Musicians : Poor :: Instruments : Expensive

I needed a new amp.  Translation:  Rainbow Music was having a sale on all of its Marshalls and I couldn't possibly go on tour playing an SG through a Peavey Bandit 112.  I settled on a Marshall Haze 40 for just under $600.  My girlfriend, of course, had to know...

Me: "I just spent less than six hundred bucks on an amp that could have easily gone for seven hundred!"

Girlfriend: "Cool!  I just spent that much on airfare and drink tickets for a week-long trip to Cancun!"

Me: "... ... ... but it could have easily gone for seven hundred!... ... ..."

Herein lies the musician's conundrum: Music is an expensive hobby that pays diddly squat.

This brings up two important questions: 1) How can this be? and 2) Who says "diddly squat?"

The answer lies in the extreme ability of the musician to make sacrifices.  Musicians are hardly ever mathematicians, leading us to make questionable financial decisions in order to compensate for our large musical expenditures.  A quick trip around my apartment will help explain these habits.  For example:

Sure, I'll spend $800 on a digital piano with 500 instruments.  But I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a keyboard stand, music stand, or sheet music.  As you can see, WD-40 and duct tape are all I need.

You see a heater, I see a guitar stand.

Breakfast.

Lunch.

Dinner.

It may seem wrong to non-musicians, but to the rest of us it makes too much sense.  There's a sense of pride taken in setting up your own recording studio in your apartment.  A piece of cheesecloth is a pop filter.  A microwave is a mic stand.  Your shower has that sound you've been "looking for."

The impoverished minstrels of my generation will continue absurd spending habits that replace common sense with a sense of pride. We'll pay $1,200 for that 12 string guitar ($1,000 a string, duh!) while fighting tooth and nail for McDonald's coupons.  And you had better believe that when we get signed and sell out arenas, we'll be charging $100 per ticket in a heartbeat.

Remarks From a Man in Musical Limbo

I play music for a living.

I play it every day.  I write tons of original music.  I record most of it.  I spend hours obsessing over minute chord progressions and lyrical decisions so that my work will be unique and different from that of any other artist.  I spend too much money on the best gear so that my sound maintains its professional quality.  Why?  Because I play music for a living.

But it's not my job.

Music has never put a morsel of food on my plate, it's not on my résumé, and I never studied it in school.  I practice, toil, and wring every bit of emotion out of every note of music I play and sing all for an audience of one amateur musician:  me.

I've been in a band.  I've gone on tour.  I've played for crowds across the country and loved every single minute of it.  So where am I now?  Graduate school.  What am I studying?  Mass Communication.  Why?  Because I play music for a living.

Living this way has taught me one thing-- I'm not alone.  This blog is for anyone like me who can't get any work done if an instrument is within eyesight or earshot.  This blog is for anyone like me who hears a hit song and thinks "I could have written that."  This blog is for anyone like me who would give anything to be a professional musician, except a lot of things, namely food.  Like the title says, this blog is for anyone who's ever thought "I could do this for a living," but doesn't.

I play music for a living because I can't live without it. It's an unavoidable part of my chemical structure.  I want this to be a gathering place for anyone who shares this blessed curse.  Whether it's sharing music, trading ideas, or bashing the Auto Tune, I hope this blog can be an effective forum for any and every amateur musician who plays music because we don't have any other choice.