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The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

(thewalrus.ca)
300 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 28 Jun 25 22:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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elevation ◴[29 Jun 25 04:33 UTC] No.44410373[source]▶
I played in a cover band with some well-paid engineers. We enjoyed music enough to consider going full time, but even with four-figure bookings were were barely taking home minimum wage. We looked into getting a manager to find us more high-paying gigs, but management fees and travel costs eat up the gains.

For a band, it's virtually impossible to find work outside the weekend. If a region had a few restaurants that were known for year round "live music Mondays", "live music lunches", etc, it would increase the number of hours that a musician could work during the week, and make full time performance viable for more musicians. Of course, people would also need to support these performances by patronizing the venues that host them.

But until a working musician can fill their weekday calendar with paying gigs without excessive travel/lodging costs, you'll continue to see talented musicians drop out and do something else.

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mettamage ◴[29 Jun 25 10:00 UTC] No.44411752[source]▶
I've come to the perhaps grim conclusion that the world doesn't value music enough. It seems to me that most artists are making music because they love to do it themselves. It's essentially a form of play. Wanting a career out of it implies sacrifice in the way we currently have our world setup.

The current world we live in doesn't care enough about creativity. I find it a bleak thought, but here I am. Feel free to try to talk me out of it, because it does feel kind of depressing. Or feel free to validate it. I want to see the world for what it is, not what I like it to be.

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1. spacemadness ◴[29 Jun 25 16:57 UTC] No.44414537[source]▶
People do care whether they realize it or not. They will always care. They have to if they consume any creative media at all. Our government and economic system on the other hand might not care to offer any encouragement other than “good luck, you’ll need it. I hope you’re good at marketing.” The article states there are more people making music than ever. I agree. I became overwhelmed by the sheer amount of output coming out by bedroom musicians. The list of bands playing near me weekly is huge. Whether it’s more quality on top of quantity is another discussion.