i'm 15 right now, good at sax, just starting piano, know a bit of guitar, have band (contempory, jazz) and orchestra experience and good music theory knowledge. am doing my music GCSE. say i did it for A level, got really good at sax, piano and maybe one other instrument then went to music college and got a degree. How much money, rough estimate, would i be earning at 25. i'm not talking teaching music, i mean playing proffesionally

About 25k a year, with lessons and bar gigs. But you'll ENJOY WHAT YOU DO.


[blind]

It really depends on how well you can network. Luck also plays a part. Most end up teaching, but if you're lucky, you'll get successful and be a popular professional musician.

If you can attain a position in a prestigious symphony orchestra, you can make pretty good money -- in the US, up to $100k/year, maybe more. But I would imagine it takes quite a lot of work to get to that level -- certainly not something you'll get fresh out of school.

I do believe that there are some people in the Omaha Symphony in their 20's. Granted, it took an immense amount of work on their part.

If you're just looking to have a band or a small giging group, I wouldn't bet on too terribly much by age 25 unless you manage to explode in popularity (don't bet on it).

As someone else said, you will enjoy what you do. That's often infinitely more important that how much you earn.

depending on how you negotiate and who you end up playing for, a session musician can make a lot of money. that's if you land yourself a job playing for some sort of pop sensation though. it's a big range.

if you work your heart out, you will most likely be able to make a living with it, at some point, but i REALLY mean work your heart out. in every way. marketing, networking, proliferating, advertising, practicing, and playing. its HARD, but it can be done.

Thats the attraction of it. I am scared of ending up in my 30's in some really boring job, feeling like crap and just wishing i'd taken a different path in life. But the money is the main issue, i really really really don't want to fail, and then end up doing some even crappier job. What about a military band, is/has anyone been in one of them. Some people came to my school who from one, they got like 30K a year, some more some less, cheap accommodation and stuff. But they still had to serve

supporting your country, and playing music, i don't see anything wrong with that.

My old music theory teacher, taught at my college 2 days a week, and every Thursday would play at a bar, and he said depending on the night he would make $100-$1000 just off of tips, the bar also paid him $500 just for playing. All he did was play requested songs on the piano, and he would push copies of his cd.

Basically get into everything you can musically, play bars, weddings, do overdubs at a studio, even record people, and teach, over time you'll meet some valuable contacts then all your work will be given to you.


heres the proof if anyone didn't believe him

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UE-wrYK8JSY

really interesting, but also makes me upset at the same time.

OMG! That's incredible technology! I can hardly believe this is real.

At the same time, I'm so sad! Musician performers are no longer needed. I'm glad I'm somewhat involved in this kind of music creation, otherwise I would pack up my keyboard and start living in a cave.

someone mentioned military bands. Real good money in those, they pay for everything. seriously, i used to study with the former lead alto player for the airmen of note (air force jazz band) and he said the pretty much covered his cost of living.

Become a session muso maybe, hey you could tour with singers. Maybe even lend your talent to writing jingles for commercials. Do an album or two maybe

When I was browsing the violinist.com forum, this happens to caught my eye:
"Money won't make you happy but happy won't make you money."
You can agree or disagree with this statement.
I play the violin and the guitar and I'm really happy when I play it though it won't make me money. However, me as an entrepreneur or a businessman I can definitely say that when I profit or earn money, I become happy.

this, cept for sax instead of violin + guitar

A player in the New York Symphony Orchestra gets anywhere from 100 grand to 200 grand per year.

But yeah, you're going to have to fucking work your ass off to get there. It seems that no matter how good you are in music, there's always someone better than you.

I've been in a military band as a first flautist, but because of my age they never payed me (I can't enlist yet)

However, people DO make good enough money to live being in a military band. They simply get payed as if they were serving, but their job is essentially "band" and that's it... That is, if that's your thing. I'm not a huge fan of concert band music, so I'd much rather be playing in a symphony... But I suppose you can't be picky.

In a word: No.

once again you prove you don't know shit

*silence*

That is wrong for so, SO many reasons. You used to mod here and you say things like that? Come on now. That was one epic stupidity leak there.

Hence the reason he's not the mod here anymore.

It's not a lot. I'm the assistant GM at a venue, and until you've made it big, you're not going to make money. Our support acts for shows have, essentially, a door deal. If they are able to sell over 35 tickets to a show, they get 1$/ticket. If they sell 101+ tickets, they receive 2$/ticket. So an average support band that sells 50 tickets will get 50$ divided between the members. They don't do it for the money. They do it for the exposure and the networking.

The national acts DO get enough to make a comfortable living. The Disco Biscuits came through and we gave them a $20,000 guarantee. Bret Michaels got around $45,000. Cake is asking $30,000. Once you get to a level where you can consistently sell X number of tickets, you can start negotiating guarantees and that's how you make the real money (Also merchandise get's TONS of money. Mindless Self Indulgence made over $7000 selling T-shirts in one night.)

It's hard to do it until you are established, and it's hard to keep high guarantees even when you are established. Being consistent is EVERYTHING when it comes to negotiating. To work your way up there, though, you network network network network network. I can't stress that enough...

Mike

how do you network?

You guys are idiots. The guy said SUBSTANTIAL income. Being a musician for a LIVING unless you have a big record deal, a high profile job with a label playing in studios, or a great live gig, is HARD. You will be poor, you will work long irregular hours, its not easy.


If you people who are being so rude to me for no reason don't know this, then you don't know what you are talking about. I'm pretty qualified to talk about this considering I've been living as a musician for about 5 years now.

Don't let your eagerness to argue with every word I say on this forum turn you away from posting good information to instead just posting whatever random bullshit you have to post to disagree with me.

Grow the fuck up.

So if I'm so wrong, tell me how.

Some of you obviously don't know anything about he cost of living in the USA these days.

Playing music for a living is a big Catch 22 in most places. For example, to play live jazz music for a living, you really need to live a in a place like New York to be around venues that pay well enough, and to be around enough competent musicians to find people good enough to play with. You could make $40,000 annually playing gigs in Manhattan easy. But $40,000 in Manhattan is not the same thing as $40,000 annually in whatever small-town-USA you live in right now. Rent alone in a bigger city like this will leave you barely able to pay the rest of your bills and expenses, much less keep up your instruments and pay for new gear when its needed.

MOST acts that tour nationally don't even pull a profit doing so, hell many DON'T pull a profile - but touring mid-sized venues for a few weeks on a national level twice a year is the best way to get exposure for your album.

Some bands can be very successful touring though. It depends on your fan base, and how you plan the tour. Plenty of people lose money on touring expenses and booking, but depending on their fan base and what hey have to sell.. can make tens of thousands of dollars selling merchandise. You have to know how to network, have really good people skills, and an understanding of how the business works so you don't get taken advantage of (and people WILL try to take advantage of you!!). Also you have to be prepared to do as much of the work in running a band, touring, and promoting yourself ... YOURSELF. The fewer people you have to pay to work for you on a tour, the more money there is to go into YOUR wallet at the end of the day. I worked on an Ike Turner tour in the 2007... and though it started at well... the tour was hemmoraging so much money at each stop on expenses, that the tour ended 4 weeks short of the original schedule... and it was a 5 week tour! This kind of thing happens all of the time. At the end of the day, you have to be able to pay the people working for you... so make sure you plan your tour very carefully.

One good rule to have in planning, is to never budget your expenses on the tour in such a way that the only way you can pay for the tour to go on day by day, is for everything to run smoothly at each step of the way. You need to have enough money BEFORE the tour to pay for the entire tour as scheduled even if shows get cancelled, ticket sales and attendance are much poorer than expected, or say, all your t-shirts or CDs to sell get left in Philadelphia and someone steals them (GOD DAMN IT!). You never know what can and will happen on a tour.

Btw this may sound kind of random and a little too specific... but MAN is it a good thing to have merchandise to sell that people WANT. A good t-shirts design can be the difference in whether or not a tour is successful financially, or a failure. Sounds a big insane, but its 100% true. Don't spend $3,000 in band mouse pads. Nobody is going to buy them. Talk to other bands touring in the same 'scene' you're a part of, and find out what the fans like. And set your prices on merchandise as LOW as you can go and still make money. A lot of big tours sell band t-shirts for $40 or some outrageous prices like that. Will people still buy them? Sure. But if there are 1,000 people in attendance at a show.. would you rather than 100 people buy a t-shirts for $30, or 500 people buy a t-shirt for $15? Every band or tour t-shirt someone wears is also GOOD free advertising, especially if its a really cool t-shirt! People look at band t-shirts, and people DO ask about the bands on them. So I'd say good merchandise is actually one of the most important things in running a band. People WANT band merchandise, and if the prices are good LOTS of people will buy it.

But keep in mind none of you are going to start out playing these venues on a regular basis. Unless you have a big record deal and the backing of a big label, with a good manager (can't stress how important this is), and some kind of representation from a big name talent agency... you have to work your way up like everyone else.

Be prepared to live basically in poverty for a few years before things get easy.

Its easy to SAY "I'd rather live the life of a poor musician, than as a middle class office worker". But until you've actually done it, its hard to really know how you feel about this.

P.S. I just read MikeTheWalrus's post and I'd say all the info in his post is accurate and very informative.

And why are YOU talking out of your ass about things you know NOTHING about? Pretty much anyone who was a mod around the time I was demodded will tell you that it was very a very poor reason, and basically was just an arbitrary and VERY random decision by Jeff Hunter.

Sometimes I can't believe I spend 7-8 YEARS standing up for regulars who apparently still don't have a clue what happens behind the scenes of these forums, and how unbelievably shitty this forum was 5 or 6 years ago. It took a lot of hard work to turn R&R from a shitty small forum on &totse to one of the bigger, and in my opinion what is CLEARLY the BEST forum on &totse with no other mods to help me at the time. Though I have to say I'm glad that I left R&R in the hands that I left it in, as I think both Jive Talka and Infectedgoose have done a great job.