Being a musician is hard.
Not just in the ways you expect - the hours of practice (and in my case, composition), the struggle to understand the nuances of music, the battles against stereotypes. Nope, it's hard in one other way: a lot of the time, you have to force yourself to keep going.
This has a myriad of causes, ranging from society's tendency to look down on "the starving musician" (a problem caused less by smaller skill sets and more by smaller salaries) to the lack of definition in the field. Some would argue that our lack of a cookie-cutter plan makes it easier for us - after all, we could theoretically go in any direction we'd like. I've never seen it that way; instead, it can feel like we have nowhere secure to go. More often than not, I find myself asking, "How am I going to make this work in the real world?" And the scary part? I don't have an answer yet.
Many musicians work on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis. Performance artists get gigs and teach private lessons or clinic groups, and if they're lucky they earn a spot in a symphony orchestra or some other full-time professional group. Music educators, while often subject to the ebb and flow of available positions and salaries provided by the government, seem to have the best shot at some sort of stable, persistent paycheck once they're credentialed and ready to go (but don't quote me on that, as I'm not a Music Ed major). Composers kind of get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Film and video game scoring usually ends up being a one-time deal (unless you get contracted to do any sequels, which does not always happen, by the way). There's a fairly stable market in marching band music, but you need the right credentials to get into that. And yeah, we always have freelancing, but that's a strenuous job that requires a ton of networking, substantial skill, and more than a little luck.
When I started college in August, there was a lot of comparing majors with my new friends. Some of them (okay, a whole bunch of them) hadn't figured out the answer to the "what do you want to do after college?" question. Several of them told me they were jealous that I knew what I wanted to do. The one thing I didn't tell them, those engineers and computer science majors, was that I was jealous of the fact that they would basically be able to walk right out of college after graduation and find a job, somewhere, in the field they'd been studying that would pay enough to make ends meet. Musicians don't have that luxury.
My music professors have been emphasizing that "there ARE jobs out there, you just have to find them," but one of the big problems is that we might have to work two or three of those jobs simultaneously to make everything fall into place. And yeah, working multiple jobs isn't the end of the world, but it makes me sad that there isn't even a default/backup/you-will-be-able-to-make-ends-meet job in the world of music composition. A lot of us go in without having a Plan B, despite warnings from pretty much everybody that we'll need one. If doctors and engineers and lawyers can pursue their educations without having to worry about a backup plan, why can't we? In a time when music is potentially more important and dynamic than ever, why is it so hard for those who make music their business to find something stable?
I've spent quite a bit of quality time lately talking to the adults in my life about this dilemma, and pretty much every time I've ended up in tears. For those of you who don't know, I'm not usually a crier. Sure, there are a lot of people pushing me to succeed and keep doing the whole follow-my-dreams thing, and I appreciate the support, but guys, it's hard! 25% of the time, I feel like I'm learning how to do great things, and 5% of the time I just decide I'm going to go places in the music industry, but that other 70%... Sometimes it's hopelessness, worry, "facing the facts;" sometimes it's just disbelief that out of all the careers I could have chosen, I decided to pursue one of the most unstable. Hopefully, if composition doesn't entirely work out, I'll end up with some sort of job in music, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Why am I ranting like this? Maybe because I'm tired of being told to "have a Plan B" or "marry a guy with a good job" (and yes, I've heard those more times than I can count). Maybe because I'm tired of how hard it is to break into an industry like music at a young age. Or maybe it's just because I'm tired of being scared, and I don't know where I'm going. Being a music major is like shooting in the dark - you don't know where your target is, and sometimes you don't know which target you should be aiming for.
Love you all,
Megan
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