Few weeks ago I had a chance to listen to the infamous Joe Rogan’s interview with Elon Musk. The full episode lasts a bit more than 2hours and a half and even though their whole conversation is filled with real interesting anecdotes and fun facts, my favourite part was probably this one:
“What most people don’t realise is that they are already cyborgs”
On the 9th of January 2007 Steve Jobs introduced to the world one of the most revolutionary inventions human beings have ever seen: the iPhone.
Since then, many other companies started releasing similar products and in just a bit more than 10 years about 3 billion people own a smartphone today.
All your life can pretty much fit in your pocket: music, photos, emails, movies, books, etc. It really feels like we can do anything with these handy machines!
At the same time, we are becoming more and more “addicted” to these devices, to the point that our lives depend on them. The amount of time we spend checking these tiny screens it’s quite frankly scary. Check out this interesting article from the Telegraph and see for yourself how, in such a short amount of time since 2007, we now manage to spend even 1 full day a week on our phones:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/01/decade-smartphones-now-spend-entire-day-every-week-online/
Yeah, but what does all this have to do with music?
Even as musicians, we are not immune to this increasingly common “phone addiction”. While practicing our instrument, it’s important to keep our phone away, so we don’t have to check all the notifications that pop up every 2 minutes on our screens. However, as musicians we feel the need to be available and connected 24/7. What if someone needs a drummer for tonight’s gig and I miss the call because I’m not on my phone?? Is he/she going to call someone else? What if someone writes an email to few drummers and only the first one to reply will get the gig?
It happened to me a few times, I’ve missed out on gigs just because I wasn’t on my phone when someone called, texted or emailed me. And when I replied few hours later, it was too late. They already found someone else.
But if I have to be honest, these situations are quite rare and these gigs usually aren’t that important. It’s very unusual that you’ll get a call for a BIG gig just few hours before it starts. Yes, you might miss out on a couple of hundred Pounds, but most people, when they reach out to you, they are ok to wait, just because they want YOU and not just ANY drummer.
Since I’ve started Record Drums Online, I made the decision to be super quick at replying emails and deliver the fastest response possible during the recording process https://recorddrumsonline.com/about-online-recording/
However, I’m also aware that I can’t be all day looking at emails. Therefore I always divide my days in 3 “Hey I’m Online” chunks:
-Morning
-After Lunch
-Evening
These are the only times when I am connected and luckily until now none of my clients have complained about me being late yet. I still manage to deliver the first take for their songs in less than 24hrs since I give them a quote.
I realise that the phone is one hell of a useful and powerful tool for our every day needs, but before I turn into a complete cyborg I want to live as a human being for as long as possible.
‘till next time!
