TrumpetMaster - View Single Post

Siegtrmpt · 02-27-2007, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JunkyT

I hear many young musicians bemoan all the hardships we face, but very few are willing to step up and realize that we have to take some personal responsibility for our lives and our art.

I'm not so negative about all these "hardships" musicians face. Most of these "hardships" are self imposed. You know the type....."I only do this" or "I don't like to teach" or "I only play here and there" etc etc etc.......I opened up the Washington Post "Weekend" section to get an idea of how much music is going on around town and the answer is that there's a ton of live performances going on each weekend here. Over thirty listings for jazz clubs and over 20 listed under piano rooms as well. There's also a ton of rock and other live band venues and a lot of Irish bars (a personal favorite!) too. I'm sure that most of the players in these groups earn their full time living elsewhere. Very few musical performers in any field earn their full time living performing. I don't think that's any different than 50-100 years ago. In that time frame even the best symphony jobs were part time endeavors. Frankly, there are a lot of one dimensional trumpet operators out there that have very little interest in other aspects of music where a full time living can easily be made. It's too bad because doing some of this other stuff is fun and would help them support themselves while trying to build up their main area of interest. Going hungry and living poor isn't the way to get there.