Animesh Raval

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.

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Blog Post: The Start Of Something New

Posted on July 5th

I made the decision recently to throw myself full time into music. Someone suggested that blogging would be a great way of capturing my journey and also another form of catharsis and expression for me. So I’m going to try really hard to post blogs regularly to keep you up to date with what I’m working on and also any progress I’m making.

The first major step I’ve taken towards pushing the “DREAM” is to quit my regular job. I was a really tough choice to make, but I was spending something like 20 hours a week just commuting. Sitting here writing about it, I wonder what madness possessed me to be doing that for so long! The commute in itself was incredibly draining, then throw in a full time job and there was very little room in the day to write, record, rehearse, network, promote. I found trying to live this lifestyle was taking it’s toll on all areas of my life: I was tired all the time, life had lost it’s colour, I barely saw my friends, I wasn’t really spending time with loved ones…and if I was it was like I wasn’t really there, I was operating in a fog with tastes, smells, sounds and experiences barely registering with me.

I have recently gone through a sequence of quite a number of gigs. It’s been a fantastic experience getting back on the horse and rediscovering my love of live performing, but trying to balance gigs with working and commuting has not been easy. The physical toll it’s put on my body has caused me to get sick quite easily and regularly. It has been a real struggle to motivate myself to move on with mini-projects, and if there’s something I really hate, it’s not doing something well. Everything I do needs to reflect the best of my ability, and quite simply, I didn’t feel I was doing myself justice.

Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Pretty simple logic really. I realized I couldn’t keep doing the same things in the same way and expect to see improvements and progress.

So decision 1: End the commuting madness. This meant quitting my job, and now I’m officially an impoverished musician with no money coming in.

Pretty scary move, but in a way it kind of appeals to the romantic in me.

The new challenge for me now though is that I have plenty of time to write, practice, go to the gym and get fitter, write blogs and some of the other things I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time. BUT…now I have no money to do some of the essentials that I really need to do: record a single, a music video, print flyers, business cards, pay musicians, pay for rehearsal venues. So I have a new set of challenges to fix. In the upcoming blogs I plan to write about more of these challenges and how I’m addressing them. Who knows, maybe an aspiring artist may learn from my mistakes or maybe some of you guys will relate to what I’m writing about and will want to get in touch to share wisdom/advice.

Or maybe you’re a multimillionaire in which case…please can I have some money? No, seriously…!? Haha!

As always, much love to you all!

Animesh