Day Jobs and Chops

On Tuesday the music blog Stereogum hosted Death Cab for Cutie as guest bloggers. If you're a Death Cab fan you can find all of the posts here. But any musician should find the following two posts entertaining.

Quit Your Day Job: Drummer Jason McGerr and bassist Nick Harmer discuss the jobs they had before becoming full time musicians. Jason worked in construction and then as an instructor at an interesting music school. Nick worked with the Tacoma Sanitation Department. Read the article for gory descriptions of the pitfalls and also the highlights of both jobs.

"It's amazing how much more of a student I became when I was teaching that much. Going over really basic fundamentals everyday for hours on end. It was like simple stretching that eventually allowed for total flexibility. Consider that my job was to get someone to do achieve a goal every time they sat down. Or, to feel comfortable and inspired, even embarrassed, no matter what their abilities may be. Sometimes a kid would come in just want to talk for a half hour before picking up the sticks and I'd be totally cool with that. Again, this was more or less the attitude at the school and the reason I did what I did for so long."

Playing Chops vs. Mental Chops: Most importantly, this post contains a youtube video of Animal from the Muppets in a drum showdown vs. Buddy Rich. But I also enjoyed this insight:

"On the stage setting, a musician is usually only susceptible to a taxed mind at the start of the show. Once he or she gets going though, they usually level out and begin to focus and enjoy themselves. When it comes to the recording studio, I sometimes find it to be the opposite. A player can be really optimistic and clear at the beginning of the day but may tire after several attempts of the same song, which means thinking about it too much, and eventually their performance suffers."