Re: Why SHOULDN'T musicians be paid?

["Travis Hartnett" <travishartnett@gmail.com>]

I'm not sure that anyone here is begrudging you the *desire* to devote all your time to music, just perhaps the money to do so.  People don't get paid to do something for a living because they chose to do something, they earn a living doing something that brings in enough money to live on.  If you want to be admired by some (but not all) people ("Oh how noble--look how devoted he is to his art, he's a...MUSICIAN!!!"), be a musician.  If you want a decent chance of getting people to pay you a working wage for something you do 8+ hours a day, consider doing something really useful--like plumbing.  

Musicians frequently compare themselves to plumbers, carpenters or janitors, saying "You wouldn't expect these people to work for nothing--why expect musicians to do so?"  And the answer is that no-one would fix your plumbing unless you paid them a good deal of money.  It's not terribly pleasant work.  Indeed, your chance of making a living at a given occupation increases greatly if it's unpleasant or very difficult.  And while being a musician requires skill, study, discipline and so on, people can obtain music easily and cheaply without ever dealing with a musician, thanks to a century's worth of recordings.  And even if musicians were paid in a manner similar to tradesmen (plumbers, etc.), you'd have a tough time finding eight hours of musical work each day to bill for.   A plumber works for two hours, he bills for your two hours, plus materials, plus perhaps a fixed service call charge.  If gigs worked like that, you'd get paid for an hour's set, plus (let's say) a fixed "gig charge", and so you might gross a hundred bucks for the evening.  Not much to live on.  And realistically, getting paid $60/hour (roughly what a plumber charges in my neck of the woods) to play music is a rarity for most of us.

TH

lker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

Again:    I can't fathom why people on this , of all lists, would begrudge me the desire to devote all of my time to music that a professional
musical life affords me?