Wouldn't you wanna make a living out of music?

The Lounge General Discussion
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So a friend of mine asked me the other day, wouldn’t you wanna make music for a living? And I was like, sure, who wouldn’t?

Then I thought about the people I know, who have made a decent or more than decent living being artists. Not just creative shotguns for hire, but actual artists, in so much that they make a living out of producing their own body of work.

And I thought about the times we meet, over lunch or coffee or dinner or just a stroll through the park, and they talk about what they got going, what they’re facing, what their lives are like.

I got this writer friend. He’s cramped up now, pressured to deliver his next novel and not able to get it done, or even get it going. It’s been years. And the pressure’s growing. He’s quite famous. You’d think he’s got it covered by now. He doesn’t.

And I know this musician, who took a break from it all last year, and now prepares his comeback. From the outside, it seems he’s got his shit together. On the inside, he doesn’t. And when it comes to him, you’d REALLY think he’s got it covered. Oh man, he doesn’t.

The advantage, of which I believe we are unaware until we’ve been on the other side of the fence, of not making a living or at least being dependant on income from our work as artists, is that we can call it quits any day and keep on doing what we’re doing when the sun’s up. And our families will still be fed, our rents paid, food on the table, all that. We’re not defined by our work as artists. It’s a part of us, but it’s not the whole.

I don’t know. I’ve yet to see someone close up, who makes a living as an artist, who has a life or a situation that I’d want to be in. I’ve met many people who are happy and content, but none of them are the writers, artists or whatnot who has a talent so great, they can do what they want.

It would seem, when you have the kind of talent that gives you that idea of freedom, you create your own ball and chain, which becomes even harder to resolve, cause it’s just you and the issues within you, and that’s about the hardest thing to resolve ever.

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I would love to make a living out of music, but I’d hate to have to depend on it.

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Haha, exactly :slight_smile: though let’s say you’re filthy rich, then you don’t have to depend on it. But to me it seems, the more succesful you are, the more you’re haunted by the idea of keeping it up.

I wonder if there’s a middle ground, or if most of us just aren’t capable of handling success, if we reach it.

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I tried
But drifted away from what i really love…

Music made me organise events, so i learned about event management
Event management made me aware of user experience
Music instruments made me aware of product interaction

All these things i use in my work
So i dont make music for living
Bit music gave me many knowledge and experience i use for my work

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Nah, my calling lies elsewhere. But luckily I’m a talentless hack so there’s no conflict.

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For that to decide we’d have to settle on a definition of success first. I know a lot of successful people who are nowhere near what you call filthy rich and a lot of losers who wouldn’t have to work another day in their lives. The mere fact that we have enough bases covered that we can choose to hang out here and discuss expensive electronic devices that produce fart noises of different timbre and pitch right in the middle of the day makes us hugely successful in the greater scheme of things. Oh, and before we get to that - I don’t feel one bit guilty about that.

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I think @Hans_Olo has a good point, which can also be seen in a more general way.

That’s exactly the point … to be dependent or to be free. I think most of us wish to be free, at least to a certain degree.

There are always limits to a total freedom. Some are defined by a loving familiy, friends, a community, who ask for responsibilities and duties. But we can find happyness from a balanced give and take.

But if we depend on something, which is important to make our living, like beeing dependent from the expectation, opinion or taste of an audience, a bad tempered boss, a medical treatment, you name it, we wish to be free … for a good reason.

I don’t think it takes to be extraordinary ritch to set oneself free. I think freedom is the freedom to have at least a choice. A choice to say yes or no, to take on a duty or not, to quit a nasty job and leave this bad tempered boss behind … and to know for sure … live will keep going on … and we always get a chance to change to the better … if this makes any sense :smiley:

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I was reading this yesterday which deals with some of the same points.

How do you define success?
The danger of being dependent on selling music to keep afloat.

As soon as family came along my priorities shifted overnight…

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word!

A dream of mine would be to earn enough money by producing or playing music, so that I can work part-time in a “regular” job. I assume that would be great. Having enough time for what I love, but it would keep the hobby character

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^^ Countersigned.

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Interesting thread @andreasroman; there are some thoughts and comments I could make; largely around the requirement to be inventive and creative; when your livelihood depends on it; and not just that but your house / kids / food; and the pressure that entails to both be creative; and produce (in the actually output something meaning); and the affect that can have on your mental state and stress levels. Something that is generally quite avoided when you are getting paid a salary, and that stress/pressure is alleviated to a degree.

Give me a wad of cash, and a year to spend, and I’ll give you moonbeams and bunny rabbits.

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All good and interesting points.

For many, success is measured in influence or money, accomplishments and other such measureable things. Most who get this, still seem to struggle with their own self-esteem and accomplishments. I mean, just look at Donald Trump. The guy’s president and still struggles with basic values such as truth, humility and just saying it like it is. He’s got so many issues with his self image that not even now, when he’s one of the most powerful men on the planet, he’s comfortable in his own skin.

And if you’ve defined success like so, and you get to that point, and you still fight all those haunts of who you are and why you’re not feeling so great at the end of the day, where do you go from there? If all your ideas of what’s great turned out not to be true, where do you look next?

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Great thread :slight_smile:

So many tangents you could go down with it.

One thing I’ll say is if you think about what it is you love about music, what sticks out, I think many would say a mind blowing performance. You really love an act when you love their performance. Well, at least I do anyway. Or even just their live sound, what they do with their work live. To me in some ways that is a goal to strive for, to try and create a killer experience for people who watch you perform. Leave them a little spellbound. I know I’ve done this in the past, and I could do it again. But realities always poke their head in. Bills etc as mentioned. I’ve always been pretty level headed about it, and try and have a job. And sometimes I do art more, other times I work more. And often working more is the price I pay for doing too much art lol. But in general parlance, getting a ‘break’ is what anyway could hope for, however small or large, a platform that while maybe not totally making u dependent on art, you are at least afforded a little breathing space, and I think that ties in with the psychology of Flow and that kind of thing. You need reward in some form, or else you’ll give up. I think my perspective on success would always be dependent on how things are weighing up - I’d be just as happy to work a job for a little coin if art or music had become too stressful, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. At the end of the day surely the fruit of the modern world should be everyone has time to indulge their curiosities and interests. That’s success I think. But capitalism has its way of stripping that from you - the minute I catch a whiff of that I want out. I don’t know why the modern world can’t afford more of a relaxed approach to work and life and the economy… what’s the damn rush? Why the grind? I wish everything could reset to 1980’s costs and the world could be more chill. God knows as a race we’ve earned it

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I make my living as a painter artist. I’d initially wanted / tried to have a career in music, film scores n electronic music nobody buys, while the painting i saw as a hobby. then through some chance and a bit of luck the painting sorta took off and the 2 things switched places. the music is my hobby / folly now. I’d still love to have a career in music (just be releasing and playing live consistently, I don’t care about earning from it), but the painting pays for my synths so I’m cool with that :smile:

and yea not having the pressure of a career in your head when writing music definitely makes it so much more enjoyable and less affected by external sh1t, totally agree with that.

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I think there is no problem to be dependent on it’s own creativity, if we see creativity more the general way.

Creativity and making a live from it might be a problem, if the value of our work is depending on opinions rather then facts.

Let’s compare artists vs scientists or engineers. They need creativtity all day long to do a good job. But there is a difference. Scientists or engineers can provide evidence that an idea works, or that an requirement just can’t be fulfilled. They get problems to be solved and at the end of the day, if the task was not impossible, they can show up with results, which nobody can challenge … and they get paid for it.

But if the public dislikes or overlooks the greatest artist of the century, she/he just will not receive enough compensation to make a living. Some of the most acknowledged artists have struggled to pay their bills during live-time and have been celebrated post-hum. But this doesn’t feed the family.

I think, to be a full-time artist and financially independent takes boldness, endurance, and a fair portion of luck.

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I think it’s about finding a balance between stable income and time to create. I’m a student at the moment when is great as I have lots of time to focus on my craft, but before that I was working 3 days a week as an electricians assistant and that gave me 3 days to work on music and one for rest.

A mate of mine is a teaching assistant so he gets afternoons off and nice chunks of holidays but even he feels he’s not got enough time to create so is cutting to 4 days a week next year and using the extra time to finding gig’s.

To make the dream of doing this full-time possible you have to be realistic about how much time you need to invest in your craft before that’s possible. I have hugely talented friends that I used to write music with as teenager and in my early twenties who went into full time work and don’t get any time to spend on music. That’s a completely reasonable choice as they want to live a fairly normal life, being able to go to festivals, on holiday, drinks with friends every weekend, start a family and so on.

At the same time it’s not that useful to being creative if you can barely afford rent or eat! So I think balance is key here. I think the life of an artist is similar to that of an athlete in the sense you can be training all your life and never end up winning a medal, however we do it for the obsessive love of the craft.

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Absolutely.
I have some really talented artist friends who for one reason or another can’t do it full time, and then i know some truly terrible artists who for one reason or another are able to make a living out of it, and vice versa. Its a sad state of affairs that, but as you say theres a huge element of luck involved whether regardless of how good you are people still might just not want to pay for and own the thing that you make.

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I know a few artists who can make a living out of their art.
The thing they have in common is that they have a deep thinking about the society, and it’s feeding them.

Being with the same coworkers all day, in a work environment that is just the opposite of all my aspirations, I feel like I’m not developing my own being as much as I would if I was merely surrounded with creative people doing what I’m passionate with.

I made this choice of not following the artist path when I was 20. And I don’t regret it today.
But man how I would love to work in a music oriented environment!!!

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One can be creative in many contexts, though, and creative people usually are. Whatever pond you throw them in, they swim to a different beat. You can pitch a power point like you were playing a gig, and win the deal just because.

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A few thoughts…

None of my creative friends make a living from the artistic space of their craft. They’re all, essentially, either craftsmen (hired talent) or educators. None of them fall asleep after a mortgage/rent paying gig and feel artistically expressed. This doesn’t mean they aren’t proud of their work, they are, they just don’t consider it art.

For me, I have begun to wonder if the desire to “make a living from my art” is mostly my wanting to work on what I want, when I want; disconnected and undisciplined.

I worked 7 years on an album. I’m immensely proud of it. No one really noticed it. Probably because I didn’t promote it. As a creative director/coach I’ve made dozens of people more creative, effective and productive. That has, up until recently paid my bills.

Great topic.

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