 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: missclarinetist
Date: 2006-05-30 08:53
Just interested to know where you first started your pro job in the performing art scene. This does not apply to teaching. How many years did it take you to reach pro level? Who did you studied with and how many years you spent freelancing playing for a youth orchestra until you reach pro?
As for me, I'm still learning as a college student. I've played the clarinet for ten years, and currently play for two university orchestras. Before that I've played for two youth orchestras. I know that music is competitive to enter into the professional world, and believe me I have experienced a few myself!
Post Edited (2006-05-30 08:55)
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Author: William
Date: 2006-05-30 14:09
If you define "pro" as playing clarinet for money, I became a professional at the age of 16 when I joined the AFM and earned my first Music Performance Trust Fund check for a local and concert in the park. And after only one year of private study. However, at the same age, I did earn more money as a professional lawn mower.............(self taught).
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2006-05-30 14:38
Began playing clarinet in 1979 at the age of 13. Made my first money in 2004 at the age of 37 when I played with a woodwind quartet at the bassoonist's sister's wedding for $50. That works out to $2 a year. I spent it all in one place.
________________
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
- Pope John Paul II
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Author: FrankM
Date: 2006-05-30 15:33
In about 1970, I played tenor sax and clarinet in a polka band. I was 14 or 15 years old. At the end of the gig, the accordion player handed me a $50 bill . Any of you old timers remember what $50 would buy a teenager in 1970? I was rich. Last weekend I played a gig and also made $50....it bought considerably less this time !
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-05-30 15:46
I'm not a pro musician per se, though I get paid to play some of the time. That said, my first paid gig was when I was around 16, playing in a dinner theatre pit orchestra three nights a week, for $20 US per night. That was good money for a teenager in the early 1970s! What's depressing is that today, almost all the dinner theatres have disappeared around here, and the few that remain use recorded music rather than live bands. And, most of the pit orchestras (other than the very few Union gigs) in my area STILL pay around $20-25 per service, which, accounting for inflation in the intervening 30 years, amounts to chump change (well below minimum wage).
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Author: GBK
Date: 2006-05-30 16:37
When I was 14, Anton Stadler asked me to join him in a few duets.
He promised to pay me 40 gold ducats.
I'm still waiting for the money...GBK
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Author: hartt
Date: 2006-05-30 17:03
.....and I'm older, yet.
play for $.........when my grandmother would visit, she paid me $1 to practice ( 1958 ish)
regards
dennis
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2006-05-30 19:19
hartt wrote:
> .....and I'm older, yet.
>
> play for $.........when my grandmother would visit, she paid me
> $1 to practice ( 1958 ish)
Heh. My grandmother paid me $2 not to practice ...
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Author: hartt
Date: 2006-05-30 20:02
mark ..... $2...![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
inflation and cost of living increases........
was that due to a 'merit' increase or was it the 'going' rate
regards
dennis
btw....my mom paid me $1.50 NOT to practice ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
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Author: John O'Janpa
Date: 2006-05-30 22:30
Played sax and electric bass in a rock and roll band at the local honky tonk bar in 1962 at age 18. Got paid $20.
Haven't been paid for for playing clarinet yet, although there is a possibility that could change this 4th of July. There's a chance our wind Symphony may get a radio gig doing patriotic marches etc.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2006-05-30 23:22
Hi,
I have always had a day gig (teaching in schools and privately) but my first steady pay job was with the Four Kinds of Swing during the summer of 1954 at the Port Clinton, OH Eagles. I was 15 at the time. I can't remember what we made but we worked every Friday and Saturday. There were other pay gigs earlier when I was probably 14.
I do remember playing often on Friday nights after the home football games. There was always a dance at the IOOF Hall or the Grotto and as I remember, we made no more than $8-10 for 2 hours. But that was during the mid-1950s and a new Selmer Mark VI was about $550 to $600 (gas was about $.26 a gallon). I was playing a Selmer Signet clarinet with a SWS B2 MP and a Balanced Action Selmer tenor with a Berg Larson 105-2. Funny what you remember. My sister got a brand new Mark VI alto which I am still playing today as my #1 (same resonators and the original lacquer).
Within a couple of years I was playing lots of gigs, shows, the circus, Ice Capades, some scattered concert band pay jobs. Doubles became very important.
HRL
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Author: diz
Date: 2006-05-31 00:31
In Sydney, in 1984 with the ABC Sinfonia (a now sadly defunct orchestra funded by Australia's national broadcaster).
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2006-05-31 04:05
Back in the early '60's I sat in occasionally for my teacher in the community band summer concerts. I got paid $20 for rehearsal and performance. Once, I had Rafael Mendez tell me that I missed a G#. (Hey, I knew that.)
Bob Phillips
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Author: DaveF
Date: 2006-05-31 04:35
Played keyboards in rock bands through high school, but first paying gig on clarinet: the Mark Foutch summer concert band in Champaign, Illinois in the 1970's. Park concerts mainly. He had us wear his heavy wool red marching uniforms.........think of central Illinois in the summer........get the picture! Don't recall the wage, but it was a union band, and I was thrilled getting a check for playing.
Dave F.
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Author: ClariTone
Date: 2006-05-31 04:39
Since we seem to be giving our first paying gig experience...I was 15 or 16 and played for a local pit orchestra. Continue to do so... Got paid about uh...$200.00 total (VERY generous for doing what I love!!!)
Clayton
Post Edited (2006-05-31 04:41)
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Author: allencole
Date: 2006-05-31 07:12
My first paying gig was playing electric bass for a theatrical production. My first as a woodwind player was in the house band at a resort hotel. Was hired as a clarinetist and learned saxophone OTJ. Because housing was provided by the employer and very cheap, I bought most of my instruments that year.
Allen Cole
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2006-06-01 00:09
I wish I had started off as did Louis Armstrong (in a house of ill repute, I believe it was...........)
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Author: Chris Hill
Date: 2006-06-01 01:09
I started playing freelance jobs in 1980, as a college student. I won my first orchestra audition one year after finishing my master's degree (Binghamton, NY, a part-time position.) I won my current, full-time position with the South Dakota Symphony three years after my master's.
When playing some jobs, it has felt like I worked in a house of ill repute!
Chris Hill
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Author: 3dogmom
Date: 2006-06-01 01:22
The first time I got paid for playing the clarinet, I was in college, and it was a funky thrown-together marching band for Memorial Day. I received my pay in a little envelope. I made the mistake of not opening it on the spot. The guys in the group received $20. I got $10. Women's libbers, unite.
Sue Tansey
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