Introduction
For as long as I have been playing there have been people asking questions about that. I am sure that many musicians were asked these questions long before I came along too, but this post is about my experience with those questions and later, yours.
It was almost as though everyone had received a pamphlet or a primer: "Things to ask a musician". Because the questions were almost always the same, and almost always in the same order. In no time at all, just being asked the questions was enough to start shaping my perception of what it meant to be a musician.

Here are the questions

Oh, you are a musician...
Do you sing?
Do you write your own songs?
Are you in a band?
Are you playing anywhere around town?
Do you have an Album? (later... do you have a CD?)  

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What the questions might have meant

Let me add what might have been behind the words in purple
Oh, you are a musician...
I like music. This is good, we have a reason to talk. I am interested.
Do you sing?
I like music. I like the sound of someone singing. I like to sing sometimes. Do we have that in common?
Do you write your own songs?
I like music. Music is creative. Are you creative in this way? Maybe you can tell me more about that.
Are you in a band?
Most of the music I hear is from bands. Do you fit with my understanding of how it works?
Are you playing anywhere around town?
Is there any place where I could come to hear your music?
Do you have an Album? (later... do you have a CD?)
If I can't come to a show, can I get your music to hear it at home?

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What I heard

After hearing these questions a couple of hundred times (I'm slow), and never having been in a position to simply say "yes" to all the questions, (having always been a side-man), I started to hear something different at an emotional level.
So here are those questions and I've filled in what I was hearing with my emotions in blue.

Oh, you are a musician...
Oh, so you think you're a musician? Well let's see if you pass the test
Do you sing?
When I listen to music, I listen to the words. Do you sing the words? Are you the one I listen to?
Do you write your own songs?
Musicians create music, create songs. Are you a musician?
Are you in a band?
Real musicians, good ones, have other musicians who want to play with them. They form bands. Are you a real musician?
Are you playing anywhere around town?
You're not a real musician unless you are playing for real money in front of real people in real live venues. So are ya?
Do you have an Album? (later... do you have a CD?)
Real musicians record their original songs and perform to support the albums. So do ya?

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So over time these inevitable questions became challenges: Challenges to my fragile perception that I *was* a musician.
It seemed as though there was some common belief that the ultimate goal of a self-actualized musician was:

• to be a singer-songwriter
• with a band that toured
• and had lots of albums.

The band, the tours and the albums all attested to the legitimacy of the singer-songwriter role. All of it together seemed to be the big mold one had to fit and fill to be 'a musician'.
Please understand... this is not my personal definition of what it means to be a musician. Instead, it is these conversations with the audience that contributed to the struggle to define myself within the music.
How about you? Do any of these questions ring a bell for you?
How did they influence your choices?
How do they affect your goals?

 

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