I just wonder, if making money ISN’T the focus of one’s life Gary, why you often show such scorn for musicians who eschew the easy money of doing a single so they can still practice the art of music making with others?

Without musicians like that, you would never have learned the art of playing in the first place. It just seems rather petty to laugh at them now for making less than you did because they still wanted to play with each other. And comparing their salary to a waiter’s (while you admit even you made less) to somehow justify your decision to go solo doesn’t seem to make sense. Either money is the object or it isn’t.

Having made the admission that your going home happy is what made it worth while getting out of a better paid medical job, why doesn’t it ever occur to you that those large band musicians feel the exact same way? About playing with just a machine…