From: david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth)
Newsgroups: rec.music.funky,rec.music.makers,rec.music.synth,alt.rap,alt.rave
Subject: Re: Tha Bizness.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 04:46:31 EST
Organization: DAVID A. ROTH MUSIC
Reply-To: david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth)
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.5v4


In article <1992Dec14.201810.11170@cs.ucla.edu> (rec.music.funky,rec.music.makers,rec.music.synth,alt.rap,alt.rave), gds@york.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) writes:
> 
> In article <0105009A.l1ojqo@david.roth-music.com> david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth) writes:
> >This is true but in the quiet evenings while all is asleep you will
> >be the one who sits and thinks of what could have been.
> 
> Equally, you may be a struggling musician, thinking on the quiet
> evenings about your friends in other professions, who are making
> decent incomes.  I have a friend who is an aspiring actor who is going
> through this.  He is thinking about going back to law school.

This is the kind of thing that keeps people not to dare believe in
themself.  You are missing the point.  It is not the arrival, that
is the success, but the journey.  If you are judging success by incomes
than I'm sure that rich crooks would be considered successful and
the guy that runs the small local church a jerk because he didn't
complete an MBA and get a "real" job.  I'm sure that the struggling musician,
actor, artist, salesperson, teacher, etc stories has helped make a lot of
people who don't have the guts to dare to do things feel smug that they
have a steady paycheck and fool themself for not following their trueself.

> 
> >If you want something bad enough you will find a way to do it within
> >your own means. [...]
> >If you let thoughts like, "What if I don't make it...", then you never
> >will.  This applies to anything.  Starting your own business, opening
> >up a store front, becoming a doctor, teaching children, joining the
> >miltary, etc.
> 
> Yes, I agree that this applies to anything.  However, for several
> reasons, breaking into the music business is much more difficult and
> there is very little security, unlike becoming a doctor, opening a
> store, etc.

Most businesses fail within the first couple of years because of bad
management and you think opening a store is secure?  Open your yellow
pages and see the huge ads for doctors.  My attorney tells me about
attorneys looking so hard for work that they go down to the court
house records looking for people who had accidents and these guys
write them letters telling them they may have cause for legal action
to sue on their behalf.  Can't be all that secure competing for a practice.
I'm sure the advise to "go to law school" didn't come from within.

The music business is like any other business.  You have to understand
it and do your homework and follow through.  Simply saying it is diffcult
is to say that to become successful in terms of income in any business
is diffcult.  Placing music as something different shows a lack of
understand of the business.  But like any business it will be the
person taking action on their own and not by the tired old stories
of how people just got lucky.


>  This is not to say that no one should try, but that they
> should have a clear plan of action (and also an understanding that
> they may not make it, and that they'll need to fall back on something
> else if they don't).

Something to fall back on?  Like teach.  This explains alot of the
bad teachers.  If you are not willing to put your best forward than
perhaps saying at home with covers pulled tightly over your head is
what's best for you.  After all, someone has to deliver the mail.
> 
> This points out a difference between entering the music business and
> some other business (like medicine).  You don't hear very many people
> in medical school thinking about what they might do if they are unable
> to get a job once they graduate.  There are almost as many reasonably
> paying medical jobs as there are people who want those jobs.

If someone enters college or starts a plan without even a thought of
how to complete it, it's their fault not the industry they selected.
It's also the fault of the school not to prepare them which leads
it back to having to do this yourself.  Simply entering a field or
industry because you can find a job in it, is a poor reason if you
would really rather do something else.


David
david@roth-music.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.funky,rec.music.cd