"I just NEVER have enough time..."

[SeanF]

This may seem like a little trivial, but nevertheless...

Every time anyone asks me how the music's going, I always respond - "great, except I just NEVER have enough time".

Indeed, it can takes me ages to complete one song - between writing, recording, re-recording, mastering and burning, it can take literally weeks to complete one song. My reason is that I'm involved in too much other stuff: soccer on monday evenings, I usually try and see one gig a week, I'm down at the pub/club on friday and saturday nights, and from April to October I surf as many weekends as I can (the wave surfing - not the computer surfing). I'm guessing I may not be the only one with this problem...

 

[Wallycleaver]

I have no time because all of my spare time is spent trying to get more free time! Seriously, I'm sooooooooooooo close to being able to engineer as my main source of income. So I'm working 8-5 then running sound till 2 am! Rock and Roll baby!

 

[dobro]

Wally let go of 'Vine #4'. Grasp 'Vine #5' firmly with both hands and allow gravity etc to swing you forward through space and time like Tarzan or someone more closely resembling yourself. Then your main source of income will become recording. But are you sure you want this to be your main source of income? LOL

This belongs in the psychology forum, but we don't have one.

If you don't have enough time, is it because your job/studies are soaking up too many clock hours, or is it because you're not applying your available free time to recording etc?

If the former, there's no problem unless you hate your job/studies. If the latter, there's no problem really. Simple.

 

[mikeh]

Having enough time is the eternal problem.

Between a day job, a part time job in a music store, 6-9 gigs a month and playing on other peoples recordings, I have limited time for my studio (maybe if I spend less time on this web site). Add to that, time to practise chops (I play drums, keys and guitar) and there is little left (I only sleep 4-5 hours per night).

I also find it takes hours/days/weeks to finish my material - OK so I admit I'm very anal about what I consider to be an acceptable finished product. When people ask how the music is going I normally have to say "I'm working on some tunes" - since I can rarely say I've finished some tunes.

Lately I only fire up the studio for specific paying projects - I hardly ever use it just for my material (even though that's why I actually put the studio together). I'm actually glad when I have someone book time - cause it forces me to use the gear and forces me to make decisions which result in a finished product

Regarding hanging in the pub, surfing or any activity that is not related to working, sleeping or eating - we all choose how to spend our time. When you're young you need to have fun (believe me,you get old waaaay too soon). The amount of time we spend on music, is a direct reflection on the priority it has in your life.

I was a full time musician from my mid teens to my mid 20's and have been semi pro ever since. I choose to spend the majority of my time involved in some aspect of music - it is just about my only passion (I'm actually a very one dimentional person). Others may choose to pursue other things - but must then accept that thier music will suffer as a result.

 

[twist]

I tried to vote, but there's no button for "all of the above". And in all honesty, I don't think I've ever spent one minute in my corner of the basement that wasn't "stolen" either from sleep, work, or family.

I've got a few songs that I actually wrote a few years ago, but still haven'nt gotten around to recording. It is a huge undertaking when you are the author, arranger, producer, director, drummer, bassist, guitar players, keyboard player, horn section, vocalist, recording, mixing, and mastering engineer. And its only a hobby for me, but its still very important that it turns out well performance wise and production wise. It's a labor of love.

Twist

 

[tubedude]

I have time, I just don't have the money to make it happen til this pain-in-the-ass balloon payment is paid off. God, 4 more months... Feb 15th. The following week I'm ordering all the stuff I used to have, and a bunch of the stuff I always wanted. I'll come up missing for about 6 weeks, then I'll pop up here with an album ready for you guys to bash apart Can't wait.

 

[ruebarb]

poker

I got into the bad habit of playing poker a few months and haven't broken it yet.

It's not the money that you win or lose...it's the 6 hours you spend playing and folding while waiting for a killer hand that kills me

In fact, a cold financial slump is half the reason I have time now to start recording again.

RB

 

[Gargamel]

I sleep roughly 4 hours a night. Thats all i need.

 

[mikemoritz]

school sucks man.......I'm trying to do an album with my band down here, and things ain't workin timewise.....

Peace,
Mikey

 

[Cyrokk]

There are a number of reasons why my projects take forever.. For one, I've been fighting an incredibly steep uphill battle with a song I've been writing: the riff totally rocks, but it was a bitch trying to put anything of equal quality around it to maintain integrity (I'm happy to report that the skeleton of the song was finished a couple hours ago). Another reason is that there are a few things I need to get before I can really put my studio to good use, and I haven't been able to funnel any money from my paychecks toward it, so things are kind of on hold. In fact, I probably won't be putting anything permanent to tape until after X-mas, and that's only after I have fully orchestrated and practiced the music before comitting to tape. I also have to work my projects around the wife and kids, a more than full time job (it's the busiest time of the year for me), and those times when I just don't give a crap and spend time staring off into my own dimented world..

 

[kristian]

i lost my place to record... so i only record as a joke in my apartment with friends and my brothers. or i go to people's practice space to record them. i wish i had a home for my drums. as strange as it sounds, a lot of stuff i write starts with weird beats or something i want to work amelody around.

 

[Krakit]

My workspace is a shambles!

I have time to record, but my workspace is a total mess, and I am too lazy to clean it up.

 

[Gidge]

between this site, porn sites, and PC-Cam sex with Ed, how do you expect me to have time to record?.....

 

[Gargamel]

Gidge..........way too much info

 

[Wallycleaver]

Wally let go of 'Vine #4'. Grasp 'Vine #5' firmly with both hands and allow gravity etc to swing you forward through space and time like Tarzan or someone more closely resembling yourself. Then your main source of income will become recording. But are you sure you want this to be your main source of income? LOL

This belongs in the psychology forum, but we don't have one.

If you don't have enough time, is it because your job/studies are soaking up too many clock hours, or is it because you're not applying your available free time to recording etc?

If the former, there's no problem unless you hate your job/studies. If the latter, there's no problem really. Simple.

Dobro, I went to school to do this stuff! It's what I do!

 

[Roel]

Never have enough time. Full-time job, studying (alot of) harmony, practicing piano and sax, doing recordings for friends and building a synth whenever I find the time. Always busy. I take days off to read in Schoenberg's books...

Once I will let this SW-engineering job go and go all music... Once... Sigh. I'm tired. ZZzzzZZzzzzz

 

[LI Slim]

We have all the time that there is....


Understood, time can get short with all of our obligations, such as spending every Friday and Saturday evening at the pub.


There's an expression, "reality supports resistance". We can always find a good reason not to do the things we are unwilling to commit ourselves to do. The best one is, "gee, honey, I really want to [get married/have a kid/etc], we just have to save up a little more money first."

 

[pablo]

I don't think a week for recording a song is too much...
I think that the best is doing QUALITY STUFF, not just the recording, the writting process, and that doesn't mean that you have to think about what you're going to write down in the paper for a month, I think it just takes a couple of hours of GOOD INSPIRATION to end all the process really quick, I like finishing songs the same night, I'm into recording electronic music, and the the ideas just come, and I turn off the lights and let it flow!! try to finish everything I can, select samples, program it sing if I have to, do a mixdown and see how it sounds the other day!! If it doesn't sound ok (maybe I was using very low volumen on my monitors) I just fix some things really quick and that's it, I don't like going back to changing samples or anything...
And well, if you definitly didn't like the song just keep it for archive and move on the writting another one, afterall, it only took you a couple of days to do it...
I have written TONS of songs and I mean like more than a 100 (considering I've been doing it only for like 4 a years that sounds like a lot to me), and there's only ONE I can really show to everyone, the rest, I just show it to my closest friends and that stuff... and that one song only took me like 15 minutes to write down lyrics and 3 days for the music, and THAT'S IT!

 

[ryan_temp]

It's good to see a thread that I can totally relate to like this.

I've probably had my DAW ready for 6 months but between work, and my new house I don't have any spare time. Not to mention that if I actually have any spare time, my fiance' is NOT willing to let me spend it recording. At this rate I'll probably be cranking out about 1 song a year!

 

[DaveO]

No time indeed. I'm working with another guy and we haven't gotten together since last November. Both us us have jobs and families, he's been taking classes over the last year or so, and my wife travels a lot for business so I'm a single parent about half the time. Neither of us wants to steal from family time and haven't found anything we can steal from on a regular basis, so we've for now we've just accepted the fact that progess will be SLOW.

Since it's been impossible for us to get together for so long, we've been limping along by recording/modifying/mixing tracks and then passing files back and forth on CD(s), letting the other guy do his thing with them, he puts them on CD(s) and passes them back, and so on. We've been at this for a little over two years and so far we've basically completed one song, have another close to finished, two in progress, and two guitar tracks he wrote that I haven't even listened to yet. Now he's planning to move about 2 hours away in the spring, so it will get even more interesting then.

Maybe we'll finish this decade?