Niche

Written: Sat. 19 November 2011

What is it you look forward to doing, when life affords you a break from what you HAVE to do every day? THAT’S your truth. For me, there are two strong pulls – playing my guitar, and writing. Sometimes, when I have to choose, because the gap between scheduled activities is so small, the decision is organic: I simply go wherever the pull is the strongest at the time. For really short gaps, I pick up my guitar and play whatever comes to mind. At other times, if I have a long stretch of time, as in hours, or even a whole day (quite unusual), I try to balance the time between the two. Both restore my sense of balance, as well as my feeling that I’m living my life according to my own terms, that wonderful, heady feeling of freedom that dawns on me every now and then.

This has been a year like no other, and the lessons in humility and frugalness I’ve had to learn will most likely be my best allies in the years ahead, as my thoughts turn to what it is I really want to do, to earn a living.

In a sense, it’s merely an academic exercise, this “wondering what it is I want to do” – because I know, just like I’ve known for a long, long time: it’s simple – it’s music! I’ve been teaching guitar lessons since March this year, and I now have 24 students. I’ve sat and done some projections: it’s entirely possible for me to earn an acceptable (not lavish) income from doing just this. I’d have to work hard and smart, and treat it very seriously (as I currently do, anyway), but run it as a tight business enterprise. For me, that’s just the start. This year has shown me the most important thing, and it’s this: I don’t have to do what everyone else is doing, even as a guitar teacher. I need to do what I love doing, and the rest just flows. My niche market is a different one, as I’ve always been convinced there was a significant part of the population wanting to play the guitar socially, to strum chords and play songs they can sing along to, either alone or with others. That’s my market, not people wanting to study music to write exams and do their grades. I can refer my students to teachers who do that, if they get to a point where they want to.

I have quite a few challenges, the most important being to set it up as a small business enterprise. Actually, that’s just one of the important challenges. I’ve learnt some big lessons the hard way, this year, and two of them are:
1) it’s crazy for me to drive to my students’ homes to teach them – it impacts on two of the most important elements, time and money, limiting my productivity and potential income, and
2) I have to establish a simple, effective, no-nonsense fee-collecting system, to cut out the inconvenience and anxiety I’ve had to endure, this year.

So my challenges are clear, as I approach 2012 and consider developing this venture along more serious lines. Knowing myself, I can safely say that setting up the guitar lessons in this way is just the skeleton of what my life will be about – I am a creative person, and teaching guitar lessons, day in and day out, in 30-minute timeslots, could become as unfulfilling as sitting behind a computer in an office; no, my vision extends way beyond this. The one thing I know I need, in order to feel “alive and kicking”, is the excitement of a new project to sink my teeth into. Based on this, I can guarantee you there’ll be lots more I’ll be doing with my time, involving music, but also aimed at another one of my life’s goals: to make a difference in post-apartheid South Africa.

The more the universe exposes me to different people and the realities of life in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly in my city, Cape Town, the more I’m convinced my real role lies in merging these two passions, and forming a collective of some kind, aimed at enhancing people’s lives through music, by taking music to them and affording them opportunities to learn, explore and extend that side of themselves. The real challenge then becomes finding a model which will fulfil my philanthropic needs and earn me a sustainable income, on which to support my family, as a single mother.

And with that, it’s just about time for my alarm to go off, as I prepare to teach a few guitar lessons, do some housework and spend time with my amazing children. You have to be amazing to put up with me! :-) The good news is that, while I do spend a lot of time in my head, planning, dreaming, conjuring up projects, I do move beyond this and bring the dreams to life. But more importantly, for me, success always has meant - and always will - success for the collective, not just the individual.

Utopia. Such a fun place to go to, in my head. :-)