 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2015-01-20 22:19
Just for the sake of clarification. . . .
A musician is someone who loads $4,000 or more of instruments into a $500 car and drives 100 miles to get to a $50 gig.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-01-20 22:47
You're somewhat satirical but also true statement Bart, might, in fairness be written as :
A musician is someone who chooses, knowing that making a living being a musician would involve sacrifices, and lugging of equipment, and likely not much financial reward, as only 3 of many examples of their sacrifice, loads $4,000 or more of instruments into a $500 car and drives 100 miles to get to a $50 gig, knowing that they derive pleasure in what they do for a living, and often touch the lives of others they perform for or pass their craft on to.
And yes, despite all that acceptance and choice, it's still tough.
Post Edited (2015-01-20 22:48)
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2015-01-21 17:14
Alas, I know very few musicians who actually make a living wage through their vocation. Most have to also get a "real" job to pay the bills. A professional musician friend lists among his most useful qualification that he is a licensed electrician and has a permit to drive semi-trailers.
Tony F.
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Author: GeorgeL ★2017
Date: 2015-01-21 17:49
Does every graduate student seeking a performance degree believe that s/he is going to be the exception who hits the music job lottery? The backup plan for many recent grads seems to be teaching music, but even those jobs must be pretty competitive in some areas of the country.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-01-21 18:16
I hope not George, but herein lies a bit of a paradox.
No matter how good you are, and especially if you've clawed your way to the high degree of proficiency that you claim today, in order to have at least a fighting chance to make it to second rounds in auditions, you often have to give your instrument darn near 100% of your available time, not allowing for study of the very backup disciplines that might land you employment should making it as a performer not pan out.
This isn't to say that some top professionals today didn't also get co-degrees in other disciplines. I guess they were so brilliant at play, combined with all around intelligence, that they were able to do this.
Fine balance must lie between, "I won't make it if I don't try," and "I probably won't make it even if I do give it my all."
In this day and age, my advice is to not solely be a performance major unless you are both virtuosic and feel there is nothing else in life, but music performance, that will make you happy. People with backup plans, should such performance major prove revenueless, the independently wealthy, and those who can fall back on family business perhaps form an exception.
If you're one of the "lucky" ones, you'll be able to find work in Europe (speaking to American players that is), away from family. This is NOT meant as some disparaging view of Europe, but rather that you'll have to leave home to make a living.
It's advice I don't enjoy giving, and wish the environment was such that advice of this type wasn't pragmatically correct. I wished we lived in a world where a clarinetist whose put 20 years of their life into play got more recognition that some girl who writes/sings a song about a certain day of the week that shall remain nameless, "but falls between Thursday and Saturday."
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-01-21 18:21
In other disciplines such as teaching and engineering, depending on the job market (which could change up or down dramatically or unexpectedly between the time one chooses that field and actually goes looking for a position), it may be just as difficult to find $$$$ in one's chosen field.
Perhaps the difference is that, after the graduate has spent a few years in a lower paid unrelated vocation, the market for teachers or engineers has a fair chance of reversing, and that is less likely for professional musicians. ("President bemoans lack of qualified clarinetists, begs middle schoolers to consider music careers." Naaaaaahhhh)
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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