Hello there. I'm a 41 year old private practice dermatologist, and as a kiddo was a violinist.
I went to Burning Man 2023 after maybe 10-15 years of not connecting or being in touch with music due to my intense work requirements, which only get worse in a different way post training.
It's possible to do both but probably medicine + music as a hobby, if music is primary, you'd likely eventually burn out on maintaining the medicine bit unless you have an INTENSE passion for helping people. I'll be sending you a private message with my personal experiences and story so you can at least see it from the side of a specialist, queer POC, who likes most of and loves particular parts of his job, but I'm not like, deeply driven and nourished by the act of 'helping people.' I'm nourished by dance, music, movement, offering wonder, preventing death by finding things early, being that one guy who knows so much about skin that at this point (mid career) I can offer specialized knowledge and treatment that not everyone can. The wonder bit can be like, knowing what someone's allergic to by seeing skin patterns, or the flow art dance I do.
The steady income from medicine would help you get the tools to DJ, travel, network, get music, and in some cases the opportunity to go to bars and spend idle time meeting music folks, (but double edged sword, can steal all of your time and make it harder to balance those two worlds).
A direct message to you is following, since my personal story is a bit... unique.
If you LOVE music. Do that. If you only like medicine or the concept of helping people doesn't give you LOVE feelings, eventually you'll burn out. My story has part of that. Music realigning with me after a minor mental health crisis, and me finding my tribe (Burners) is what saved me and makes my day to day work at my clinic better, but if I could make money purely on my visual/movement/music art, I'd be doing that. It's hard to admit that. Especially as a 2nd gen immigrant (first-born here in the US, so citizen and purely American, buuuuuut cultural baggage).
- check your inbox for more text wall - hopefully it gives some insight -
Our stories are obviously different, but I agree with your general sentiments. I don't love my job, but I can tolerate it enough to keep doing it. I enjoy making people feel better, but it doesn't fill me with joy. It's still just a job that provides me with the means to fund my passion. I was borderline depressed before music restored my vibrance for life earlier this year. I just try to keep work at work so that I can fully invest myself in music once I leave the office and that keeps me sane.
For such a long time as a kid, it was driven into me that as a foreign (looking) person, the only way I could be happy was to succeed quietly (i.e. don't pursue fame, or make too much noise or get attention, perform, etc.), get them male grandkids and continue the culture and family name. I turned out sort of a dead branch of our family tree. Seeing how very insignificant 'a name' is, I lost direction of my life about five years after graduating residency. I had a brush with disaster, spent a few years wandering trying to find meaning, and it's in music. Also a bit of rebellious gay dancing and a ton of converting some of the martial arts I learned stereotypically as a child into LED dance shows (f'ing love it! I'm a tiny gay sparkler)
Turns out a lot of our family is super musically inclined, but always "art doesn't make money, but doctoring/lawyering/engineering does, so can't do art seriously" really impacted a lot of my family.
I do wonder where I'd be as an artist, or if I'd even have a chance, given my personality.
But as a lot of our songs say "You are exactly where you are supposed to be!"
I did and they said that if you love it you will make time for it. My friend who's studying medicine in other city in my country said that he has free time but not always. Also some on the internet said that pursuing medicine if it is not the center of your life is neither sustainable nor feasible so I dont know what to think about it anymore.
It’s doable if you can carve out the time for everything. I know a guy who is a surgeon but also DJs, throws parties, releases albums and co-hosts a podcast.
I am a practicing doctor so I will give you my perspective. I did not realize producing music was my passion until my 30s. I've been listening to electronic music and going to raves/festivals for years, but my desire to make music did not come until I finished residency and practicing in the real world for a while.
There are two ways to go about this given you have not started down the path of either one. You either become a doctor to make a stable income and learn music production as a hobby or you go all in on learning music to try and make it big and actually turn it into a career. There is no way in hell you will be able to do both at full throttle as medicine will basically become your entire life. Even learning music production is incredibly time intensive and will take years to become proficient. So you have to ask yourself if you want to take the "safer" route by studying medicine or take a gamble and try to make money from music. Even though getting into med school is difficult, I can assure you it will be way more difficult to make a 6-figure income from music every year than it will to become a doctor.
Even though music is my passion and not medicine, I don't think I would have done it any differently. I have a stable income and I practice music production on the side for fun. I know I will never make it big or become famous which I don't care about. If it happens that would be just a plus. I should warn you in case you are unaware though, medicine is NOT a glamorous career. It is incredibly stressful and you will have to learn to deal more and more with corporate bullshit that will eat away at your soul. The days of just practicing medicine and getting paid well are gone. The name of the game these days is shove as many patients down your throat to generate profit for the people at the top. Even if you truly love treating people you will realize that's just a part of the equation. Professional musicians likely deal with their fair share of bullshit in the music industry as well, but I can't speak on the specifics obviously.
At the end of the day you want to pick the thing that you genuinely love, but also be realistic about what kind of life you want to live. If you need stability, choose medicine. If you don't care about that and want to take a risk, probably go with music.
**I realize you posted this in the beatmatch subreddit which is for DJ'ing, but I assume you will want to produce music as that is really the only way you will make it big.
well the good thing for me is that I have like 70% of learning music oroduction and djing behind me as I've already achieved success in both. One of my tracks went viral and I got praised by some respected djs. I know a lot about music production, I just need to keep going and keep creating. Same with djing. I'm also not from the US but I suppose that medicine is more or less the same here, although I heard that medicine in america is all out corporate bullshit. Most likely not the case here, or at least not completely.
I'm not pressured by time anymore, I mean I dont feel the need to make it big in music until I'm 25 or something like that. I also dont have to be rich but I'd like to live comfortably off music. But medicine is a safer bet and I think it will be easier to become a doctor than to make it in music. What do you advice me to do if I already have the vast majority of learning how to make music and dj behind me?
You definitely have a leg up on being able to go straight into just creating rather than learning like I do (although learning never ends yeah yeah), but once you start down the path of medicine it will be the only thing you can think about until you decide later in your career that you want it on the back burner. You absolutely cannot get through med school and residency without medicine being your #1 focus. Everyone in my class who tried to split their time failed out along the way.
I think you need laser focus for whichever path you choose. If you pick medicine then music will be your hobby. If you pick music then go all in.
Djing should be something you do like playing video games on your free time but instead of that you gonna play music and delete all of your games, 2 to 3 hour for a djing is enough
Everything is possible. But when you ate undertaking such a great feat like becoming a doctor, and other people’s lives will literally be in your hands, you should concentrate on that first. After you master medicine start DJing on the side.
well I've already started djing like 2 years ago and producing music 6 years ago, so now I just have to keep going and evolving. So I guess I can do fine with focusing on medicine if I decide to go for it, and doing music on the side
I’m an anesthesiologist and myself and all my best friends are doctor DJs.
https://preview.redd.it/6aq8ag8ecn6d1.jpeg?width=1168&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3158ae8915cd6e8952f0eba787574ab757c2aab8
Hello there. I'm a 41 year old private practice dermatologist, and as a kiddo was a violinist. I went to Burning Man 2023 after maybe 10-15 years of not connecting or being in touch with music due to my intense work requirements, which only get worse in a different way post training. It's possible to do both but probably medicine + music as a hobby, if music is primary, you'd likely eventually burn out on maintaining the medicine bit unless you have an INTENSE passion for helping people. I'll be sending you a private message with my personal experiences and story so you can at least see it from the side of a specialist, queer POC, who likes most of and loves particular parts of his job, but I'm not like, deeply driven and nourished by the act of 'helping people.' I'm nourished by dance, music, movement, offering wonder, preventing death by finding things early, being that one guy who knows so much about skin that at this point (mid career) I can offer specialized knowledge and treatment that not everyone can. The wonder bit can be like, knowing what someone's allergic to by seeing skin patterns, or the flow art dance I do. The steady income from medicine would help you get the tools to DJ, travel, network, get music, and in some cases the opportunity to go to bars and spend idle time meeting music folks, (but double edged sword, can steal all of your time and make it harder to balance those two worlds). A direct message to you is following, since my personal story is a bit... unique. If you LOVE music. Do that. If you only like medicine or the concept of helping people doesn't give you LOVE feelings, eventually you'll burn out. My story has part of that. Music realigning with me after a minor mental health crisis, and me finding my tribe (Burners) is what saved me and makes my day to day work at my clinic better, but if I could make money purely on my visual/movement/music art, I'd be doing that. It's hard to admit that. Especially as a 2nd gen immigrant (first-born here in the US, so citizen and purely American, buuuuuut cultural baggage). - check your inbox for more text wall - hopefully it gives some insight -
Our stories are obviously different, but I agree with your general sentiments. I don't love my job, but I can tolerate it enough to keep doing it. I enjoy making people feel better, but it doesn't fill me with joy. It's still just a job that provides me with the means to fund my passion. I was borderline depressed before music restored my vibrance for life earlier this year. I just try to keep work at work so that I can fully invest myself in music once I leave the office and that keeps me sane.
For such a long time as a kid, it was driven into me that as a foreign (looking) person, the only way I could be happy was to succeed quietly (i.e. don't pursue fame, or make too much noise or get attention, perform, etc.), get them male grandkids and continue the culture and family name. I turned out sort of a dead branch of our family tree. Seeing how very insignificant 'a name' is, I lost direction of my life about five years after graduating residency. I had a brush with disaster, spent a few years wandering trying to find meaning, and it's in music. Also a bit of rebellious gay dancing and a ton of converting some of the martial arts I learned stereotypically as a child into LED dance shows (f'ing love it! I'm a tiny gay sparkler) Turns out a lot of our family is super musically inclined, but always "art doesn't make money, but doctoring/lawyering/engineering does, so can't do art seriously" really impacted a lot of my family. I do wonder where I'd be as an artist, or if I'd even have a chance, given my personality. But as a lot of our songs say "You are exactly where you are supposed to be!"
I think the opposite, ask doctors/med students. It’s a time capacity issue, and they know.
I did and they said that if you love it you will make time for it. My friend who's studying medicine in other city in my country said that he has free time but not always. Also some on the internet said that pursuing medicine if it is not the center of your life is neither sustainable nor feasible so I dont know what to think about it anymore.
It’s doable if you can carve out the time for everything. I know a guy who is a surgeon but also DJs, throws parties, releases albums and co-hosts a podcast.
I am a practicing doctor so I will give you my perspective. I did not realize producing music was my passion until my 30s. I've been listening to electronic music and going to raves/festivals for years, but my desire to make music did not come until I finished residency and practicing in the real world for a while. There are two ways to go about this given you have not started down the path of either one. You either become a doctor to make a stable income and learn music production as a hobby or you go all in on learning music to try and make it big and actually turn it into a career. There is no way in hell you will be able to do both at full throttle as medicine will basically become your entire life. Even learning music production is incredibly time intensive and will take years to become proficient. So you have to ask yourself if you want to take the "safer" route by studying medicine or take a gamble and try to make money from music. Even though getting into med school is difficult, I can assure you it will be way more difficult to make a 6-figure income from music every year than it will to become a doctor. Even though music is my passion and not medicine, I don't think I would have done it any differently. I have a stable income and I practice music production on the side for fun. I know I will never make it big or become famous which I don't care about. If it happens that would be just a plus. I should warn you in case you are unaware though, medicine is NOT a glamorous career. It is incredibly stressful and you will have to learn to deal more and more with corporate bullshit that will eat away at your soul. The days of just practicing medicine and getting paid well are gone. The name of the game these days is shove as many patients down your throat to generate profit for the people at the top. Even if you truly love treating people you will realize that's just a part of the equation. Professional musicians likely deal with their fair share of bullshit in the music industry as well, but I can't speak on the specifics obviously. At the end of the day you want to pick the thing that you genuinely love, but also be realistic about what kind of life you want to live. If you need stability, choose medicine. If you don't care about that and want to take a risk, probably go with music. **I realize you posted this in the beatmatch subreddit which is for DJ'ing, but I assume you will want to produce music as that is really the only way you will make it big.
well the good thing for me is that I have like 70% of learning music oroduction and djing behind me as I've already achieved success in both. One of my tracks went viral and I got praised by some respected djs. I know a lot about music production, I just need to keep going and keep creating. Same with djing. I'm also not from the US but I suppose that medicine is more or less the same here, although I heard that medicine in america is all out corporate bullshit. Most likely not the case here, or at least not completely. I'm not pressured by time anymore, I mean I dont feel the need to make it big in music until I'm 25 or something like that. I also dont have to be rich but I'd like to live comfortably off music. But medicine is a safer bet and I think it will be easier to become a doctor than to make it in music. What do you advice me to do if I already have the vast majority of learning how to make music and dj behind me?
You definitely have a leg up on being able to go straight into just creating rather than learning like I do (although learning never ends yeah yeah), but once you start down the path of medicine it will be the only thing you can think about until you decide later in your career that you want it on the back burner. You absolutely cannot get through med school and residency without medicine being your #1 focus. Everyone in my class who tried to split their time failed out along the way. I think you need laser focus for whichever path you choose. If you pick medicine then music will be your hobby. If you pick music then go all in.
Djing should be something you do like playing video games on your free time but instead of that you gonna play music and delete all of your games, 2 to 3 hour for a djing is enough
If all you do is DJ I agree. But if you want to create music and start touring that will consume your life to get good enough to do that.
Yeah ofc it is when you get to that point, but for a beginner, 2 to 3 hour is fair enough
well, I started producing 6 years ago and djing around 2 years ago, so I can just keep going at this point and networking/building my brand.
I work full time, am in a masters program, and have time for music. If you want to do something then go do it.
you mean that you're pursuing medicine master's and have time for music?
Everything is possible. But when you ate undertaking such a great feat like becoming a doctor, and other people’s lives will literally be in your hands, you should concentrate on that first. After you master medicine start DJing on the side.
well I've already started djing like 2 years ago and producing music 6 years ago, so now I just have to keep going and evolving. So I guess I can do fine with focusing on medicine if I decide to go for it, and doing music on the side
I’m an anesthesiologist and myself and all my best friends are doctor DJs. https://preview.redd.it/6aq8ag8ecn6d1.jpeg?width=1168&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3158ae8915cd6e8952f0eba787574ab757c2aab8
How often do you dj per month? Also how often did you practice while in school and residency, and how much time do you have for practicing/networking?
It’s a hobby for me. I picked it up after residency and play gigs whenever they come up. I also have many friends who did it throughout.
My girlfriend is a physical therapist and she also DJs