Have you ever made (or maybe still make) a living as a professional musician?

Cafe Society
21

I used to teach guitar, and when I had a student express interest in playing professionally, I would advise them to consider training for a steady job or career, and try to build a music career on the side.

I was more emphatic on this point to kids who were raised middle-class, and would find the meager, spotty income harder to deal with. I also took into account what the kid’s other career options were: if *he had good grades in school and seemed academically talented, it was even more important to get a good education or a marketable skill.

Finally, I asked them how closely their music tastes lined up with popular mainstream music. If you’d be happy playing music that’s topping the charts, that’s good. If you’re only interested in playing obscure, niche music that no one’s ever heard of, it will be much harder to makes ends meet.

  • I can’t remember a female student who expressed interest in playing professionally. Most of my students were male.
22

For the record, I know damn well my daughter-in-law is a musician and I know how many hours she works to put together a gig, both on her own part and putting together the setlist and arrangements for the group.

Everyone in this thread agrees that singers are musicians, and I hope we can stop bringing it up.

23

I believe the Dope’s own Le_Ministre_de_l_au_dela is a pro musician in various genres. He’s just been telling us about an upcoming gig.

24

I would get paid a bit over $50 per session (2-3 hour practice or performance) in the late 90s. For the symphony, that worked out to seven evening sessions during the week of each monthly concert. Anyone making a living was also teaching. Instrument principals got paid more.

25

Absolutely. Voice is an instrument, though of course one has to practice it like any other.

It’s a bit different from other instruments though in that you have what you’re born with.
I have ‘musicians vocals’, I can sing in tune with reasonable timing and diction… but no-one is ever going to hire me as a lead singer… :wink:

I do like to sing maybe one song per set to give the real vocalist a bit of a break, and nobody has actually thrown rotton fruit at the band… but you have to carefully pick songs that fit your range and style…

26

Even the great singers need to do this. I have a two-CD set of Pavarotti’s greatest hits. One disc is opera arias and is just as magnificent as you’d expect; the other is of Pavarotti trying to sing pop music, sometimes in duets with pop singers, and the result is, well, embarrassing.

27

Hi, everybody! I’m procrastinating on my taxes, and this is an ideal place to do it!

The answer is ‘Yes, but…’. Lemme unpack that a bit. In order of what I’ve made the most money doing, that goes -

Singer - opera, musical theatre, oratorio/concert, choral music, singer/songwriter
Instrumentalist - guitar, penny whistles, Irish flute, Appalachian dulcimer. I also play bass, low brass (euphonium, bass trombone, tuba), alto sax, keyboards, and I’m a student of a Karnatak (south Indian) percussion instrument called the Mridangam, but - I can’t say I’ve made any significant money off any of them! Rather the opposite, really…
Actor - beyond my work in musical theatre, I’ve also been in two professional productions of Shakespeare. In fact, my profile picture on the SDMB is from a production of ‘Twelfth Night’ for the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival, where I played Sir Toby Belch and The Priest.
Songwriter
I’m an unpublished poet, and a writer of unfinished works. I have also posed for painters and got paid, but I’d hardly call myself a model.

I got my first professional gig in September of 1982, doing ten shows a week on a school tour of ‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ for Edmonton Opera, and being a section lead for the chorus in the mainstage season that year.

I ‘retired’ in 2017, after 35 years, but - I hated it! I missed singing, I missed the stage, I missed the colleagues you only see when you’re doing or preparing shows, I missed working in other languages, my kids were sick of seeing me every day… I took a day job in the office of a United Church of Canada congregation, and lemme tell you - church politics are uglier than anything I saw in 35 years of performing! So after 8 months of being retired, I got back into the business. My current career goal is to die onstage, preferably at the hands of someone’s jealous lover… :smiley:

The other thing I have to delve into a bit is ‘make a living’. I’m really not sure I could have made it if it hadn’t been for the support of my wife, my parents, my in-laws, and the cooperation of my kids. That’s both financial and practical - the number of times I’d be off doing a show in another city, my wife would be working a show (she’s in theatre production), and if Grandma hadn’t been willing and able to come to town and look after the kids, it just wouldn’t have worked.

Within that large time frame, there have been ups and downs, like anyone else. The good times have been very good, the bad times have still been okay. I’m really crap with money - part of my neuroshininess, I suspect. Fortunately, my wife is quite good with money, and so, we’ve always been able to make it work out in the long run. I thought the steadiness of that church job would make up for the fact that it wasn’t as much money as doing a show - I was wrong.

Other than that post-retirement church job, I’ve deliberately never taken a day job that would tempt me out of performing. Leaving that church job convinced me of something I’d long suspected - it’s better to be less than totally happy doing something you love than miserable doing something you hate. Other people’s mileage may vary on that question.

So here you go - here’s a video from during the pandemic that I did with some colleagues from ‘Les Mis’ - https://youtu.be/lxHV-ZO16eA?si=j9pVt8eUaM-Ik5wF . I show up at around 1:15 as Enjolras.

And this is my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@DougMacNaughtonofficial . (I’m not going to make any money off YouTube until I get more subscribers and more hours of people watching, so I hope The Mods won’t mind me posting that.) From there, you can find me on other social media sites, and on many fine music sites, if you feel like putting in the effort.

And if you want me to bore your ass off about my career, I’m only too thrilled! I’ve started writing my memoirs - the going rate is $50.00 for me not to mention you, $1,000.00 if I have evidence… :smiley:

28

Just a quick update on my daughter-in-law and her band’s fortunes. She mentioned they hadn’t had a gig since New Year’s and probably wouldn’t have one for another several weeks. She’s not worried about this, reassuring my wife and me that it’s purely seasonal and she and my son are prepared for a few lean weeks over the year.

In other news, Rihanna wis making something north of $8 million this weekend for singing at the wedding fest for the son of the richest man is Asia.