How Many Of You...

[BlueStrat]

 

The problem comes in when everyone around me wants to make tons of money in music. Then I feel obligated to construct my music and myself around this.

I don't think the issue is people wanting to make 'tons of money' so much as to just make a living at it.

 

Where I live, the average income is about 32k a year. That's just about enough to keep a roof over your head, a car payment, insurance, utilities, groceries, gas, clothing, and a little bit of fun stuff.

 

For a musician to earn 32k a year, though, especially doing their own music, is increasingly difficult and rare. Add to that the fact that if you're traveling, which you will have to do if you're going to be anything more than a local band, it will cost you nearly double to be on the road.

 

Oh, you can get by with less-you can sleep on floors or couches of strangers, you can eat one meal a day out of fast food joints, you can recycle your dirty clothes before doing laundry, you can make your guitar strings last a little longer-things like that, but that is hardly a 'living'. It is an existence, and sooner or later, it gets tiresome and demoralizing. The idea of playing for little to nothing for the sake of your craft is a romantic one, and maybe even noble-but sooner or later, you have to start seeing some compensation for your efforts or you end up feeling like you're just spinning your wheels. At least that's what happened to me after 3 straight years on the road.

 

One other thing to consider: while it may be that we as musicians don't feel like profit ought to be our motive for playing, it is not so with other people in the business who we need in order for us to have any kind of success. Club owners, promoters and presenters, ticket sellers, ad people, recording studios and engineers, agents, managers, etc etc etc are more often than not in it for the money as much as anything else, and if you aren't making money, they likely aren't either, and have no incentive to work with you.

 

The bottom line is, it costs little to no money to make art. But getting it out into the public at any kind of level beyond just your hometown and Myspace does cost, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idealist.

[Nearthemusic]

I've always realized the unlikelihood of actually making a career out of music alone. That's why I went to college and got a degree. That said, I know that I would always regret not giving music a real go. Sometimes you have to crash and burn to really learn something: there's a difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing something emotionally...

[drewl]

I've had friends and old bandmates far more talented than me (if it matters) "give it a go" and like I said twenty years on I have the same music career they do with alot more to show for it.

[Synonym Music]

 

I've had friends and old bandmates far more talented than me (if it matters) "give it a go" and like I said twenty years on I have the same music career they do with alot more to show for it.

 

They weren't in the right field. The chances of success are that nil and that random. Conversely, I'm sure there are musicians out there who pursued a different field but could've easily become famous in music. It's just exceptionally rare.

 

Most of the people who fail in engineering suck (not all, but most). Unfortunately a lot of {censored} rises to the top with musicians.