We were lucky to catch up with Neil Patton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Neil, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I graduated from music school in ’94, but not sure of what to do or where to go. I had wanted to be a “rock star” when I started school, but soon realized I hated suitcases. I also realized I wanted a stable home life with the woman I was thinking about marrying (also a musician), and a life on the road was not going to help that goal.

I landed a job at a machine shop and started working on my own music on the side as a composer and freelance performer, as well as a church musician. I was eventually offered an internship at my church as a worship pastor, which eventually turned into a part-time job. After another year, I was also able to quit the factory job and start teaching piano privately from our rental when my father-in-law sent us his old upright piano. We eventually moved into our current home which has a separate building that serves as my office and teaching/recording studio.

For 27 years, I worked three jobs: Church musician, private piano instructor, and freelance performer and composer. I released my first album of original music in 1998, and then stopped as we began to raise a family. I re-entered the recording world in 2007 with my first solo-piano album. I have now released six albums and am about to release my seventh. I have also self-published four songbooks of my original music. I retired from vocational ministry in June of ’22, and I now run a private studio of 32 piano students. Covid interrupted my plans to tour and perform more, but I am now reviving those plans as people now seem ready to come and see live music again.

So, practically speaking, it has worked for me from day one. I haven’t pursued some dreams as quickly as I had envisioned, but I do feel the decisions along the way have been the right ones for my family. One thing that has helped is having a spouse who understands the dreams, and helps to make them a reality. We’ve prioritized the creative part of my life financially (within reason), which has allowed me to work with reasonable limitations.

Neil, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I see music (and art in general) as a sort of ministry. I believe we, as humans, are made to be “makers” of one sort or another. I’ve seen first-hand how music and art can reach in like medicine and change lives for the better. Music is a way for me to encourage and build up others, especially as I write most of my music as therapy for myself.

Whether I am performing, or serving in a worship service, or helping a young student understand the inner workings of music theory, I see it all as an opportunity to bring beauty into a world where ugliness has become more and more the norm. I try to treat each person I meet as one who is created in the image of God, and thus full of value. I don’t always succeed, but that’s the goal. So when I work with clients, meet fans at concerts, or encourage a nervous student, I want to be that encourager.

My music is passionate and intimate, and hopefully never considered as mere “content”. It might take some time for folks to understand what I’m saying with my music, but the result tends to be that they engage deeply after spending some time with it.

I never planned on being a teacher until it was the most viable option to support my family while staying in music. In the past 27 years it has become a joy for me, and a deep passion. Helping young people (and some older ones, too) find joy in making music is a wonderful but challenging experience. And I do hope to instill in them the goal of serving others with their own music when they share their gifts.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I am still learning this one. It has taken me my whole life to treat the composing part of my work as a real job. This is hard because the payback for composing is not immediate, nor very profitable. Teaching and performing gigs can buy groceries right NOW, so they often have forced me to put my composing and creative work in the tiny empty places in my schedule, if at all.

Lately I am realizing the importance of blocking out time to simply sit at my composing desk or piano and “mess around”, trying new things, learning new software, getting ideas down that can become complete works of music. The art of composing is really glorified “messing around”, as it requires a child-like wonder and freedom to experiment, and these require TIME. Free of distractions. Free of the internet. Free from my cell phone.

I do believe I’d be farther along if I had learned this sooner, but with three jobs it was almost impossible. Dropping my vocational ministry work has now allowed me to work on this part of my ministry, and it’s exciting!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I honestly dislike the term “creative” when used as a noun. It seems associated with “influencer” in the social media lexicon, and for the general public, hints at “someone without a real job”.

Being a professional music is a real job, and requires years and decades of work and discipline to make it viable. Yet I am STILL approached by professionals in related fields asking if I will come and give hours or even weeks of work to a production for free. These are events with budgets, but they rarely seem to include music into that budget. It’s that idea of “messing around” again. It’s just fun, so they assume you will come and do this without pay, even though they are paying the caterers, speakers, venue staff and even the venue itself to make the event possible.

We would never ask an electrician to come and work on our house for free, but we balk at paying a livable wage to live musicians at a club. I once sat in with a band at a local winery. They scraped to pay $300 to a four-piece band that played for three hours and brought thousands of dollars of gear and sound equipment for the event. The place was packed and the wine was flowing. We were good, and we were a big part of making the event very successful. But it just wasn’t worth being away from my family for all the rehearsals and the event itself, to only be payed $75 at the end of it. Heck, $20 of that went to gas.

I am incredibly blessed to get to do what I do. I would not trade it for anything. However, music has become disposable, almost like a kind of “audio-wallpaper”. We can stream it for free anywhere anytime, so there is no investment from the listener. In reality, there are years of study and thousands upon thousands of dollars of investment from the musicians themselves, in education and instruments and recording and maintenance costs. All we ask is that we be taken as seriously as any other professional in other fields. We’ll keep making music. We can’t help it. But we might not be as available or productive if we can’t pay the rent. [End of rant. Carry on.]

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.neilpatton.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neilpatton
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neilpattonmusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilpattonmusic
• Twitter: https://x.com/NeilPattonMusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpattonmusic
• Other: https://ffm.bio/neilpattonmusic

Image Credits

Neil Patton, Mark Willett, Bradley Engel