“Playing Music Shouldn’t Feel Like Work” | Nathan Mays on Music, Burnout & Finding a Better Way

<p class="isSelectedEnd">What happens when the career you spent years building starts taking away the thing you loved about music in the first place?</p>

<p class="isSelectedEnd">Nathan Mays has been playing bass for more than 23 years, working across country, variety bands, musical theatre and more experimental music while also studying music composition to Master's level.</p>

<p class="isSelectedEnd">But after years of gigging, Nathan found himself becoming increasingly disillusioned with the professional music scene. Music was becoming a job — and, in his words, "playing music shouldn't feel like work."</p>

<p class="isSelectedEnd">So he stepped back.</p>

<p class="isSelectedEnd">Today, Nathan's focus is increasingly on music education, where his experiences as a player, composer and teacher have come together in his own approach to learning bass: Feel, Form and Function.</p>

<p class="isSelectedEnd">In this episode of Now That's Bass, we talk about:</p>

<p class="isSelectedEnd">• Why Nathan stepped away from the professional music grind<br>

• The darker side of the music world that musicians don't always talk about<br>

• What real gigs teach you that music school can't<br>

• Why chops don't matter if you can't actually do the job<br>

• The problem with collecting information instead of actually learning<br>

• Why so many bass players practise without a target<br>