Musical Backgammon

If you know the game of backgammon you know that it's a game of mathematical movement in which two players roll dice and based upon the number on those dice one player moves accordingly toward a home board. It's actually a little more involved than the explanation here, but you get the idea.
Anyway, music is an awful lot like the game of backgammon, in that there are players of varying levels vying to get their pieces to the home board first and win. Well just as in backgammon it's impossible to create a tie, because there will always be a winner, music in effect is like that. You roll the dice and hope that your music will be accepted by the powers that be. Those powers can be fellow musicians, they can be business people directly involved in the music industry, or they can be fans who help skyrocket you and your dream to the top.
None the less in order to make any part of that dream a reality you must understand the math involved thoroughly before you can create the kind of ruckus that gets you noticed by anyone or by everyone.
Let me give you an example ( you'll need this, to get the point of my post), think of your favorite artist, and your favorite song; it could be the current song or past song, instrumental or vocal. Think about the feeling you had when you first heard it...
Whatever the emotion was that you felt was the ruckus. However it affected you was the ruckus. It's the thing about someone or something that makes you remember them ( I know that ruckus actually has a different meaning, it's a disturbance, but I'm arriving at my definition through the use of this word...the disturbance), the disturbance that makes you look.
In other words, when you create a positive disturbance in the music industry you get noticed.Comprende' ?
OK, why am I writing about backgammon and how does this relate to my music ? Well the absolute truth is that I'm sitting here right now and my heart has been heavy all evening long because I need to make a decision about something and it may very well be one of the hardest things that I've had to do in awhile.
I'm thinking about quitting the Carpenter Ants, the band that has been my home for 12 years. Why? How could I ?
To answer the first question, I feel that the direction that the band is going is no longer a good one for me. I feel that for as long as they've been a band they should have been much farther along than they are moneywise, we've priced ourselves out of a market by not charging enough for people to take us seriously. We'll travel for days to make change, we'll play for hours on end and come home with nothing to show for our time.
We are grown men and yes we do enjoy each other's company, and we do get along well for a band, but playing music is more than that. To get to the level that I aspire takes a real commitment from everyone, yet we can't agree to learn songs as we should. All of us have talent but we're only using part of that talent.
All of us have egos but only one ego is king. When one problem arises and is dealt with, there lurking in the shadows is a newer greater one...it's too tiring.
I told them over a year ago that they can no longer use my van for transportation and here we are insisting that I add more mileage to an already older van. These things cost a lot of money, but we aren't making any to cover the costs of when it breaks down.
We had a record company sign us, completely jerk us around, and yet here we are waiting anxiously for the same company to release (as they say) our 3rd CD. Why didn't we get the hell off of our asses and find a company that believed in us enough to take a chance on us.
How could I leave? That answer too is complex, I really believe in myself and my talents and I'm willing to take the chance to go out on my own and find a musical situation that suits my needs monetarily, musically, mentally and mutually. After all, I did leave New York and move here, and my musical backgammon led me to them, and I've won.
I have a wife that has been my rock, and through all that I've put her through, she has stuck by me through all of my tears and all of my faults. She's not in the best of health and it's time for ME to stand by her.
I have a job that I dearly love and a boss that I absolutely would go to the end of the Earth for if she asked, it may not have been the thing that I've wanted most out of life but I could have happiness there.
I have had my day in the Sun, and I have enjoyed it, basked in it, now it might be time for me to get out of the weather.
If I decide to leave, I'll write about it, then close up shop, and look for the next thing for me, but know that I'll never be too far away, I'll just be standing in the shadows...of music.

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