Whatever non-musicians think it costs to be a professional musician, it’s way, way more Basically any musician who isn’t at the very top is underpaid one way or another - ThreadSky

doodlyroses.com • 99 days ago

Whatever non-musicians think it costs to be a professional musician, it’s way, way more

Basically any musician who isn’t at the very top is underpaid one way or another

Reposted from Sam Bergman

I don't think people know about this outside the very particular corner of the music world I inhabited until very recently, so here's the deal. Musicians in "major" US orchestras are salaried, year-round employees. But unlike at most FT jobs, we have to supply all our own equipment.

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pwallinga.bsky.social•99 days ago

The amount of money I've lost to undershooting my fair commission value out of self-doubt alone 💸💸💸

andrewsehmann.com•99 days ago

Or my teaching fee… I learned that you can basically charge whatever, and as long as that person pays you, they do not really know how much music lessons (or commissions) cost.

pwallinga.bsky.social•99 days ago

*I* don't really know how much commissions cost, especially when I have a strong relationship with the person on the other end and/or know they're similarly early-career. I've settled on a price-per-minute that feels great for art song and okay for slightly bigger, but before that people got DEALS.

andrewsehmann.com•99 days ago

I feel that. It is a different beast for sure.

pwallinga.bsky.social•99 days ago

Every PIECE is such a different beast, which makes it so, so brutal to figure out. Not even just different mediums, but different funders, different challenges (that are often difficult-to-impossible to know in advance), different eventual reuse values and therefore career boosts...

andrewsehmann.com•99 days ago

Oh man, I didn’t even think of all those variables. I only know the cost of the one commission consortium I almost joined (I couldn’t because it was 2020 and it was for a natural horn piece… I couldn’t justify the $2000 vs paying rent). Noted for future endeavors.

doodlyroses.com•99 days ago

Dude. I made pretty good money when I was teaching but I still undercharged by a LOT because i wanted to be “competitive” with other teachers. Didn’t realize until way later that it wasn’t like the parents of kids who loved me were going around price shopping piano teachers lmao

mr-implausible.bsky.social•99 days ago

years ago my wife was given the advice to always raise your rate by at least $1 a year. it made her uncomfortable at the time. now that her studio is full enough that she can afford to lose students, she’s finally started doing it.

mr-implausible.bsky.social•99 days ago

yeah you build relationships with these families and it’s awkward thinking about it as transactional. but it’s a lot easier to say your charging $73/hr instead of $72 than saying you’re charging $70 instead of $65.

mr-implausible.bsky.social•99 days ago

* you’re

andrewsehmann.com•99 days ago

I know. My wife (the pianist), now just charges the same rate (or sometimes higher), as all the professors in town. People who shop for lessons are the worst people to teach.

doodlyroses.com•99 days ago

(Because this place has gotten so twitterfied lately, inevitably someone will show up in replies going WHAT ABOUT [some other thing that neither fits in my post nor is something I am qualified to make public statements about] and I have made my peace with this)

doodlyroses.com•99 days ago

Anyway in addition to the “operating costs” covered in Sam’s thread, there are so many incalculable costs that will drive you to madness if you try to add them up

doodlyroses.com•99 days ago

How much did my lifetime of training actually cost? How do you put a number on all the sacrifices and passed up opportunities that my family (then, later, me and my now-husband) made for me to pursue music at a serious level? 🫠

vaughanmcalley.bsky.social•99 days ago

Yes, for me mainly being a singer who can get by with a semi-professional flute is way cheaper than being most instrumentalists. But all the education and composing time, and the number of hours I have gotten from professional-level amateur singers is staggering.

sailorbp.bsky.social•98 days ago

I know a couple that play together, they have their own trio, play with another couple, are in 2 larger bands, and do back up gigs for soloists… the women also have a women’s trio. And the couple AirBnB’s their house when they are away long enough to not violate the short term rental rules.

sailorbp.bsky.social•98 days ago

The guy is a decent roofer too, he fixed up the roof on my sister-in-law’s barn as a favor

song-of-lark.bsky.social•99 days ago

And what the wealthiest orgs pay has an impact further down the food chain. When I did the research for this one article 10+ years ago, it convinced me that ensuring the wealthiest orchestras pay the most money possible is very relevant to every other musician https://songofthelarkblog.com/2013/02/26/some-dorky-musings-on-endowment-sizes-and-base-salaries/

song-of-lark.bsky.social•99 days ago

And this is one reason why the outcome of the San Francisco Symphony negotiation is so important, outside of being a benchmark for the big orchestras. Devaluing SFS musicians' work devalues the work of every musician, and may lead to a place where professional orchestral musicians no longer exist.

song-of-lark.bsky.social•99 days ago

I do not feel that this point has been widely accepted or acknowledged. In my corner of the internet, I certainly haven't been as vocal about it as I could have / should have been. There's always some smaller hotter crisis happening to detract and distract from the bigger picture.

doodlyroses.com•98 days ago

RIGHT like if, hypothetically, the SFS lowered salaries citing a “crisis,” it won’t be contained—the smaller Bay Area orchestras can go “well it would be ridiculous for us to pay more than SFS,” other major orchs could go “but SFS only pays X and they’re a major,” and so on and so forth

doodlyroses.com•98 days ago

I also thought how it was so gross in a recent piece that management (?) said “it’s fine that we’re not paying them a competitive salary, they have enough time to teach on the side” which…I just think is so not okay

lisairontongue.bsky.social•98 days ago

Do you have a link for that?

song-of-lark.bsky.social•98 days ago

I mean, it really does come down to, do people who fund orchestras want the most talented orchestral musicians in the country to dilute their output by having side jobs, or not? Funders have to either pay up, or face the consequences of what the crisis means to the field writ large. No hiding.

bottesini.bsky.social•98 days ago

And then combine that with the mindset of "getting through" that recital which so many college students have. Studying 6 hours a day for 6 months and perform it once. I never could understand that mentality.

electronicpanopticon.com•99 days ago

All the hell would have been worth it if I hadn't learned who was going to win an audition I'd spent months prepping for weeks before it happened. I quit on the spot and never looked back.

katewagner.bsky.social•99 days ago

i wrote about stuff like this after i quit music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/strike-with-the-band-wagner

violanorth.bsky.social•99 days ago

Oh, I definitely remember this article. You laid it allllll out. Great stuff.

katewagner.bsky.social•99 days ago

it's blackpilling stuff even though i've been out of it 8 years now

doodlyroses.com•99 days ago

This piece was so seminal for me!! I think I’ve linked to it a zillion times and also quoted/cited it in a talk I gave—thank you for writing it, seriously

katewagner.bsky.social•99 days ago

thank you!!! always makes me happy that someone I admire likes my work :)

muse-hub.bsky.social•94 days ago

That is beyond true. The ‘wage-disparity’ between the 0.5% and all other musicians is unbelievable. 🤔 Our newsletter hopes it will help gigging musicians negotiate, set their prices with more confidence and more to make a small difference here.

seattlejohn1.bsky.social•97 days ago

In addition most symphony musicians have to teach students just to survive. The orchestra salary isn’t enough to live on in most major cities.

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