From: LindaMc@world.std.com (Linda M McInnis)
Subject: Re: Tha Bizness.
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 22:38:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.073306.10371@cs.ucla.edu> gds@cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) writes:
>
>I could go on here, but I think you're getting the point.  It would be
>nice if there were enough decent paying music jobs to accomodate all
>of us "quiet desperate" folks who love music and would like to perform
>it for pay, but there aren't.  I have some opinions on why that is,
>but I've already gone on too long about this.
>
I know I'll get hate mail on this reply but here goes....

There are a LOT of good paying musical jobs but there are very few
chances to make millions of dollars.  One of the problems I hear
when I deal with musicians is that they all want a million
selling album and zillions of dollars for doing it.

There are lots of musicians who make a good satisfying living out
of music but it is because they have an attainable set of expectations.  
For example, Livingston Taylor spoke about this a short time ago at
event I was at that every fan of yours you create is $200 in your pocket
over the lifetime of your career.

I think it's a question of choices and quite often I hear the same
complaints from people who are in the software industry as the
music industry: they want to get rich quick and are not willing
to compromise along the way on anything or to decide what is
really satisfying to them personally.  They just don't think about
what it's like to be famous.  I guess the question to ask is
what do you want from music and what are you willing to give
to get it?  For that matter that applies to all of life.  

If you set your life
up in a way where you spend more than you earn (i.e. having
children you can't afford, living somewhere you can't afford
buying a car you can't afford, etc.) then you've set yourself
up for failure and you have no one to blame but yourself-it's
not the system or society, the problem is you and the choices
you've made.

For example, in Boston where you can get a place to share and
spend about $250/month-$700/month, do public transportation,
etc., you can have a very comfortable lifestyle on $600 to 
$1000/month.  Band gigs can get you about that much if you
play out once a week.  If you're more dedicated, you can
probalby do better.  If you take on a family to support, you
have just made a choice about lifestyle which has 
financial consequences but don't say that someone else
made you do it unless there was a gun to your head. It is 
a choice.  If you want to play music for a living, fine
are you willing to starve for a while to do it?  Are you
willing to compromise and spend part of your time working
at non-music so you can do music?  And what are your goals
about music.  One thing I ask bands to do before I decide
to manage them is what are their goals for the next
5 years, the next year, next month, tomorrow and today.
If they can't give me a realistic estimate of what they
want I end the interview because they don't know where
they want to go and so I can't get them there.  I can
only help people get where they want to go-I can't pick
a direction for them.

Alright, I'm braced for the hate mail from tortured 
artists...:-)

P. S. Thanks everyone that emailed me about Musicians
and Contracts-it was very helpful to get a lot of
different perspective and helped me make a difficult
decision.


Xref: sparky rec.music.funky:1971 rec.music.makers:11553 rec.music.synth:19544 alt.rap:6850 alt.rave:5894