The scenario you describe sounds familiar for the jazz world based on observing my son and his musician friends. A mix of private students, public and private gigs, and miscellaneous musical activities, seems to be a realistic path to making a music living. (And I too had lots of worries when my son decided to embark on this path.) In my son’s case, he has about a dozen private students - could have more but he stopped taking new students given the time constraints of his other activities - and I’d guess somewhere around 250-300 gigs a year if you count everything (don’t know if that would be feasible physically for a singer). If he’s able to develop more of a name for himself, I think he’d eventually like to do fewer gigs (and higher average quality - he’s already starting to see what he would consider some higher quality gigs), and maybe get a college-level “adjunct” teaching position or two. And I would think that at some point all the traveling would get to be too much, but at least for now he really loves meeting people all over the country and the world and sharing his music with them. He says that the ability to share his music is what he finds the most fulfilling.