Cebukid - maybe you just need a different work environment Join some of my clients Or other places I've worked. There must be one that would be more responsive to your interests, since the work environments, from the sample here, seem to be pretty evenly split. Get looking!

Cathy

[quote=jotur]

Hey Cathy, either that, or join a band like you.
I work mostly with engineers (all types), and generally, they don't have an appreciation or interest in the arts.

Hi CebuKid, I'm an engineer myself, I work with a lot of them and I married one. A lot of them are interested in music, and play an instrument themselves (my husband plays saxophones, mainly tenor).
Other friends of mine - not engineers - don't care about my piano passion.

I would have to agree. All of the best Engineers have some background in the creative arts. I don't think I've ever met a good one one who didn't. In the days before computer science degrees were ubiquitous, we used to to filter technical resumes looking for musical background when looking for good candidates to train for computer engineering jobs. They always seemed to have the best prospects for success.

This has been a very interesting thread! My personal experience is that musical taste is so personal, that it is virtually impossible to find people in your real life that can share or even appreciate your passion. If you were singing Adele songs strumming acoustic guitar in your dorm room, you have a shot - but Classical and Jazz are just wildly unpopular in general.

The guy who finished our basement was a professional jazz guitarist and one of the original teachers at Berklee. He quit playing pretty much altogether because he just couldn't get anyone to listen. And he even had friends that he could get together with and play!

Interestingly, I've found that professional musicians are the absolute worst for appreciating amateur attempts at music. I guess it makes sense if you think about it as work for them. It would be like asking a Math teacher to correct your homework after a full day teaching. Not fun.

My take has been that through the magic of the internet, if you cast a wide enough net, you will find that handful of souls that are truly appreciative of what you are doing, and are in the same place that you are. It is a game of statistics. Of the billions of people on this earth, you can find the few that like your genre, style, sound, approach and dedication. The Pianoworld forums are awesome for this. Writing and posting to a blog is also great. I've found a few unexpected treasures this way from around the world.

I'll tell you one story... I posted a cover of "You Don't Know What Love Is" in 2011. My blog statistics told me that it was being downloaded 4-6 times a day for about four months in Bremen, Germany. I figured that it was one of those "bots" that will go around and automatically download stuff from the internet. I came to find out that it was a guy from University of Bremen who was going through a really bad breakup. The song struck him as providing just the right mood for his feelings, so he kept playing it!

Someone is out there for whom what you are creating is striking just the right chord....