What is success?

What does it take to become a successful musician? This is a much bigger question than it first appears. First we must decide upon what we class as success. This differs from person to person. For example do you class success as being the multi-millionaire rock star doing a sold out world tour? Or do you just want to be able to play your instrument with confidence. For some, success is being in demand and the phone always ringing with more opportunities, while for others it is simply being able to make a living and pay the bills. Whatever your vision of success is will be personal to you so only you can say if you are a successful musician.

In my case it very quickly became clear that I was never going to be the legendary rock god that I thought I was. So, after much thinking about what was important to me and what I wanted to achieve in life. I realised that I just wanted to get paid to play my drums. if I could make enough money to pay the bills and feed my family, then I would be a happy bunny. As soon as I saw this it took a lot of pressure off of ‘trying to be a success’ and made the path to achieving my goal a lot clearer.

Nowadays I am lucky enough to run a successful music teaching business, I do the occasional theatre job, I record drums for people, play in a band and also dep for various artists. I’m not a household name or playing to 1000’s of adoring fans but I am playing my drums every day and helping others on their journey into music.

Whatever your definition of success may be. Enjoy the journey.

Phill.