Many thanks for this Ron.

When it comes to it, if I didn't do any music and just the real job, I might just go insane.

Also, I've been wondering about the term real job.  I know we (nearly) all use it, but it strikes me that there isn't anything remotely real about sitting in an office, fiddling with a keyboard, playing about with concepts, numbers and words.

And I'm sure music is a much older profession / occupation - perhaps not the oldest profession in the world ( ), but certainly fulfilling a fundamental need in a fundamental way.

(I really need to get round to reading 'the Singing Neanderthals', which has been sitting unopened on my bedside table for a while now!)

Are the Arts more 'real' than much of our modern activities for anyone else out there?

Tommo

I find when I'm doing a run of performances like the ones you mention (as indeed I was just doing, in Avignon - otherwise I certainly wouldn't still be up!) my meal cycle (and indeed my waking day) gets shifted south a couple of hours. It's normally pretty southerly in any case (if I don't have anything else to do my waking day is usually between 10am and 2am or so). It's difficult to have your body functioning in the way it needs to to play concerts (as opposed to listening to them) near the end of your waking day.

The beer afterwards also has a bit to do with reconciling the energy needs of the concert to the need for a relatively normal sleep cycle. I've often wondered what it would be like after a concert to just go home and go to sleep. Then I've tried it. Useless. Twitching away until the wee small hours. Hence the appeal of relaxing fluids. Prost!