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.