The career musician who wasn't

For six years, I have been living comfortably in the D.C. area -- first in Silver Spring, Md., and then on Capitol Hill. In my writing jobs, I had stability, which is what I had in mind back in the college days in Pennsylvania when I selected communication studies and journalism as my fields of study.

I've been adept at performing music my whole life, earning me several first-place plaques in piano and organ competitions before I could drive, and also landing me paying gigs at countless weddings, funerals and other religious services. I was still in high school when a family in my church community asked me to play their daughter's wedding; she was marrying the bass player from Radiohead. This milestone event brought the groom's brother, the group's keyboardist, up to the choir loft for his first-ever jam session on a pipe organ. He asked me to pull out the stops while he was playing so as to vary the sound.

For all my efforts, the biggest recognition I ever received for my music, aside from the weekly praise I would enjoy weekly from churchgoers who were impressed with my abilities, was a one-time write-up in my local Sunday newspaper back in Pennsylvania. It was an honor to be written up like that toward the end of my stint in high school, but it was not the pinnacle I was hoping for. I was a rock musician, but I was playing a church organ on weekends. It wasn't helping me earn real success, as defined by the rock musicians I admired. I was a fan of Eric Clapton and of Led Zeppelin. I valued the musical integrity of those musicians and their achievements in going on tours that pack stadiums and playing on records that sell. That's what I wanted.

Enter college. Majoring in music performance seemed to earn me little more than a piece of paper that essentially tells the reader little more than "this dude can play." I didn't see how a degree would earn me a record deal or a steady paying gig. Majoring in music education seemed beyond my grasp, so I didn't study music in college.

I did, however, keep on playing at that time. And maybe that's when I was the most creative of my whole life. I was able to contribute to the composition of an album's worth of original material with a band of some longtime friends who had picked up their instruments in their teen years. Heavily influenced by Pink Floyd and Radiohead, we dubbed ourselves The Interface and recorded a 40-minute self-titled debut that I believe would hold up to critical scrutiny if it were ever heard outside our immediate circle of friends. But what stunted our growth was the lack of urgency with which we transformed our recordings into CDs that could be used to promote us or purchased directly by fans. By the time our CD manufacturing occurred, the bandmates were splitting. An error on the CD, namely a gap between tracks that should have been seamless, made me furious. The band was a waste, I said, with a taste of sour grapes.

In school, I went for the degree that seemed to hold more promise of professional stability. I graduated cum laude and relocated, on a whim, and found work. I was busy, and I was no longer playing music. My then-roommate, a non-musician who had been my best friend since high school, recently told me it was killing him to see me going so long without doing anything musically at all. I eventually involved myself in a classic rock cover band, which it took three years for me to realize was a dead end. All the while, I was supporting myself on my comfortable existence in which a full-time writing job ranked first in my life.

This June 10, when I suddenly found myself without a job, all that talk of stability disappeared. With few ties holding me in the D.C. area, I realized this could be a unique opportunity for me to skip town and try something completely different that I have been longing to do. I spent a few months devising a plan, using a savings account I had earned over time to fund some trips to Nashville and elsewhere so I could find myself and discover my next move. I was rather determined Nashville was it. I wanted to pursue the career of a professional Nashville musician. I visited twice to watch and communicate with some of the musicians whom I would be emulating and, ultimately, against whom I would be competing for work. After doing so, I realized some of my shortcomings that I must work to alleviate. If I spend a year improving in the areas of owning and operating better musical equipment, memorizing and performing the words to songs, and marketing myself and my abilities, then perhaps I will be in a better position to succeed in the highly competitive Nashville scene in late 2009 or early 2010. Hence, I decided against immediately pursuing that dream in Nashville.

But I have to do something, and I cannot continue to linger aimlessly in D.C., while I deplete my savings account. Earlier this month, I began working some freelance writing jobs and a part-time administrative job. And all throughout this year, I have been playing some paying rock music gigs, mostly on the weekends. But my expenses are exceeding my income, and that savings account will soon go dry. The rent here is too much for me to afford, so I have to move somewhere more affordable, and the sooner I do, the more likely I'll be able to escape going into debt.

This is why Florida is coming into play. That, and my new love down there.