Someone I know fairly well is a professor of music. He always tries to have “the talk” with each of his students regarding what they are going to do after graduation. It appears that the answer varies quite a bit. Different students do very different things, at least after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music.
One student of his got a job after graduating writing software that does musical notation. Another was having a lot of trouble figuring out what would make sense. The professor asked “what do you like to do?”. The reply was “fix musical instruments for my various friends”. This student graduated, and now has a job fixing musical instruments. Another student went on to be a singer and dancer on Broadway. She discovered that the pay was mediocre and New York is a very expensive city to live in. She went back and got a PhD in music, and is now a professor of music. Both of these professors are in Canada (except for the temporary job on Broadway), which means that the children of farmers can afford to attend their university. A few of his students have just told him that they have four years at university, then they will go back to being farmers (whether they graduate or not).
Someone who might be the most talented musician that I have ever met was also very good at art, and won an award from a Boston newspaper. We went downtown where she got to see all of the other art work that had won awards. Her immediate reaction was “Wow these are good, how do I compete with this?”. She is now studying for a DVM (she was comfortable with STEM).
I used to know a different artist, who was a cashier to earn a living, and did art for love. He had sold a few of his paintings, but probably made single digit thousands per year from selling paintings.
I have worked my entire career in high tech. There are quite a few people in high tech who are good at music. I occasionally will randomly run into one at a concert. As often as not they are playing at the concert. However, they make their money in high tech.
I also have a relative who graduated from Julliard in dance. She makes some money teaching dance and some money dancing. However, she cannot be making big bucks because she also has worked as a cook.
One daughter was in an a cappella group in high school. One of the other members of the group went on to study musical theater in university. He is currently making a living in musical theater. He was really good. “How do I compete with that” applies in this case also.
I have talked to managers or salespeople in music stores who said that their major was music performance.
To me there are two things that I take from this. One is that different people who are very talented at art, dance, or music make money in a very wide variety of ways. The other is that most of these ways do not pay big bucks, and avoiding debt for your bachelor’s degree is a very good plan if you can do it.
I think that this is a good idea. I did this before going back to get my master’s.