@wouzer As a father of 3 I would like to give you my advice and oppinions
To start let me just say - I found a way to balance it all and make it work !! You don’t have to sacrifice everything for family and I think if you hear me out, you’ll find that your music can even BENEFIT from your kids, wife, work.
The economy hasn’t been the greatest this year so I’ve been working long hours and 7 days a week. Luckily I can work sometimes from home which allows me to make sure my family is a priority.
I have an adorable and clever 3 year old boy and a beautiful little sweetheart baby girl who’s 10 months and looks just like her mum. Both these kids came after a long break of single life because I was divorced very young after I had my first son who is now 17. Crazy story, I know, I won’t go into details. After my divorce I was single for 10 years - I pissed that time away drinking, hanging with buddies, playing video games, dating random chicks etc etc. It wasn’t until a few years before I met my current wife that things started to get awesome for me. I changed my lifestyle, starting tooling around with music again, starting being a more outdoorsy person and a happier man in general. Well then I met the most amazing woman in the world … and after literally saying to my friends many times “I’ll never again get married or have kids.” … well here we are ! I’m married again for 4 years and have 2 more kids ! K enough backstory - here’s where it gets insteresting for you:
When my wife was pregnant with Quentin my 3 year old - I became very contemplative, creative, and inspired. My brain was looking for an outlet - so I channeled it into a DAW (ableton). I never had much time to work on music - only an hour here and there, but it was enough to get a few songs together to play for my wife. She really like them (even though they weren’t great hahaha) but that was enough motivation to push further. Just after Quentin was born I discovered this awesome little DAW in a box synth called OP1 hahah. Well when he was a few months old I started sampling his sounds and making them into synths. This was further inspiration. I became enthralled with writing, but still there was this problem: I could only ever get 1hr max
I was still satisfied enough just tinkering around when I finally bought my first elektron - the RYTM Still only playing here and there, but really having fun writing songs. Now I have 4 elektrons OT, AR, A4, and MnM and I found a secret. I bought a notebook. Every day while I’m at work - I know I’m only going to have 1 hr - 1.5 hrs that night after all the kids and my wife are sleeping so I very carefully plan my time out and write goals for the day. I keep the goals realistic IE: 1) design badass bass sound 2) make a bass pattern to go along with badass beat 3) record sample for listening the next day and re-evaluating. dingdingding This was a game changer. 10 months ago my baby girl was born. In that time using what I call my “goal oriented jamming” I’ve managed to write 23 new pieces. I channeled all these just a week ago into a 1hr live set.
It IS possible to have a 7 day a week job, juggle 3 kids, other hobbies (I also skateboard every day for exercise and fun) and friends and family too. As long as you have passion and simple goals you keep your elektrons and keep making music, brother.
peace,
Walter