Did you know? I didn’t know either. I’m serious, I had no idea there would be a second part to the previous blog. But here we are and now we have to try to understand why musicians get crazy.
Have you ever attempted to control air? I’m not talking about the air temperature or it’s velocity. I’m talking about the way the air vibrate, how it carries information. That’s the musician’s job, among others. Usually, especially nowadays, you also need to be good-looking. And young. Leonard Cohen did not start his career in music until he was thirty three, a fact that made hesitant many a record label to sign him, even if they loved his music. Oh, and he wasn’t particularly handsome either. Still, when you have the talent, you can achieve miracles and he became the singer/songwriter that we know.
Musicians have to work hard to be able to make a living. That or be incredibly lucky, and you cannot count on luck. You have to perform on stage what you’ve manufactured in the studio. In the world of classical music they spend years studying their instrument 7 to 12 hours per day before they dare audition for an orchestra. The audition itself is cut throat. You are let in on a stage but you don’t see who you’re going to play for. And they can’t see you either. There is a big screen that hide the auditionee from the jury. They can hear you but can’t be prejudice on what you look like or if your technique pass muster. Well, at least that’s the idea. I won’t develop further, I was just illustrating how tough it is to get a job in classical music.
Don’t think that it’s any easier in other genre. In Jazz you also need to study for a long time before you can get a gig. The audition also has its quirks. You go on stage directly and you play with musicians you’ve never seen before. The event is not private at all. As a matter of fact you’re playing in front of an audience. You need nerves of steel for this kind of adventure. The players who you’re jamming with can decide to take an impossibly fast tempo with impossibly difficult changes in an impossibly rare key. It’s called a cutting contest. I wish you luck for that one.
What about Rock, Hip-Hop, Rap, Pop, Country? Is it tough to get a paying job there? The answer is yes. And no. But count on yes, as in yes, it is difficult to get a paycheck in those world. I’ll give a for instance. Do you know that the studio musicians are almost exclusively from the U.S.A or the U.K? I’m talking about those musicians that get the international gigs like Eric Clapton or Toto. No Italians, French or Serbo-Croatians among those ranks. If there are, they’re the exception. Same at the very tippy-top of the charts. The artists all have English sounding monikers. Again, the exception are just that: exceptions.
So, let’s tally up all the reasons why music drives you crazy, shall we? You have to practice your craft, become obsessed with it for years. You have to become a specialist or a stylist while knowing that it won’t give you any guarantee that you’ll make a living. Once you’ve made it, you then have to try to stay there while dealing with the distorted world of the rich and famous, the one where there is no limit. And, if you’re young and vulnerable (and so many artist usually are, even once they reach old age), well, then, you might end up playing guitar and singing in your underwear in front of the cream of the crop of the music business at the Grammy’s. Do you get it now? Leave a comment if you do.
Leave a Reply