Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-11-15 15:29
As I said up topic a bit, I was pretty much guaranteed a living in the high five figures (in modern day, adjusted for inflation, dollars) when working as a union bricklayer. I did have to go through an apprenticeship as a youngster (and ate a lot of donuts once a week at the apprenticeship school), but once I had the card it was money in the bank from that day forward, with no additional formal training or skills maintenance.
There were, of course, downsides to the work. You were out in the weather (neither summer nor winter is the time to be blasting down the line on a three story wall), you had to work with your hands (and your hands developed a number of specialized calluses as a result, two of which interfere with clarinet and sax playing), you could injure your back if you were not careful, and you did have the stigma of "working in a trade". But, you also had your evenings and weekends free, you had a medical plan, you got vacation (and paid vacation every year) and all of the other benefits of working in an organized environment.
Of course, I don't work as a bricklayer any longer. (The last time that I picked up the tools was to help lay up a cousin's house back in the 1980's.) If for no other reason, I really hated laying up concrete block, enough alone not to want to do it in my eyes. But, if push came to shove and I had to give up my cushy current employment/retirement, I could pull my tools out of the attic, move back up north, and take up working as a union journeyman for about $70,000 a year - iffen I had to. The jobs are there, the knowledge is there, and (if necessary) the motivation would be there.
Flexibility is a wonderful thing. You aren't guaranteed a job in any field unless you have that silver spoon in your mouth. But, you can pick and choose a bit during your youth to ensure that there will be some call for your services once you reach adulthood. And, there is much more demand for some skills than for others.
Buggy whip fabrication is a non-starter these days, as is pony groomer. There may be call for a dozen or so of each of these in the worldwide market, but not much more than that. Picking a profession where there is a demand for your skills makes it a lot easier to find that elusive job when you have to go looking for it.
On the grand continuum of life, buggy whip fabricator is down there at the bottom, whatever the "engineer du jour" is is up there at the top, and everything else is somewhere in the middle. You can argue about the relative position on the scale, but when push comes to shove a classical musician is going to be more buggy whip end than the other.
Conversely, there's a lot of call for engineers of all stripes, and we here in the US of A are often forced to hire someone from off shore (and with far less than optimal English language skills) because we can't find any qualified US candidates. I've had this problem with corrosion engineers, chemical engineers and (occasionally) with mechanical engineers.
On the other hand, I've known any number of musicians who I can't hire (since they don't have the technical or work knowledge), people who "can't find a job". And, when singing this lament, many act as if they were not the person who made the decision not to be a (insert name of in-demand job skill here).
Guaranteed lifetime employment? Right, there's no such thing for anyone other than the idle rich. But, more marketable skills to get the jobs that are there? Yes, there are literally thousands of careers that offer more chance of even marginal success than do those in the music world.
(And, to a limited degree, there are jobs within the music field that offer work that some don't want to take. I've met any number of string folks who don't do Broadway show (or "pit") work. It pays well enough, the conditions are not that bad (as long as they don't use one of the bad fog machines up on stage), and it can be pretty steady once you have established yourself. It's only that "I only want to play (insert name of favorite music type) when I perform" mindset that keeps them from realizing some decent (for a musician) income. So, they spend their precious time driving to marginal orchestras within a two hundred mile radius just so they can "do" classical and romantic period music. Their decision, their pocketbook - and I don't expect them to whine about "There's no money to be made" when they turn down local work that would cost them three times less in gas and time.
As it has been for many years, the best advice to musicians remains:
"Get a real job, and then play your clarinet on the side in your ample spare time."
You can argue around the margins of that statement all you want, but reality still remains reality. Unless you're one in a hundred thousand, that's the only realistic advice to give someone considering a career in music, particularly in music performance.
Those who don't heed it are usually the kind of folks who like to buy lottery tickets, seeing that route as the path to wealth and glory. In both cases, I hope (for their sake) that they win. And, in both cases, if I could bet against their success (solely for my own, selfish personal gain, not for the pleasure of seeing them fail), I would do it because I know that is a real winning proposition.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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