Welcome to Episode 9 of THANKS FOR THINKING, the music business podcast centered around self-reflection and proactivity for thoughtful music production professionals. I’m your host, Carl Bahner.
Today’s Discussion Prompt - How Our Creative Passions Evolve
When I was 8, I was a LEGO kid. Medieval castles, space ships, island treasures, you name it. My mom tells the story of when my parents surprised me with a new brand new LEGO set to take on a week-long camping trip that we were going on one summer. It was a massive pirate ship - the Skull’s Eye Schooner - and until then, I had only ever seen it in catalogs. The box was gigantic (by 8-year-old standards anyway) and since it had over 900 pieces, my parents were convinced it would take me all week to build it by myself.
I finished it in three hours.
In retrospect, it was a pretty expensive set to get for a third-grader (it was over $100 in the early 90s) and my mom is still kicking herself for underestimating my LEGO building prowess.
So, what happened? Why am I making a music business podcast instead of following my elementary school dream of designing LEGO sets?
Well, I found music. That following year I joined the school band playing clarinet. I had already been taking piano lessons for a few years but hated it. In hindsight, I hated the teaching style, not the piano itself - but I wasn’t making keen pedagogical observations when I was 8.
I started becoming more focused on music, and as I got older that focus grew deeper. Eventually, I meandered my way through a bunch of different instruments - I went from clarinet to bass clarinet to trumpet to trombone, then back to trumpet, then to bass, then to guitar, then to drums, and then back to trumpet again… feeling passionate about learning instruments, rather than learning a specific instrument.
When I applied for college, I had no real idea what I wanted to do for a career. Maybe something with recording, maybe playing trumpet in an orchestra (or a ska band). I didn’t really care, I just wanted it to be something “generally music-related”.
All of that changed on the first day of marching band camp the summer before my freshmen year of college.
I received a call from the marching band director asking if I’d be interested in playing in the sideline percussion (the “pit”) instead of marching, since they had 22 trumpet players but only 3 members in the pit.
Sure, why not? That sounds “generally music-related” enough for me, I thought.
You can probably guess where this is going.
I fell in love with playing marimba, timpani, and of course, not having to march around in the middle of a humid Pennsylvania summer.
I decided then and there “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
Well, you’re not listening to a podcast about four-mallet marimba technique, so you can probably guess that at some point, once again, my passions changed. They evolved.
The short version to get from that sweaty summer afternoon 18 years ago to the present day?
Fell in love with percussion.
I practiced 4-6 hours per day from August til December, preparing to audition into the percussion program.
I auditioned.
I got accepted.
I started getting session work as a drummer and percussionist.
I realized I loved performing more than engineering and since my major was technically Recording Arts at the time, I dropped that major and switched to performance.
I started getting paid gigs and session work outside of the college.
I graduated.
I had a soul crushing day job while I built my portfolio.
And I started asking myself questions.
I started teaching private lessons.
I left the day job two years after graduation and went full time as a drummer.
I played a lot of bar gigs.
I played a lot of coffee shop gigs.
I played a handful of shows for thousands of people.
And I played a thousand shows for a handful of people.
I fell in love.
I asked myself more questions.
I taught private lessons. Taught ensembles. Taught masterclasses. Did a TedX talk.
I got married.
I auditioned for an indie pop band with a record deal and management.
I nailed the audition and got the gig.
I toured the US multiple times and slept on way too many pull-out couches.
I recorded with some of my favorite producers and I asked a lot of questions.
And then I asked a lot more questions.
I toured England.
I met some of my heroes.
I asked myself more questions.
I started doing remixes for friends’ bands.
I started doing more remixes.
I started getting asked by artists to be their producer.
I toured more.
I produced more.
And I had a quarter life crisis.
I considered suicide.
And I got help.
I toured more.
I produced more.
And eventually I fell in love with mixing.
And I fell in love with life.
I had a baby.
And I asked myself many more questions.
I left the band.
I doubled down on mixing.
I fell deeper in love with mixing.
I fell deeper in love with my family.
Bought a house.
Doubled down on mixing remotely.
Got a puppy.
Tripled down on mixing remotely.
Tripled down on loving my family.
Got my old storage container full of LEGOs out of my parents' attic.
Gave them to my daughter, along with a few new sets of her own.
Started writing a course.
Helped coach a friend with their production business.
Asked myself more questions.
Started coaching more producers and engineers.
Started asking them a lot of questions.
And recently, launched this podcast because I realized that I fell in love with helping.
My passions, my compasses… the things that drive me today, at 36, look nothing like the passions that drove me when I was 30, let alone when I was 8.
Does that mean I “lost my passion?” Are you kidding me?! No! My passion, my passions, never went away. But they did shift direction while growing deeper and deeper with each passing year. And the reason they grew deeper was because of all the questions I kept asking myself in order to find that direction. And that’s why I started this podcast in the first place.
So I’d like to invite you to our Discord community, where we’ll be having a group discussion about how our passions have evolved over the course of our careers. The link to the community is in the show notes, and I really hope that you’ll join us. I’m looking forward to hearing about how your passions have evolved.
If you’re listening to this after the original release date, that’s ok! We’ll be keeping the conversations active as long as possible, so feel free to chime in - even if it’s weeks or months after the original release.
And if you’re ready to join our discussion about how our passions evole, I’ll see you on Discord.
Until next time - Thanks for thinking.