Re: Why SHOULDN'T musicians be paid?

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

No, I have a lot of respect for what I do--what I don't have is a lot of money for doing it.  

Music is something that exists in two worlds, one of which is the "world of commerce".  In that world, it has a property which I'll call "$value$", which measures how much money can be made off it.  In the other world, it has a property which I'll call "!value!".  

The two worlds are NOT directly coupled.  !value! does not directly correlate to $value$.  
Musicians often wish that it did, yet secretly fear that it may.

For me, the easiest way to remain a happy musician is not to worry much about the $value$ of my music, and the simplest way to do that is to earn my living doing something else and devote my other time, and the resources that my job brings to making music.  So I've spent years of playing between one and two hundred gigs a year in a variety of local venues in several cities, and it's based on this experience that I arrived at my view of the $worth$ of music.  Even my own $worth$ in a non-fixed value--at a cafe gig I'm $worth$, at most, $50.  At a wedding the next day, I'm $worth$ $500.  The next week I open for someone in a larger club and I'm $worth$ $100.  It's the same music at all three events, but the monetary compensation is all over the place (and never enough for the manner in which I prefer--indoors and with health insurance...).  Ironically, experience suggests that the !worth! of the wedding gig, to me, will be the lowest of the three.

And no, I'm not bitter about not being able to make a living making music.  "Bitterness" is a product of being denied something to which you are entitled, and I don't believe that anyone is entitled to make a living.  Should they be?  Maybe, in the most perfect of all perfect !worlds!, but in the $world$, the answer  is "no".  So, musicians, nurses, teachers, plumbers, lawyers--all you can do is fly your flag and see if anyone rallies to it.  

TH

On 4/16/08, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

Wow,  Travis,   your cyncism and lack of respect or existential self esteem for what you do is astonishing to me and hard to believe.

I'm proud to be a musician,  whether I'm paid well or not.   I'll do it until I die because I love it and value it myself.
I can't imagine living without music, frankly.

Maybe I"m reading you wrong,  but do I detect a large share of bitterness about your inability to make money from your music?

In my world,  I value artistry and creativity higher than almost anything, so I don't have any judgement of whether you can make money with your music or not.
Some of my favorite artists are NOT full time professional musicians.