Discussion Panel: Page 7

At first my husband and his family could not make heads or tails of my lifestyle. I am the only musician amongst “nine to fivers.” Showing up at family events in long black and not seeming to notice that everyone else is wearing jeans and T-shirts was odd for them. Leaving in the middle of […]

I’m not sure that driving for dollars puts any more strain on the social aspects of living for a musician than, say, working in an office 10+ hours per day, six days a week does for a mid-level executive. I do have a few non-musician types in my own social circle and they tend to […]

For today’s discussion, I asked the panelists to describe how spending so many hours in the car impacts their personal lives. Do non-musician friends and relatives understand the nature of driving-for-dollars schedules? How do you accommodate both the needs of getting to all your gigs and the demands of your family?

During the filming of Freeway Philharmonic, I spent a good amount of time in the car with the musicians. I noticed, especially with musicians who carpooled, that the camaraderie and banter in the car often seemed like an Episode of ‘Friends’ on wheels. Even during a 2.5 hour drive to a rehearsal, a carpool of […]

Exhaustion does take its toll when I’m driving long distances. When I drive to Wisconsin, I usually drive up the day of the first rehearsal to save on accommodations. After that drive, it’s difficult to concentrate and fully function in the rehearsal that evening. I will stay there for a week at a time to […]

I HATE DRIVING! For me it is the worst part of freelancing. We used to average about 25,000 miles a year on one car and maybe 15,000 on the other, which isn’t as bad as in some cities, but the hours spent in the car make up for those few miles. Our major highway heading […]

Fatigue and stress are both things that take a huge toll on me, but that I also tend to underestimate in everyday life. Sometimes what is most trying is just worrying about how I am going to get the bills paid. I know it doesn’t really help the problem to worry about it, but does […]

I try very hard to drive as little as possible. This year I was down to 25,000 miles. My car is a 2002 (bought in December) and I have 157,500 miles on it. I have to do an oil change and routine maintenance every six weeks so those costs add up fast. Also as my […]

This is the time of year when I start getting tired of driving, my right leg starts to hurt, and I look forward to the summer. This happens to me every year, and then by August I’m ready to start in again. I drive between 30k and 40k miles a year, which is a huge […]

Stress and fatigue are the most difficult aspects to driving for dollars, at least for me. I do what I can to be organized, but there are always things that come up that are unanticipated. I’ve had to learn to build time for those things into my schedule. I’ll schedule one or two hours for […]