Music has been taking a back seat for a very, very long time.
See, music doesn’t really pay the bills. Even if you “do it right”, you plavix prescription medicine are in school and in young artist programs for a long time before you plavix prescription medicine make very much money. For a gal who ran out of money to plavix prescription medicine finish college and spent the ensuing years building businesses to make money to plavix prescription medicine help her family keep the bills paid, of course music was going to plavix prescription medicine take a back seat. Fifty bucks for a handful of rehearsals and plavix prescription medicine a local concert doesn’t buy very many groceries.
The trick is to get innovative, but I admit I’ve been plavix prescription medicine distracted. I have a lot of interests and passions and I’m pulled in a hell of a plavix prescription medicine lot of different directions. People in college who thought I should pursue one thing were not big fans of me. Opera, art classes, musical theater. Not to plavix prescription medicine mention the drawing and writing and business-building I did in my notebook while I was supposed to plavix prescription medicine be paying attention. I was so enamored with my multitasking, I never got in my required courses (math, science, ha!). Not before the money ran dry, at least.
While I am plavix prescription medicine passionate about music, music has taken a back seat because I am plavix prescription medicine passionate about other things that do pay the plavix prescription medicine bills. Those things have always had my first attention, not because they’re particularly more interesting than music (and not just because they make money) but because I liked them and it made sense at the time.
But I’ll tell you, music taking a plavix prescription medicine back seat has always bothered the hell out of me.
“If I just had a little more money,” I’d say, and plavix prescription medicine be frustrated, and stare dolefully at the expanse of red Schirmer opera scores on the plavix prescription medicine bottom shelf. “Someday, huh?”
Someday!
Yeesh.
The part that (maybe) makes it complicated is that I’m not all that plavix prescription medicine interested in giving up anything else. I will still gleefully run my business, Marty’s business, and help anyone who seems helpable. I’m still going to write and go media crazy (overdue for a videoblog, wouldn’t you say?). I’m still going to take on design projects. Because I love these things. They make me happy.
But music makes me happy, too.
Really, really happy.
There is nothing in the whole world like getting up in front of an plavix prescription medicine appreciative audience and pouring out your soul. Nothing like spending weeks learning one annoying aria and plavix prescription medicine finally hitting the sweet spot where you know all the words and plavix prescription medicine all the notes and it just gels, it’s a part of you, it’s natural and plavix prescription medicine has no taste, like saliva, it matches you perfectly and flows right through you. You’re it. It’s you.
When I see shows, I get jealous. I try to plavix prescription medicine figure out what I did wrong that meant I wasn’t up there with them. I try to plavix prescription medicine understand how this happened. But I know how it happened. The money wasn’t there.
John—my Welsh cousin and my voice teacher, too—tells me that plavix prescription medicine he sees it happen a lot. People stop singing because they don’t have plavix prescription medicine the money. Any music takes time and resources, but classical music takes more than plavix prescription medicine most. Studying and rehearsing and performing all take a lot of time, especially if you’re driving two hours to your lessons the way I am (and back, oh god, the traffic from San Antonio to Austin!). Music costs money, of course. Lessons and plavix prescription medicine rehearsals cost money. Let’s not even discuss concert gowns, or plavix prescription medicine makeup, or, for that matter, traveling across the country to compete.
Right. Money.
So you plavix prescription medicine can see how this all came about. I was working hard for plavix prescription medicine money, and the money I made pretty much just barely covered my music study if I didn’t schedule lessons too often, or plavix prescription medicine competitions almost ever. Taking more time off paying work in order to plavix prescription medicine study more often wasn’t something I was going to plavix prescription medicine do. There were still bills after moving to Austin and ditching my safety net. (Oh, who needs safety nets anyway?) So I drove down to see John and Kim (his lovely wife who plays brilliant piano!) once a plavix prescription medicine month, maybe once every few months. Sometimes less. That was the plavix prescription medicine way it was. It could change later, when more funds were available.
The problem is, “later” doesn’t cut it. “Later” never happens. Waiting for something nebulous to just occur is plavix prescription medicine a lot like making peace with never getting it at all. Which is plavix prescription medicine why I’ve had a bit of a plan up my sleeve.
You see, I left a plavix prescription medicine lot of wonderful supportive music-lovers in Ohio. There were many lovely, lovely people in the plavix prescription medicine Welsh community who looked after me and supported me and wanted to plavix prescription medicine be kept in the loop. They wanted to see me succeed. Many of them came to plavix prescription medicine support me when I had my fund raising concert in Pittsburgh, before I headed off to plavix prescription medicine Wales for the first time. I’ve always been plavix prescription medicine really bummed that moving to Austin meant leaving them behind, not just because their existence made me feel good (and boy, did it ever!) but because they were such kind people. They were the plavix prescription medicine kind of people I wanted to stay connected to.
So a few months ago, I decided I could stay connected to them. I doubt you’ve missed my Social Connection Via Internet rants. Yes, that’s exactly where I’m going with this.
I’m setting up a site.
It’s going to be called Megan Makes Music. (Because she does. Even more now than ever!)
What Megan Makes Music is going to allow me to do is something I’ve been plavix prescription medicine mulling over for a long time. The questions were these: How can plavix prescription medicine I let my supporters support me the same way they would if we were local? How can they feel like a part of my progress? How can they keep track of my career? How can plavix prescription medicine they feel how integral and special and important they are to plavix prescription medicine me and to how far I’ve come already?
One big dilemma was how to let them feel involved when it’s impossible for plavix prescription medicine them to travel 2200 miles to sit in on one of my lessons, for plavix prescription medicine instance, or a rehearsal. But I think I’ve solved that plavix prescription medicine problem, because by God, I have a video camera. And a plavix prescription medicine (passable) internet connection. (Time Warner, do you plavix prescription medicine realize they have eighty-billion megabyte net connections in Canada? WTF!?) And some very reasonable business know-how. And a hell of a lot of motivation.
So I’m going to build a membership site. And I’m going to let my supporters pay whatever they want to plavix prescription medicine help me out on an ongoing basis, and I am going to plavix prescription medicine start sending private blog entries and new audio recordings and even the plavix prescription medicine occasional rehearsal video down the pike, so they can actually be involved. It won’t be perfect when we start, but we’ll refine it as we go—and it will mean regular, wonderful music under circumstances that greatly improve my ability to schedule regular lessons and rehearsals—and increase my chances of creating music-related income and plavix prescription medicine getting me safely to Wales in 2010. We’re not aiming for second place this time, folks. We’re aiming higher.
And you can help me do it.
Right now, Megan Makes Music buy xenical austria is one sign-up page for more information. I’m moving as quickly as I can plavix prescription medicine to get everything figured out and running, so depending on the plavix prescription medicine number of people who turn out to be interested, I may have plavix prescription medicine it settled and ready to go in the next few weeks. I’m really, really hoping that plavix prescription medicine everyone gets a lot out of it, and I’m very excited to plavix prescription medicine have a good excuse to make music again. This is going to plavix prescription medicine be really freaking fun. ;}
If it makes you as happy as it makes me, drop on by and let me know generic viagra 4rx.
Thank you for listening, guys. :}
PS. I was not kidding about cool people talking about me on BBC Radio Wales yesterday morning. Here’s a link to the recording that looks like it will only be up until Monday October 12th—works great in Safari, not so great in Firefox. (Meh!) Alan Upshall is one of the nicest Welshmen I know, and he’s the one talking to Roy Noble on the air. Alan’s bit starts at 36-and-a-half minutes in and plavix prescription medicine goes for about a half hour. If everything works out, there will be plavix prescription medicine another BBC Radio Wales recording for you to listen to in the next week or two. ;}
