It reminds of the common advice you often read (also in HN): Go on follow your passion but secure it with a job which provides for you (and your family). In th

It reminds of the common advice you often read (also in HN): Go on follow your passion but secure it with a job which provides for you (and your family). In the case of a musician one such way (besides teaching) is playing in "cover bands" ("playing everything": Top40, Classics etc.) which paid astonishingly well on a gig to gig basis (from weddings to little local fests) once you are a bit established and known (even locally). I was very young (17) when I started to do that (as a drummer) mostly because I "needed" some money for "better" equipment ;) At first I hated it but after a while I appreciated the actual discipline it required and it taught me practical musical communication skills through my time playing with a lot of different musicians. So, that it in a unexpected way did not only helped me out financially but also in becoming a more well-rounded musician (i.e. "paradoxically" recognizing my own style/preferences/tastes/musicality in a more nuanced way in all that noise of hypes, genres and sub-genres ...). So, yeah the best case scenario is doing what one loves and getting paid for it but it isn't black and white either, I definitely at some point could have "sold my soul to the devil" to make more money (professionalize it) but I was actually quite satisfied with just not being constantly broke :D Once I met my basic needs (after establishing what they actually are: e.g. not more and better equipment) everything beyond I tried to consider a luxury, a bonus which worked out well for me (still enjoying doing music and the community that this brought with it) in that turbulent time of youth/early adulthood. Edit: What a lot of people don't recognize: a handful of the musicians I met, later went on to become "successful". Well, in hindsight they struck me as highly obsessive and obviously for everyone around them fighting with some serious inner demons (addiction, depression, childhood traumas ...). For them to finally "made it" can only worsen their situation. Imagine having achieved what you wanted all along, being financially independent, you now literally have no (outside) reason anymore to be unhappy this can just only further estrange you from your environment. I think we are all familiar with the excesses of fame. "To be not successful" is way easier to handle for some highly vulnerable artists (doing great music) because they at least have a better chance to stay "grounded". I mean those driven personalities by exploring boundaries become really fluid, that's what also attracts a lot of audience, unfortunately: We marvel at the sight of the end result: "pearl" (which got produced by an extraordinarly amount of stress).