the thing about amazing youtube performance clips is that watching too many make a person (well, me) question their life's choices.
I have always told myself that I would be poorly suited to the hustle and grind of making a living, or even half of a living, as a musician, but when my brain is in full-on music mode I find myself thinking, "But if I were a gigging musician, sure I'd be starving but I could just practice and learn new music and write new music all day"
...the reality being that the gap between "practice your craft relentlessly, and also hustle for gigs and self-promotion endlessly" and "accomplished and successful enough as a musician to comfortably, idly spend all day screwing around on whatever musical idea, with no particular stakes" is vast and the opportunity to bridge it is a window that, at my age, is pretty well closed.
Which I'm mostly OK with. If jam sessions are ever a thing that feel safe again, I expect that about 85% of my "coulda been a contender" itch would be scratched if I can find a good one. I'm still sad about the jug band jam I found out about literally a week before lockdown started last year.
