Musical Careers
- Thread starter smavridis
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mayfly
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:laughing11: :laughing3: :laughing7:
The life of a pro is sadly not that glamorous. Get used to playing on a lot of radio commercials.
If you want to make it big and make lots of cash, the easier way is to sell your gear and buy lottery tickets with the proceeds.
IMHO, the semi-pro thing is much better.
The life of a pro is sadly not that glamorous. Get used to playing on a lot of radio commercials.
If you want to make it big and make lots of cash, the easier way is to sell your gear and buy lottery tickets with the proceeds.
IMHO, the semi-pro thing is much better.
O
OzziePete
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smavridis said:
I think by saying 'semi-pro' he means that you go out and do gigs and get money for doing that, but you also work a 'day job' which pays for the everyday life expenditure things like mortgage or rent, food, electricity, hot and cold running water, clothes etc. The most that you could hope for is that the music will pay for the fuel to and from the gig and some saving money for a better quality holiday somewhere along the track. Unless of course, you hit the bigtime.
I read recently a guy from - I think the band was Weezer - worked as a janitor at the local high school til they landed that big recording contract. The kids at that school were quite amazed that their janitor showed up on MTV one night!
Many smart musos won't bank too much on cracking the big time and find a niche market to work within instead. Like doing a heap of commercials for a radio commercial producer, keeping in his good books by being on time and open to variations in work etc.
My old guitar teacher used to work the country circuit in my home state when I was getting lessons from him years ago. At the time it was a very lucrative gig to get, he was only available for teaching two nights a week, and was gigging around Sydney and outer regions for four others. He was however, not banking on the country gigs being ongoing and he was undertaking study to upgrade his teaching qualifications and had ambition to become a music teacher at a high school. He also was an electrician by trade, and would occasionally do some electrical work for people he knew, and even some work for the clubs he did gigs at.
jackthehack
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You will be supremely qualified to get a job as barista or bartender; bouncer as well if suited physically.
Volitions Advocate
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Make sure you're cute and try to get a job in asia. but you dont need a degree for that.
All the bars have a house band that plays 4 hrs/day 6 days/week. Might not pay more than working a half decent job over here, and you have to live there.....
singapore... korea, phillipines ... maybe japan if you're really really lucky
All the bars have a house band that plays 4 hrs/day 6 days/week. Might not pay more than working a half decent job over here, and you have to live there.....
singapore... korea, phillipines ... maybe japan if you're really really lucky
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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One of the most lucrative markets for a G.I.T. grad is landing session work due to the contacts made while at G.I.T, or teach. Many grads yield top dollar for private lessons, you make the schedule, and you have enough well rounded theory and genre education that you can be marketable to more than just the audience that you hope your original music yields.
Creativity made this business what it was, and it will be creativity that will save it from extinction.
The traditional "record contract = riches" model is no longer applicable. Artist have to find new ways of earning money from being a musician, and that no longer means, just playing music.
Creativity made this business what it was, and it will be creativity that will save it from extinction.
The traditional "record contract = riches" model is no longer applicable. Artist have to find new ways of earning money from being a musician, and that no longer means, just playing music.
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GP
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I have a buddy who graduated from Berklee, and, no joke, landed a job with the circus. Ringling Bros. for two years and then he wound up with the Cirque du Soliel organization. He still works with them.
TonyFlyingSquirrel
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Corporate gigs such as casinos and cruise ships playing top 40 hits are sometimes more lucrative than being an original indie artist.
Sad reality, but true nonetheless.
Sad reality, but true nonetheless.
It really all depends on your motivation and what you’re willing to accept as a career.
I'm a Berklee grad, yet now I work in accounting. Out of my two best friends from Berklee. One quit music after a few years and will be getting his doctorate next month in medicine. The other works in LA doing post audio for video games. As for the rest of my friends. Some teach music, some work AV, some completely gave up and are working day jobs, some are still living like they're 19 touring and trying to scrape by living out of the back of van. Sadly no one is really making a solid living in it (thank you facebook for keeping me updated) The most famous person I knew from college dropped out after two semesters and didn't graduate. He's won a bunch of grammy's and dated Jennifer Anniston last year, so...
Music school's are sort of like a kick ass guitar, or boutique effects pedal. It's great to have, and I highly recommend it, but it all depends how you use it.
I'm a Berklee grad, yet now I work in accounting. Out of my two best friends from Berklee. One quit music after a few years and will be getting his doctorate next month in medicine. The other works in LA doing post audio for video games. As for the rest of my friends. Some teach music, some work AV, some completely gave up and are working day jobs, some are still living like they're 19 touring and trying to scrape by living out of the back of van. Sadly no one is really making a solid living in it (thank you facebook for keeping me updated) The most famous person I knew from college dropped out after two semesters and didn't graduate. He's won a bunch of grammy's and dated Jennifer Anniston last year, so...
Music school's are sort of like a kick ass guitar, or boutique effects pedal. It's great to have, and I highly recommend it, but it all depends how you use it.
Well, you'll play music for the rest of your life if you love it, but to extract money for what you do takes a real focused approach. The big money in commercial music is and always has been the songwriting residuals - Mick & Keith and Robert & Jimmy are famous for being the the Stones and Led Zeppelin, but they're RICH because they got a few fractions of a penny each and every time their music got played on the radio, all those classic rock stations, all those years... nowadays young writers look for immediate commercial, movie, video-game tie-ins. I tell my students that the best career (I wish I'd chased) is in writing for films and TV - there's millions of hours of vid being shot in Hollywood, every year - but it's an increasingly crowded field.
Of the two best guitarists I knew & played with growing up, one of them owns a studio in Minneapolis and the other is a professor at Berklee School of Music in Boston. They both still play out with their bands, but they just didn't want the touring thing - the odds against massive success are way against you. Leo Whitebird in Mpls. has played on tons of projects he's produced, and Julien Kasper in Boston has a couple of great CD's out, but for long term planning it's good to have at least one other way to extract money from the world, whether it's as an adjunct to music or as a $50-an-hour plumber.
Of the two best guitarists I knew & played with growing up, one of them owns a studio in Minneapolis and the other is a professor at Berklee School of Music in Boston. They both still play out with their bands, but they just didn't want the touring thing - the odds against massive success are way against you. Leo Whitebird in Mpls. has played on tons of projects he's produced, and Julien Kasper in Boston has a couple of great CD's out, but for long term planning it's good to have at least one other way to extract money from the world, whether it's as an adjunct to music or as a $50-an-hour plumber.
dbw said:
Yeah. He lived down the hall from me in the dorms during my sophmore year. Honestly he wasn't there long enough for me to even remember much. We still have a bunch of mutual friends, but we never hung out.
Maybe that's the key to success, you never know who'll be famous, so make friends with everyone and practice riding coat tails.
If you're good at teaching then you can make a decent living teaching guitar, especially if you teach in small groups rather than individually. My former guitar teacher charged $20 per 1/2 hour lesson. Now if he was teaching in a group of 3, that's $60 for 1/2 of work, and if you have enough students that you're teaching back to back lessons every afternoon, you could make pretty good money...but you'll only get a lot of enrollment if you're good at teaching. The big problem I notice with a lot of music teachers is that they are great at the music part, but they have no clue about teaching.
