<p>Here's a link to a great article on making it as a young musician, using Caleb Burhans as the exemplar.</p>
<p>Hope the link makes it through.</p>
<p>I saw this in the Sunday NYT yesterday, and immediately sent the link to my son. I think it is great for our musicians to see how people are making money making music! Caleb might not be rich, but seems happy...!</p>
<p>I sent it to my son, too. If Caleb has the option of giving up a fantastic gig singing at Trinity, he's rich in my book!</p>
<p>"and here I am, living paycheck to paycheck and not having health insurance. Im fulfilling my dream.
It's fine as long as it's just him. Talk to my musician and screenwriter friends about what it's like when you have kids who need health insurance and money for schools, when you try to buy a house and when you need to put food on the table. Then it's a less dream-like state.</p>
<p>You know...my kid is going to try to live as a musician also. He knows he will have to cobble together a LOT of different things to make ends meet. He says he has to try it, and we support his decision. I would never tell him that he shouldn't do this because he won't have health insurance or be able to buy a house. He'll figure that out if it becomes necessary to do so. In the meantime, I'm going to root for him.</p>
<p>Here! here! Thumper... </p>
<p>This article sounds a lot like my son without the composition part. He bounces around freely in NYC between classical, pop, metal, indie, folk. He loves the diversity.</p>
<p>Symphonymom,</p>
<p>Believe me, our family is intimately familiar with the ups and downs of a creative life. DH got a grad degree from Yale and then felt like he had to explore his creative impulses before going back for a Ph.D. His "year off" became the rest of his life as he moved from music (5 yrs), to comedy (4 yrs.) to screenwriting (15 yrs in Hollywood, another 6 outside Hollywood) to producing and teaching screenwriting (the last 6 yrs.). Fortunately, we've always had health insurance, through either the WGA or his employer, and we've been able to afford houses too. But it has definitely been a roller-coaster. We left Hollywood so that we could provide our sons with something approaching a normal life, and, of course, to cut expenses so that we could weather the vicissitudes more easily.</p>
<p>While it is certainly not easy pursuing a creative life, without benefit of an unrelated "day job," lots of people manage to do it. It reqiures a generous dose of talent, dedication, connections, dogged persistence and LOTS OF LUCK. Lots and lots of luck.</p>
<p>Creativity is like breathing for DH. Without it he dies. It looks as if both our sons may well follow in their dad's footsteps, though their chosen medium may differ --- music for the older and ??? for the younger. While that creativity is definitely a blessing, the uncertainty it brings can also be a curse. But for some, there is no choice. Ignoring, thwarting, or starving the creative impulse is tantamount to death.</p>
<p>I'm old enough to be aware that lots of people have really successful creative careers, that most are called upon to pursue their art, and that if one is talented enough, he or she should at least give it a shot. Most of my friends are artists, so I have an extremely good idea of the ups and downs. I think what stuck in my craw with the article is the glorification of choosing such a lifestyle without really being aware of the really difficult consequences that most often result from such a choice. My best friend is a screenwriter (award winning from NYU Film School, etc, etc). She has talent to spare, but has not enjoyed financial success. She married another screenwriter and had three kids. At the age of fifty, they finally bought their first home: a fixer-upper (in fact, a very cute house). Her kids were fortunate to get full scholarships to great schools, but that was not without a lot of worrying. Then she got cancer....and believe me, needed health insurance. The bright-eyed kids on this site have only stars in their eyes (which is appropriate at their age). However, sometimes, one has to face the fact that a minute percentage of them will make enough to support families. I think that articles like those featured in the New York Times don't spend enough time discussing what happens to those artists. That's what stuck in my craw. It was just a craw-sticking kind of day...rlmcmillan: you've clearly lived the life. And you realize the importance of luck. I completely agree...that is the most important element after talent.</p>
<p>Sorry about your craw-sticking day, Symphonymom, and about your best-friend's struggle to treat her cancer without health insurance. That is not only awful, but to my mind, simply wrong. Quality healthcare is, as far as I'm concerned, a basic human right. In a just world, no one should be without it. I hope that she is somehow able to get access to the care she needs.</p>
<p>I hear your concern that lots of kids chase the dream with starry eyes and no fall back plan, but some of those kids do, in fact, make it --- if not to superstardom, then to an artistically fulfilling and financially viable life. I, for one, am unwilling to pretend to know which ones will make it, unwilling to discount their talent, persistence, luck and dreams. Now, I am perfectly willing to coach anyone who will listen to have a viable fall back plan. Hence the second degree for my musician son.</p>
<p>Here's hoping that no craws stick tomorrow and that your friend beats her cancer. </p>
<p>Rebecca</p>
<p>Given the events of late, I think those parents who were sure their sons and daughters would have long and lucrative careers in investment banking, and funded their MBAs with dollar signs in their eyes, are now wondering about that. Harvard Business School has had to send a cadre of people down to Wall Street to counsel their recent out of work grads as to what to do next.</p>
<p>Business</a> Schools Counsel Grads in Financial Crisis - The Tech</p>
<p>I understand Symphonymom's post, but I didn't think the NYT was glorifying this musician's life. People must imagine that cobbling together a living isn't easy, and I didn't read the article and see stars and fantasy. It just showed how one young man could "make it" (but not in a traditional sense of the word) in music. It seemed quite realistic to me.</p>
<p>But, even careers that were once considered "safe" and always hiring (various banking, software, even some medical) are no longer necessarily so. Aside from certain service industries, which will always be needed, there are simply no guarantees of future employment, no matter what the training or degree. I understand the need to make our musicians aware of the potential pitfalls of their futures. But the world and economy is ever changing, and life is too short for "what ifs". I figure if my son can't make it cobbling together life as a musician (and I think he can), he is smart enough to figure out how to make a living doing something else, and playing music as an avocation. </p>
<p>And I hope your friend beats her cancer too, SM.</p>
<p>Thanks, guys...and sorry for the rant. It was just one of those days...I appreciate your thoughtful wishes.
Good point about safe careers, Spirit....those poor kids with jobs promised on Wall Street are really scrambling. And Rebecca...."viable fall back plans" are brilliant. Could not agree more.
Thanks again.</p>
<p>"Harvard Business School has had to send a cadre of people down to Wall Street to counsel their recent out of work grads as to what to do next."</p>
<p>Ahh, but at least they are there to help their former students look for future employment... or at the very least offering counseling. So far as I am aware, I've never heard of such a thing in the music world..the kids are on their own from the day they walk out that college studio door and many times that is 19 or 20 yrs as a junior with an artists diploma.</p>
<p>I see Harvard in a much better light. Perhaps that NEC/Harvard program is not so bad after all.</p>
<p>Many music schools have resources that help both current students and recent alumni look for employment. Oberlin's, for example, is at Services</a> for Alums</p>
<p>I can't resist this chance to point out how universal health coverage, which not only should be a basic right in our society, would also help free people to follow their entrepreneurial and yes, creative, dreams. BTW, it's these entrepreneurs who create the small businesses that both political parties like to credit as engines of our economy. In other words, single-payer health coverage would be GOOD for business. </p>
<p>Just to stay relevant--I do think, at least in my family, that some people are driven to follow certain paths, no matter how impractical they might seem. My husband -- an architect in his own practice (I work to provide health insurance and a steady income); my cellist son...</p>