The daughter of someone who used to post here regularly won a Grammy on Sunday. Maybe you or your child in another 10 or 15 years? Good luck to all of you (and your children) still auditioning and/or awaiting decisions!
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Hi! My daughter is a freshman UG VP student. I just found and read your 2015 post (“what to expect when your expecting” for the parents of new music college students), which was hysterical and so very true (thus far). I love this post as well. If it is okay to ask, can you post an update about how your daughter is doing now?
A kind reminder that this is College CONFIDENTIAL. Please do not post anyone’s name on a public forum, especially without their consent. Thank you for your understanding.
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I’m so glad that thread (what to expect when expecting) is still hanging around. I had so much fun writing it. It’s probs dated but still true.
My D had a great 2023, performing a lot in good production (meaning paid well). She teaches, performs and does commercial work (as explained above). She has been hired pretty consistently for a couple of years…until this winter season…where she drew a goose egg. But she starts up again in April. So, she’s spending her time updating her repertoire etc and teaching, doing some one-off performing and got a good commercial gig (pays well). So it all works if you are willing to hustle and wait out the down periods.
Thanks for asking…and best wishes on your D’s studies!
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Thank you! Quick question: did your daughter go straight from UG to G or did she work for a bit first? My daughter loves the program at Bard Conservatory, but would like to audition for other graduate programs as well. She is not sure yet whether she wants to work in between.
She went straight through. If she didn’t go straight through she wasn’t going to do an MM. She wanted to perform more than be the best opera singer. She now does classical MT and regional opera. She got off the straight opera path as she considered graduate schools. So she went to a less selective school in a city where she could perform.
For someone a bit more serious for opera studies, a gap year can be a good idea.
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I’m not @bridgenail but I’ll tell you what my musician son did. He got his bachelors at Boston University, and went right into a masters in performance at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He felt like getting a lot more guaranteed playing experience was important, and he got a LOT while in grad school. And also studied with an awesome teacher.
I posted what he is doing upstream in this thread.
He also wrote and published a book, and runs a great blog.
He is usually busy, but like @bridgenail daughter, sometimes this ebbs and flows a bit.
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Thank you! I suspect that she will want to go straight through to a MM. She applied to both MT and VP UG programs and would LOVE to do classical MT. But she also likes the idea of traveling and performing operas all over. But, as I said, it’s early times. We’ll see where her voice takes her.
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Thank you so much for the great advice!
Making money as a musician is like navigating a vast ocean of opportunities. From gigs to streaming royalties, there’s a symphony of ways to earn a living doing what you love. While some may hit the jackpot with record deals or sync placements, others find their treasure in teaching or session work.
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Mine is a freshman in the UNT jazz program (guitar)…he is just finishing an amazing first year. Lots of work and opportunity in the DFW area. He made such a great decision for himself! It’s nice to read about your son’s successes!
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This was too good not to share. One of the musicians who plays in one of my son’s groups posted the following on his Instagram story:
I played for the Kansas City Chiefs ring ceremony last night. I walked past @patrickmahomes after we finished and he said, “Y’all killed it”. I am now rooting for a Three-peat.
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This is a good thread, and obviously is something everyone asks, because they know it isn’t easy. To give background, my son is a working musician as part of a chamber group (classical) that has moved way up in that world, including some prestigious awards and competition wins.
The answer is it depends on what they are doing. My son’s group formed when they were at the same school (3 in grad school, one ug). After they finished there they had a residency at a young professional chamber program at one of the big conservatories . They did receive a stipend but given where the program was, it wasn’t enough to survive on , and we helped (as did the other kids families), we knew that going into music. They are in another residency right now that basically pays for housing and health insurance. Meanwhile his group has over the past 4 years gotten to the point where they are getting the performances that pay relatively well, as part of series with more well known groups.
They aren’t making a ton of money, but they are surviving, we aren’t really helping any more, haven’t for a while.
With classical music like they are doing, there is a dilemma that because they had the support of their families they could do it along with the residencies they had, they didn’t face. Basically with chamber music you almost have to be full time to make it, yet it takes a long time to establish yourself in that world (my son and 2 of his group mates are late 20’s-30’s, one member is mid 20s). Some people make money by teaching, but if you are performing all over actively, it is kind of hard to do that.
As others have pointed out, other musicians do it a number of ways. Some musicians have day jobs, then they perform music as a side gig. Others have mixed income streams, they teach, they do gig work , they fill in in orchestras and on Broadway in NYC, they do things like weddings and the like. It is very hard in music to make a living right away strictly from the music, unless you are one of the fortunate ones and let’s say get a position in a major full time orchestra right away, but that is rare, even for really talented musicians. Streaming on services like Spotify won’t bring in a lot unless they suddenly have a huge audience, the pay is very low.
Friend of mine was a musician in two bands, who also did music producing for some relatively well known groups, and also had day jobs (I think they own a boutique in Austin these days with music related clothing and such).
I think quite honestly it is an important question to be asking themselves before, during and after making the plunge into music. They need to be talking to people, talking to musicians, and see how they do it.
I unfortunately see kids and parents who sort of know it is hard, but for example, justify getting huge loans to go to a music school on the idea “they will get an orchestra job and will be okay”. They hear what a salary is like at an orchestra like the Chicago or NY Phil, etc, and figure since their kid is going to X school, that they will get a job like that (like i said before, that is a unicorn, it was never easy, thes e days getting into a full time orchestra with decent pay is incredibly competitive against musicians from all over the world playing at an incredibly high level (I will add that it sometimes doesn’t seem like it when I go see these orchestras, but that is another story).
It is why it is so important to talk to people in the life and understand that before going into it, tempering the dreams with reality,thinking about just that, where can I go with this.
Lot of music schools have caught on, and they offer programs on entrepeneurship, working in the digital world, networking and in how to find jobs and so forth, which is huge, a decade or more ago they would be filling kids heads with the idea that they are all top class and can be a soloist or orchestra musician in a great orchestra.
No matter what you do, you need to hustle and network and hope for the breaks.
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Our dd and I were part of a group that went out to lunch this past weekend with the violin soloist who played in a concert with her group. She was able to ask him all kinds of questions. To sum it up, he has his PhD, teaches at 3 colleges in the same general vicinity, is concertmaster for 2 city orchestras about 2 1/2 hrs apart from each other, and plays for other opportunities like with her group, for soundtracks (movies, etc).
I am so glad she was able to go to that lunch. We have been talking about all the different hats it will take to support herself if she continues on this path. His story really confirmed it for her. He encouraged her that it is doable, but it is really a path for those who cannot fathom a day without music as their focus bc music has to be your driving force to persevere.
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“He encouraged her that it is doable, but it is really a path for those who cannot fathom a day without music as their focus bc music has to be your driving force to persevere.”
This perfectly captures it, based on my son’s experience (and I also have extended family members on the classical side). There are much easier/better ways to make money than music, but if music defines who you are, it is doable.
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He is right, that basically in a nutshell , that if music isn’t your driving force you likely won’t persevere. All along the way there are things that can push you away from music, demanding teachers, people discouraging you, the lack of transparency on what it takes to make it, you really have to love it to pursue it. It is a frustrating mistress because so much is opaque, and there also are very real world issues in it, too, people can have agendas. You can be a fantastic musician/soloist, and a critic rips you apart because he didn’t like your primary teacher and takes it out on the students.
My S’s group was in a major competition in Europe, they had one of their best performances ever, and it ended up where they and another group got second prize, there was no first prize. They later on found out from a member of the jury they know, that they had won the competition on points, but the rules stipulate that the jury has to unanimously come to consensus on the winner, and basically because his group is American and has “American Style” playing, there were jury members who refused to agree to them winning it.
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I was a serious musician in high school and college, and the best piece of advice I got from a professor was while it can be possible to survive economically as a musician, his advice was to find any other way to survive if possible. He had many friends in the industry who really began to resent the difficulty in making it work and the tenuous nature of being a working musician.
Fast forward a few decades and now I am playing in a band again and it definitely a hobby, a chance to escape from my “real” job and there is no pressure to feed my family on the basis of finding enough paying gigs.
Now if anyone on here is looking to hire a band that plays all original funk, soul, groove oriented rock… 
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It is a hard life and in classical music requires support on a very high level to even attempt to make it.
My son’s group has artists rep, and they spend a lot of time working with their clients on entrepeneurship and on projects that can turn into another source of revenue. Some established groups have gotten corporate gigs, where they play at corporate off sites/team building/etc, and they not omly do music but they also give presentations on teamwork and group dynamics based on being performing groups. Groups often get residencies at performing arts series, where they not only play but also do things like program parts of the series and do outreach to schools and such.
And even though they are a relatively established performing groups, they also have done some wedding receptions that actually paid pretty well (these were well off families) they also look at it as marketing, since many in the audience also are associated as donors to classical music events.
It is difficult, that is for sure, and if anyone hears stories about the friend of Uncle Charley who came out of school and got into the X symphony (like a NY Phil kind of thing) , or the neighbors nephew who taught himself to play piano and is now some sort of performing whiz making a lot of money, treat it as myth or near myth (lot of these stories often are from a long time ago. One of my S’s teachers is with a major regional orchestra who got in right out of college; these days given what is out there, it wouldn’t happen, especially since their playing level is nowhere near what is competing for jobs these days.
In any form of music it is as hard or more hard than people say. We saw plenty of kids at the pre college program my son was in, kids that were already performing at a high level, had rep, were playing wirth orchestras as a soloist, who after conservatory have struggled or dropped out. There is a real conundrum to this, to make it in music takes that kind of focus, where that is all you do, yet it is a long stretch before you start making the kind of living where you can provide for yourself in music. If you have to do other things to make money, it takes away from the focus on music, since that is time away from practicing and rehearsing and that works against making it. In the end it comes down to compromises and can come down to family support, with my S and the group he is in, all the families had extended support duties for a long time. In the end if the music bug is there it may come down to doing what you need to do to survive then music is the reward for having to do that:)
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Different kind of music career than most but thought I would add a little to this thread. My husband was a theory and composition major in college and managed to make a decent living as a songwriter for several years when we were in our 20s and early 30s. He had two decent publishing deals with labels in Nashville. He had no experience with country but had a fledgling pop career as an artist beforehand and decided songwriting was a better life than getting in the van 
The problem with songwriting, like a lot of music careers, is that it’s feast or famine. You can have a gigantic hit, huge publishing deal and then it all falls apart. You’re constantly hustling and hardly anyone really wins the game.
I worked with a guy in NYC who got a huge record deal, the label flew the band to Germany to work with a big producer, spent months making an album and then the label never released it. He was back to graphic designer a few months later.
The most stable and coveted jobs in Nashville were as studio players working on demos. Work all day at union rate and go home for dinner. Some of them travel with artists but not everyone.
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