by: Raine

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Money-making season for a cellist like me is the holiday season. That and Easter. There are church services to be had and Christmas music to play and lots of people willing to listen. If you’ve been in an area for a long enough time, your name as a musician will have spread and people will call you to play. In my case, I’ve been in Fort Collins roughly a year and I have managed to get my name out as a cellist. Someone hired me.

Hooray! Paycheck.

Bonus: my friends got hired, too!

Hooray! Socializing.

Bonus: fun new people to meet.

Hooray! MORE socializing.

With all that cheering, you wonder how this is a rant, right? Well, let me tell you. You try playing seven services in one week, sitting up on a chair and playing for two hours after going a year without such work and being completely out of shape. Tell me how your back feels. Tell me how the rest of your body feels. I’ll tell you how it feels: LIKE IT’S FALLING APART.

How the hell did I get through music school? Oh yeah, I was ten years younger. But wait, I was only three years younger when I finished graduate school, a place where I played all day, played all night and never had a break from my cello. Why now? Why is my back screaming at me now?

I know, I know. I haven’t played all that much comparatively in the past year with all of my teaching. Shut up, Raine. Stop whining.

But my back isn’t the big woe here, oh no. It is listening to the same happy, cheery music for seven services. And then knowing you have to play it again when you get hired again (which I did). If I have to listen to Jingle Bells one more time, my brain is going to turn into Jingle Bells. It may not be Jingle Bells itself, but the fact that my back makes me a grumpy, grumpy, whining, complaining cellist. Yes, I will blame it on my back. Because I like to place blame. It makes me perfect. No fault lies with me! Hehe.

Good thing about this concerts though: you can go out with the buddies and the conductor afterwards for beer. Or schnopps. Or wine. And whining.

But that gives rise to more ranting: spending money. Holy crap  are the restaurants around the theatre expensive! I think we might’ve spent our whole paycheck on food and alcohol. Wait…what did you say? Make your own food? Bring it with you? LAME! If you suck at cooking like me and then you have to watch your friends each salmon and porkchops, it’s terrible. RAWR! That and if you bring chopsticks to eat your noodles, you get made fun of for using chopsticks. There is no solution!

Yes, I have ranted and complained and whined, but at the end of the day, I DO make money in a way that I love, playing cello. I think it makes the ranting even more satisfying because I do have my light at the end of the tunnel.