion don't need food or money to survive, just someone who believes in it and passion will be the fuel needed to reach the stars.... with a little luck and a lot of talent.

Don't stop believing in your dreams and make sure passion is your best friend in this journey...



*this is our first attempt in writing articles. There will be blunders and crap here and there... Feel free to send us your feedback on the comment below or email me at postagig@gmail.com