21 ms·

Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

248 points by tomduncalf 3y ago

wude935 3y ago
I wonder if there is any artistic benefit by marrying the arts with a deeply capitalist system. Obviously as this article mentions its not great for the artists themselves, but perhaps the cutthroat nature of the industry makes it so that only the best of the best rise to the top, even if it means it comes from an independently wealthy musician.
- deleted 3y ago
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- bruce511 3y ago
  Music is a commodity. There's already more music available to let my playlist run for years without repeats. Plus it's never been easier for folk to create, and publish, new music. With endless supply comes diminishing unit value. So, not to be brutal, but playing music is not an especially valuable thing, and so people really don't need to pay much for it. Ditto for writing books, making ceramics, pretty much anything artistic. I say this not to be a dick, but simply to point out the economics. When a million other people can do what you do, and live in the same city, then don't expect to make much of a living at it. Sure there are exceptions (hi Taylor) but that has less to do with actual music and more to do with other factors.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    No it's not. A commodity would mean that people are indifferent to the music of Metallica vs Taylor Swift vs your brother in law's blues band. They aren't. So it's not a commodity. Because that's what commodity means. You could let your playlist run for years, but you don't and nobody else does either because repetition and familiarity and quality are things people care about musically. Playing music well in a way that is liked by millions is an unbelievably valuable thing. Playing music badly is utterly worthless from an economic standpoint.
    - bluefishinit 3y ago
      I think you're underestimating the role marketing plays in demand generation. It's not that Taylor Swift is "better" than the local jazz guitarist, she's just more heavily marketed. Music labels know that the mass audience doesn't appreciate musical complexity so they market simple music with attractive performers. Then the Clear Channel/Ticketmaster... machine takes over and handles the promotion and distribution. I'm actually a big fan of pop music, but that doesn't mean that non-pop is financially unsuccessful because it's "bad", it's just not put into the marketing machine because it very well may be too good.
      - CPLX 3y ago
        I'm probably not underestimating the role marketing plays in music. I'm the former head of digital at a major music agency, and I handled campaigns for multiple album of the year Grammy winners and household name artists, almost certainly including music and artists you consider important in your life. It's not really about marketing. Everyone thinks that and they're wrong. You learn this instantly when you are actually in the business and see all the artists and projects that get the exact same amount of marketing effort as the massive hits and go literally fucking nowhere. It's like home run batting, even the best in the world at picking and promoting music are lucky to have like a 10-20% success rate. Audiences have a mind of their own, they like what they like. The problem people have with understanding this is usually that they don't like the same thing that mass audiences like, and they consider what they do like higher quality. So in their minds the masses are being duped, marketed to. Which is true to a point, they are being marketed to. And having resources and labels and monopolies behind you can definitely expose you to more people. But it's not enough, at all, if people don't respond to it. And conversely, if you have no resources whatsoever it's way harder, but it's not impossible at all and stuff that really has wide appeal most of the time really does bubble up and catch attention pretty quickly.
        bluefishinit 3y ago
        > It's like home run batting, even the best in the world at picking and promoting music are lucky to have like a 10-20% success rate. Mass market success is basically a crap shoot and doesn't really reflect the quality of the musician. You said: > Playing music badly is utterly worthless from an economic standpoint. And that's not true at all, being a virtuoso is pretty much worthless from an economic standpoint. It's pointless to try to equate skill to economic success because in pop art they don't have anything to do with each other. It's all about marketing and distribution. Not to say that the studio musicians that make the pop music aren't virtuosos, but they're definitely playing simplified songs.
  - x3iv130f 3y ago
    The exceptions are such because they are able to sell themselves as a "lifestyle brand" with a musical act associated. Something many musicians don't understand is that music is not primarily artistic nor technical but cultural.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    And TayTay's where she's at because her father supported her in it.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      Parental support is useful, but not sufficient. If parental support was sufficient a lot of people would be s lot richer now. Taylor is where she is because of an extraordinary amount of hard work (not sufficient by itself) an extraordinary amount of writing skill (not sufficient by itself), supporting parents who moved etc to maximise those skills (not suffcient by itself), an understanding of her audience (not sufficient by itself), some element of luck (persistence) and so on. Its not one thing that makes you stand out in music, its everything.
  - JSavageOne 3y ago
    > but playing music is not an especially valuable thing Sure if your definition of value is "income generated".
    - orbz 3y ago
      Money is pretty much an abstract way to represent value though.
      - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
        Notably, it's a very imperfect abstraction.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      In the context of this thread, and the context of the actual article, yes "valuable" in the economic sense. Of course there are other benefits to playing music (it's fun!) But the post was about doing it for money.
  - saagarjha 3y ago
    What about this does not apply to software, or any other highly paid profession?
    - npteljes 3y ago
      Software is very quickly outdated, and the software world is also expanding. So you need a lot of people writing new software. I don't know how much security there is in the field, in our lifetime, probably a lot. But I can also imagine a world where the CPU doesn't get much faster anymore, and the churn of paradigms and frameworks slow down, and in that world, software lives longer and so you'll not need as many, or as many highly paid, software people.
      - bruce511 3y ago
        History is full of examples. Think cars and planes. Invention, followed by massive innovation, rapid obsolence, followed by industry consolidation, and eventually stagnation. Between ww1 and ww2 military planes had a lifespan of a few years, tops. The Spitfire was conceived in the 30s, obsolete before the end of the 40s. [1] Today military planes have much longer lives, B52, F15, F16, A10 are all still in active service since the 70s or earlier. I was lucky enough to have a career in the golden age of computing. The next generation will oversee the consolidation, and in 40 years time work in hardware, and software will be commodity jobs for a small handful of multinationals. [1] prototype 1936, production 1938, 24 major upgrades in 9 years production ends 1947, retired by the RAF in 1954.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      Some highly paid professions are likely safe. Think Doctor. Basicically they're a commodity [1] but we kinda like having them around and (cruicially) their work doesn't scale. Frankly, at some level, software is already a commodity. Some markets have matured and it's increasingly unlikely you'll make a living there[2]. I needed a compass app on my phone the other day, there are a million to choose from, they're all free, and there's no way to differentiate one app that shows North from another. We are currently in the phase of new platforms, and that helps. I've worked on DOS, Windows, Linux, Web and Mobile. Each platform asks for the existing work to be redone. Once platforms settle down, once the library of work is big enough, and feature-complete enough [3] then the software development market will become very unvaluable. Itll exist, but it won't be a high-flying job. [1] I use the term commodity here in the sense that it's interchangeable in use , not that they're identical. Cars are a commodity because they all perform their function (transport) while differentiating on more-or-less irrelevant details (Cup holders). Sure a 2023 car is "better" in a million ways, but a 2012 car does the transport job perfectly well. There was once 50 car manufacturers in a single town in the UK. Today there are a handful globally. It takes a new platform (Tesla) or a new market (China) to make anything new in this space. [2] outside the odd viral game, which has its 15 minutes of popularity, you can't make money with a soley mobile app. You can make money with the app as an interface to a big backend system, but its the system making money not the app. [3] in some cases it's already there. How many times are upgrades basically a collection of visual updates coupled with features nobody uses? We fiddle around the edges but most languages are interchangeable. Good luck making money in developer tools these days - novelty is not enough. Yes tool x is better than everything else, but so is tool y, z and a. Sure everyone has their favorite editor, but the reason we can't decide on vi or emacs Is because functionally they both do the editing job just fine.
  - tnecniv 3y ago
    Yeah it’s supply and demand. There’s a lot more people that would love to be concert pianists than there are concert pianist jobs. I feel like these conversations often ignore the middle class of musicians that make a decent living gigging, touring, doing studio work, publishing with small labels, etc., but are not making huge money pumping out top 40 hits and filling stadiums.
  - wude935 3y ago
    Yes, but your favorite type of music may not be my favorite type of music. “Good enough” music might be a commodity, and with the commodification of “good enough” music, the more niche genres will start to disappear.
- westernpopular 3y ago
  This is just "capitalism breeds innovation" with extra steps, and the answer remains No.
- npteljes 3y ago
  >perhaps the cutthroat nature of the industry makes it so that only the best of the best rise to the top I think that's proven false, by the existence of Marketing as a field. Deep pockets achieve that it's not the "best X" that reaches places, but whatever they are pushing is reaching places. Not 100% the case, but still, music production is so an industry, and it's arguable whether this is good for the artists - or the public, for that matter. TL;DR the deeper the capitalism, the more exclusively the capital prevails
tomdell 3y ago
As someone who tried the music-or-nothing approach for several years after college and two years in ended up with semi-regular panic attacks, persistent existential dread, and crippling anxiety over finances, I can't recommend getting a day job enough. It saddens me to think of all the creative work I could be doing and all the artistic growth I could be seeing instead of developing marketing software, but at least I'm able to pay my bills, maintain a relationship, and generally live a life that consists of more than just obsessing over music. Less existential dread, too, which helps with focus when I do work on art after work and on the weekends.
- swayvil 3y ago
  I was in art pretty heavy. And ya, instability and dread the norm. And obsession. To fixate on the creation of the hour 24-7. To be master of my tiny creative walled paradise and let everything else go to hell. Now I'm not doing that. I'm doing the opposite. I'm expanding. I like it.
- ericmay 3y ago
  > semi-regular panic attacks, persistent existential dread Ha - I’ve known a number of friends who have had this same problem working a “useless 9-5” job and missing out over what they’re passionate about. It’s all about trade-offs.
  - tomdell 3y ago
    I definitely still feel sadness and anxiety over the feeling that I'm wasting my life on something I don't care about, but it feels more manageable for me than the earth-shattering feeling of having nothing but one thing and that one thing isn't working out the way I thought it would. Trade-offs indeed.
    - wnolens 3y ago
      Thanks for writing this and your previous statement re: panic attacks. It resonates and helps me attribute these feelings. I once went on hiatus from full-time work to "make it on my own" and after the manic honeymoon period, I found myself stuck between just a similar but shittier local maxima and despair. I've tried to understand this experience but it might just come down to this - that sufficient certainty in some level of security can't be overruled by attitude for too long. > having nothing but one thing and that one thing isn't working out After my experience I started to think about my life like a house supported by many pillars. It can withstand one pillar completely breaking, or a few in state of disrepair. But if there's only one or two to begin with (or if most are in disrepair), then when the next one breaks it all comes tumbling. And I might incorrectly attribute my problems to that pillar, when really it's the lack of others.
nomaxx117 3y ago
FWIW the open source scene (at least in the US) can often have very similar dynamics. I believe it was Ashley Williams who put it best by saying that in the Rust community (where I am), one's influence is determined by one's free time. I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence.
- trane_project 3y ago
  I'd love to work full time on my open source project (see profile) but I'll have to keep working for the man for now. It works and is useful for me already, but without the time needed to polish it and add more content, won't be that useful to other people. One can dream.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I think that is what HN is getting out of this article. Lots of us have side biz, or are working on something important to us, and we often think our product is better than the leaders of the industry. Heck, from a data/math point of view, mine is the best, without a question. I just don't have the charisma or connections to make it the number 1. I know my output(science) is going to last beyond my lifetime, even if I'm not nationally popular. I have academics and international leaders reading my work. Good enough for me. t. Dayjobber
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  > I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence. Unfortunately, I have found similar. A prime example I feel is Reddit mods, who all do it for free and spend countless hours moderating a community. In fact powermods, the most influential ones, were moderating a decent handful of communities. There wasn’t necessarily any reason for them to be in power specifically other than they had the time and desire for that power. No real need to interact with the community or even know what they were saying, as long as you could remove enough low quality content to retain your position.
- digging 3y ago
vorpalhex 3y ago
As someone who has spent an amazing amount of time coding, it's not because someone was paying my rent. It's because I sacrificed things to be able to work on my art. I have never had my rent paid for. I did not have a secret pile of cash or someone funding me. "Everyone who made it when I couldn't was secretly wealthy" is an interesting take but it seems more like coping mechanism than reality.
- alpark3 3y ago
  Coding? Your art is one of the most directly financially valuable skills on the planet and you're comparing yourself to starving musicians?
  - vorpalhex 3y ago
    My coding wasn't valuable when I started, anymore than the beginner guitarist is Bon Jovi.
    - platyp 3y ago
      The distinction is that working on your "art" is a direct pathway to thousands of salaried jobs with benefits. If you are a reasonably strong programmer and software engineer, you have to actively choose not to accept one of those jobs to struggle. It is not comparable at all to the struggles of someone in the fine arts.
    - sonicshadow 3y ago
      The difference is that a bottom 20% developer can make 6 figures after a few years of experience, while even a top 10% musician can barely make rent in a major city
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      There are a lot more jobs for programmers than musicians, at higher median pay (but a lower mean, because the pay for musicians is much more concentrated in a small cadre of very high earners.) Very different markets. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes272042.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes272042.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151251.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151251.htm
ipsi 3y ago
Reminds me of a couple of married friends of mine. The wife played a classical musical instrument (e.g., not an electric guitar) and had her sights set on being a professional. While working towards that she did a lot of teaching/practising/etc, and her students would often say something along the lines of "I'm so envious of all this time you have to practice music! How are you able to do it?!" and her reply was always a bit of a let-down/reality check for them: "my husband works in tech." Not quite independently wealthy, but I imagine there's a fair few artists out there in a similar position.
- gonehome 3y ago
  Also pretty common with authors iirc - a spouse with an income that provides stability. That said, also easy for people to use this as an excuse.
  - xen2xen1 3y ago
    The plot of Breaking Bad?
  - softfalcon 3y ago
    Yup, my brother is literally doing this. He stays at home, plays video games, writes his book. His wife literally works a coal mine to fund his career.
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  One can think of music teachers as a zero interest rate phenomenon then by proxy, so maybe it wasn’t all bad (but most of it was).
  - ketzo 3y ago
    Listen, can we all agree to stop calling any expenditure of money without a direct expectation of return a "zero interest rate phenomenon"? "Starving artists" have existed for millenia. The arts patronage system began either or thousands of years ago, depending on who you ask. People have paid lots of money for gold jewelry basically since we figured out how to pull it out of the ground. I saw someone call dog-walkers a ZIRP recently. No! It's just a luxury! There's a difference!
golergka 3y ago
Yes, that's the point of making money: so that your loved ones (probably kids) could do art or whatever else. What's the point of it all if you can't invest in your loved ones? Are you a bad person for loving your kids more then some other random kid that they would be competing against? I fail to see anything bad about this.
- itake 3y ago
  From an ethical society stand point, yes. In the US, we agreed that we need to support everyone’s children and so we pay taxes so other people’s children can attend school. If you refuse to help other people’s children get an education, you’re evading taxes and that is unethical.
  - mirror_neuron 3y ago
    It's a matter of the degree of support. Would it be wrong, in your view, for a wealthy tax-paying parent to invest in their own child above and beyond what their taxes provide for society's children?
    - itake 3y ago
      If a wealthy tax paying parent is votes against taxes to support programs like offering free lunches to children in schools, so their children can have a 'better' education, then I think that is wrong. I went to a wealthy private high school. 15 years later, most of the children from wealthy parents didn't amount to much. The top 50% work a high level role at their parent's company (probably taking the job from someone more skilled). At worst, they are still supported by their parents in their 30s, career-less. Only the top 5% multiplied their parent's wealth. The money spent on private education could have been used to support low-income students, which would reduce crime and create a more powerful middle-class.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      Is it wrong? No. But it's probably not good for society or even the kids, honestly. I struggle with how I'm going to be able to keep my kids grounded and motivated given the advantages they'll have in life. If I could change the tax code I would cut income taxes (why discourage work?) but jack up taxes on inheritances/gifts.
EamonnMR 3y ago
The indie developer from two weeks ago[1] needed to hear this. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505035
JSavageOne 3y ago
Great, practical advice. I do think however that by 2030, UBI will be the norm in many wealthy countries, and thus more people will be able to pursue their passions rather than having to sell their soul as dayjobbers to make money for corporations and rich people.
- hguant 3y ago
  In 7 years? I think the current crop of pilot tests for UBI are set to finish up in 7 years. No way meaningful UBI gets well enough established in 7 years to be considered "a norm." UBI is this generation's fusion - it's going to be 10 years away until the late 2070s, if at all.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I have yet to see a pilot test for UBI even begin. Which country’s people are all (universal) receiving an income? The whole thing makes no sense if everyone is not getting it.
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      > I have yet to see a pilot test for UBI even begin. Pilots have been done all over the place [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        It cannot be piloted without an entire country being subject to it. The whole point is that ALL the lowest income workers (janitors/fruit pickers/nursing home workers/etc) can quit their job, causing a massive re-pricing of labor and re-allocation of labor. It would cause lots of things to increase in price that are currently priced low simply because someone's parents happened to be from a poorer country that did not speak English, and so on and so forth. Without that, the benefits of UBI can never be observed.
bob1029 3y ago
> Knowing that the game is rigged is liberating! > how should you be expected to earn a living using their platforms unless you find a way to game the system? Do you have 20 smartphones lying around, per chance? This is the message I'd take away. Once you learn that the whole capitalist hellscape operates in approximately the same way, you can start to explicitly target its mechanisms in order to improve your life. Having moral flexibility helps so much. Being actively willing to "fuck over" arbitrary, faceless entities makes all the difference. If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life.
- WalterBright 3y ago
  Honor is what separates men from animals. We all get to choose which we are.
  - digging 3y ago
    if that's true, then the animals are in charge. you'll be miserable for the honor of being enslaved by beast? the GP hit the nail on the head saying, > If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life. laws are for the powerless.
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      Trying to justify acting like an animal means making that choice.
      - pravus 3y ago
        The only way to negotiate with animals is on their terms. When in Rome as they say...
      - digging 3y ago
        yes, I'm happily making that choice. it is the only sane choice. if you really think the kingdom can be neatly divided into wolverines, nuthatches, and happy people on one side, and "honorable" people on the other side, you do you. aren't you amazed that an animal like me can argue with you though?
tonyedgecombe 3y ago
Elizabeth Gilbert has a good take on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g7ARarFNnw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g7ARarFNnw
- educaysean 3y ago
  If you're linking to a YouTube video without providing a timestamp, can you at least give us a quick summary of the said "good take"?
dataviz1000 3y ago
“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet Reminds me of that quote. Rilke, a poet, was an apprentice to, Auguste Rodin, a sculptor, who taught Rilke how to be an artist. Although different disciplines, the nature of creativity and its manifestations are the same.
- sbazerque 3y ago
  Rilke is a must!!! I loved his Duino Elegies.
- Buttons840 3y ago
  > In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. A quick check of the suicide statistics shows that many have confessed this to themselves.
cushychicken 3y ago
I never knew Julian Casablancas was a trust fund baby, but knowing that makes a lot of sense out of The Strokes in hindsight.
sandworm101 3y ago
>> If anyone should have a shot in the various New York music scenes first and foremost, it should be local kids like Billy.If anyone should have a shot in the various New York music scenes first and foremost, it should be local kids like Billy. New York? A city founded on repeated waves of immigration. The city that put "give us your tired masses" on a big statue in the harbor. New York is not a city setup for locals. It is and has always been a dynamic city for new people doing new things. Being "local" isn't the advantage it is in other areas.
- shtopointo 3y ago
  Came in here to mention something similar. Seems wishful thinking that New York would owe something to anybody that grew up there. If anything, growing up there should give you the opportunity to have a network already, that would be a local's leg up... from kids you grew up with, to people you practiced music with etc. This might also be a case of a naive perspective from Billy thinking that the work is all that matters. Nope. Having connections also matters. Do you know bar owners? Do you know venues? Have you done someone a favor that they can pay back? That should be the a "local kid's" advantage. Maybe Billy just didn't form those connections or capitalize on that. Beyond not feeling bad for taking a side-job, maybe the advice should have been: Network. Get out there, meet people, do favors for people, help them and get help back eventually.
  - JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
    You seem to have missed the blogger's point, which is that NYC is in the process of locking out the entire class of artists to which the young musician belongs. A one in a million musician with superior networking skill, or unbelievable good looks, or luck, or whatever, may start making bank and secure his place in the city. That's not the point. The blogger's point is that the game is rigged to the point where if you're not That Guy, you can gtfo. The reality is that there are now millions of international rich kids bringing their parents money to outbid you for that crumbling walkup. So don't feel bad about not being able to compete in this ultra-stacked game without working another job, young musician.
fiprofessor 3y ago
Nice essay, but some of the contemporary examples in this paragraph about the independenlty wealthy are not really that compelling: I’m not saying wealthy people can’t make incredible artists. Without Marcel Duchamp’s monthly allowance from his father throughout his adult life, we would never have Dada. Giacinto Scelsi was literally the heir and Duke of La Spezia castle estate. Something more contemporary? Grimes’ mother was a Crown Prosecutor, the Canadian equivalent of a District Attorney, in Vancouver. Frankie Cosmos’ dad is the guy from Wild Wild West, no, not Will Smith, the other guy. Julian Casablancas’ father ran New York’s top super modeling agency while young Julian hung out at the kid’s table with Ivanka Trump at Christmas time. The list goes on. The argument is supposed to be that these kids didn't have to worry about paying the rent, so they were able to devote more time to their craft. But I don't think some of the contemporary examples listed were necessarily like that. Take Grimes -- a Crown Prosecutor is a public servant, so you can look up their average pay ranges: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/careers-myhr/all-employees/pay-benefits/salaries/salarylookuptool/legal-judiciary/crown-counsel-level-3 https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/careers-myhr/all-employee... . That's definitely a solid middle class life, but not exactly generational wealth. Now, compared to a poor kid who has to take on jobs in high school to support their family, I'm sure she had more time and less stress in her teenage years which let her practice more, but there are lots and lots of middle class children who have that level of free time which they devote to all sorts of extracurriculars. Moreover, Grimes, Casablancas, and Cosmos blew up when they were in their very early 20s: Cosmos released her debut studio album at 20, Grimes at 22, Casablancas at 23. So, despite any family wealth they may have had, it's not like they spent years and years of their adult lives living off their parents' support, or at least not any more so than hundreds of thousands of college students do every year. Of course, they had it easier than kids who cannot even afford to go to college, or who are working 20 hours a week to pay their way, but I'm not sure it's at all comparable to Duchamp or Scelsi. Maybe there's an argument that social connections helped them to get their record deals, but the argument presented doesn't seem to apply.
- bena 3y ago
  Grimes's dad was a former banker working on "the business side of biotech". That's two very solid incomes. And then she was with Devon Welsh, a singer/songwriter whose father was an actor. And most famously has been the partner of Elon Musk. She's had probably a larger share of carefree living than most. However, success is never just one thing. Because there are plenty of people with the same or greater level of support that Grimes had that never make it. But the point is that there are plenty of people as talented or more than Grimes who achieve no success at all. Success is more often than not the result of avoiding catastrophic issues than it is from anything you actively choose. And the more chances you have to try, the more chances you have of doing something that avoids catastrophe. Hard work, support, talent, luck, determination, these will all help you, but none of them will guarantee you success. Not singularly or in combination.
zeryx 3y ago
This doesn't just resonate with creatives - the startup / path to tech entrepreneurship is structured in a very similar way. I've seen lifers, trust funders and day jobbers succeed and fail in different ways, raise funds or bootstrap with nothing for years. Obviously the trust fund kids succeed substantially more often than the lifers or day jobbers
- solarmist 3y ago
  Yup, threw my hat into the ring to try this for three years and I can see the path forward, but I don't have the income cushion or (VC) sales skills to pull it off except as a dayjobber.
- Tiktaalik 3y ago
  Pretty much everywhere really. Several years ago I was mulling starting up a retail store in my town and when I looked closer at some of retail stores I liked in similar/adjacent markets I couldn't help but notice the backgrounds of the young founders of those stores, that they just so happened to come from enormously rich families and were obviously independently wealthy. Their outwardly appearing successful stores may have well been simple hobbies and passion projects. Possibly these persons were also great business persons and those stores were genuine profitable successes, but there was really no way of knowing. It was something that did dissuade me somewhat from my idea of venturing down the same path. I absolutely did not have the sort of infinite safety net that they had.
hitekker 3y ago
> It’s because of this harsh reality that romanticizing the lifer lifestyle in 21st century Brooklyn, or any other major American city, as anything other than the struggle it is can be incredibly dangerous. Millennials and Zoomers have been sold the lie that the big cities remain a bastion for cutting edge arts and culture, let alone that they are even livable for working artists. What year do they expect us to believe it is? The New York Times loves to gloat about the local renaissance happening in Bushwick in the Arts Section while covering a tech CEO who recently bought a brownstone in Bed-Stuy for a cool five million in the Real Estate section. A unique paragraph. People fall in love with a story they’ve never been apart of, never will be apart of, that is told by people who only caught of glimpse of it.
- solarmist 3y ago
  Isn't this the modern definition of romanticism? The longing for a beautiful story that may never have existed?
- api 3y ago
  I see a lot of today’s dedicated artists who don’t want to have to grind like mad just to afford rent moving to mid-size cities or even small towns. It’s really the only economically rational move. Big cities have priced out any culture that is not either subsidized somehow (e.g. trust fund) or already established. I’d argue that many have even priced out entrepreneurship that is not lavishly funded by VC or founder capital. My generation (I am on the young gen-X / old millennial cusp) believed, with some truth, that one had to go to one of maybe six to ten cities to do anything cutting edge in most fields. For young people today I don’t think this is true anymore, and if anything these cities have become traps that will destroy your ability to become established. As would be predicted by the “law of rent,” real estate costs have grown so as to soak up any advantage in being in these places.
microtherion 3y ago
The article mentions Philip Glass, but not his work as a plumber, featuring this delightful anecdote he told in an interview: “While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.”
chmod600 3y ago
I don’t see what “the game is rigged” adds to an otherwise positive message, let alone why it comes first. Why is it somehow bad that musicians need a day job? There are a lot of aspiring musicians out there compared to the audiences waiting for them to perform. A day job is a quite reasonable way to make sure they contribute something to society while we’re waiting to see if they are truly talented or not. Would we have the same feelings about the “rigged” brewing industry that doesn’t give a young brewer a chance to develop his craft? After a certain point it seems like we’re forgetting that a job is about a contribution to society, not just an expression of some inner identity.
- bagacrap 3y ago
  Indeed. Many kids aspire to join the NBA. That's a kind of art, isn't it? Yet I think society collapses if we let every one of these kids off from contributing to sustaining it. At least until the robots and AI take the wheel.
nomaxx117 3y ago
I mentioned OSS in a different comment, but it's not the only thing I've noticed this with. Politics at any level in the US (local, state, or national) falls into the same situation regardless of party. Activism takes time and resources to be successful and get your name out, and the moral status attached to it creates a similar set of incentives such that you end up with the same pattern of lifers who are perpetually broke, independently wealthy folks who can be heavily involved and live decently at the same time, and folks with a dayjob who are involved but never really wield much influence on any level. It's an interesting problem and I'd argue it serves as evidence that this happens to anything with attached status. Journalism I've heard has the issue as well.

248 points by tomduncalf 3y ago

I wonder if there is any artistic benefit by marrying the arts with a deeply capitalist system. Obviously as this article mentions its not great for the artists themselves, but perhaps the cutthroat nature of the industry makes it so that only the best of the best rise to the top, even if it means it comes from an independently wealthy musician.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bruce511 3y ago
Music is a commodity. There's already more music available to let my playlist run for years without repeats. Plus it's never been easier for folk to create, and publish, new music. With endless supply comes diminishing unit value. So, not to be brutal, but playing music is not an especially valuable thing, and so people really don't need to pay much for it. Ditto for writing books, making ceramics, pretty much anything artistic. I say this not to be a dick, but simply to point out the economics. When a million other people can do what you do, and live in the same city, then don't expect to make much of a living at it. Sure there are exceptions (hi Taylor) but that has less to do with actual music and more to do with other factors.
- CPLX 3y ago
  No it's not. A commodity would mean that people are indifferent to the music of Metallica vs Taylor Swift vs your brother in law's blues band. They aren't. So it's not a commodity. Because that's what commodity means. You could let your playlist run for years, but you don't and nobody else does either because repetition and familiarity and quality are things people care about musically. Playing music well in a way that is liked by millions is an unbelievably valuable thing. Playing music badly is utterly worthless from an economic standpoint.
  - bluefishinit 3y ago
    I think you're underestimating the role marketing plays in demand generation. It's not that Taylor Swift is "better" than the local jazz guitarist, she's just more heavily marketed. Music labels know that the mass audience doesn't appreciate musical complexity so they market simple music with attractive performers. Then the Clear Channel/Ticketmaster... machine takes over and handles the promotion and distribution. I'm actually a big fan of pop music, but that doesn't mean that non-pop is financially unsuccessful because it's "bad", it's just not put into the marketing machine because it very well may be too good.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      I'm probably not underestimating the role marketing plays in music. I'm the former head of digital at a major music agency, and I handled campaigns for multiple album of the year Grammy winners and household name artists, almost certainly including music and artists you consider important in your life. It's not really about marketing. Everyone thinks that and they're wrong. You learn this instantly when you are actually in the business and see all the artists and projects that get the exact same amount of marketing effort as the massive hits and go literally fucking nowhere. It's like home run batting, even the best in the world at picking and promoting music are lucky to have like a 10-20% success rate. Audiences have a mind of their own, they like what they like. The problem people have with understanding this is usually that they don't like the same thing that mass audiences like, and they consider what they do like higher quality. So in their minds the masses are being duped, marketed to. Which is true to a point, they are being marketed to. And having resources and labels and monopolies behind you can definitely expose you to more people. But it's not enough, at all, if people don't respond to it. And conversely, if you have no resources whatsoever it's way harder, but it's not impossible at all and stuff that really has wide appeal most of the time really does bubble up and catch attention pretty quickly.
      - bluefishinit 3y ago
        > It's like home run batting, even the best in the world at picking and promoting music are lucky to have like a 10-20% success rate. Mass market success is basically a crap shoot and doesn't really reflect the quality of the musician. You said: > Playing music badly is utterly worthless from an economic standpoint. And that's not true at all, being a virtuoso is pretty much worthless from an economic standpoint. It's pointless to try to equate skill to economic success because in pop art they don't have anything to do with each other. It's all about marketing and distribution. Not to say that the studio musicians that make the pop music aren't virtuosos, but they're definitely playing simplified songs.
- x3iv130f 3y ago
  The exceptions are such because they are able to sell themselves as a "lifestyle brand" with a musical act associated. Something many musicians don't understand is that music is not primarily artistic nor technical but cultural.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  And TayTay's where she's at because her father supported her in it.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Parental support is useful, but not sufficient. If parental support was sufficient a lot of people would be s lot richer now. Taylor is where she is because of an extraordinary amount of hard work (not sufficient by itself) an extraordinary amount of writing skill (not sufficient by itself), supporting parents who moved etc to maximise those skills (not suffcient by itself), an understanding of her audience (not sufficient by itself), some element of luck (persistence) and so on. Its not one thing that makes you stand out in music, its everything.
- JSavageOne 3y ago
  > but playing music is not an especially valuable thing Sure if your definition of value is "income generated".
  - orbz 3y ago
    Money is pretty much an abstract way to represent value though.
    - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
      Notably, it's a very imperfect abstraction.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    In the context of this thread, and the context of the actual article, yes "valuable" in the economic sense. Of course there are other benefits to playing music (it's fun!) But the post was about doing it for money.
- saagarjha 3y ago
  What about this does not apply to software, or any other highly paid profession?
  - npteljes 3y ago
    Software is very quickly outdated, and the software world is also expanding. So you need a lot of people writing new software. I don't know how much security there is in the field, in our lifetime, probably a lot. But I can also imagine a world where the CPU doesn't get much faster anymore, and the churn of paradigms and frameworks slow down, and in that world, software lives longer and so you'll not need as many, or as many highly paid, software people.
    - bruce511 3y ago
      History is full of examples. Think cars and planes. Invention, followed by massive innovation, rapid obsolence, followed by industry consolidation, and eventually stagnation. Between ww1 and ww2 military planes had a lifespan of a few years, tops. The Spitfire was conceived in the 30s, obsolete before the end of the 40s. [1] Today military planes have much longer lives, B52, F15, F16, A10 are all still in active service since the 70s or earlier. I was lucky enough to have a career in the golden age of computing. The next generation will oversee the consolidation, and in 40 years time work in hardware, and software will be commodity jobs for a small handful of multinationals. [1] prototype 1936, production 1938, 24 major upgrades in 9 years production ends 1947, retired by the RAF in 1954.
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Some highly paid professions are likely safe. Think Doctor. Basicically they're a commodity [1] but we kinda like having them around and (cruicially) their work doesn't scale. Frankly, at some level, software is already a commodity. Some markets have matured and it's increasingly unlikely you'll make a living there[2]. I needed a compass app on my phone the other day, there are a million to choose from, they're all free, and there's no way to differentiate one app that shows North from another. We are currently in the phase of new platforms, and that helps. I've worked on DOS, Windows, Linux, Web and Mobile. Each platform asks for the existing work to be redone. Once platforms settle down, once the library of work is big enough, and feature-complete enough [3] then the software development market will become very unvaluable. Itll exist, but it won't be a high-flying job. [1] I use the term commodity here in the sense that it's interchangeable in use , not that they're identical. Cars are a commodity because they all perform their function (transport) while differentiating on more-or-less irrelevant details (Cup holders). Sure a 2023 car is "better" in a million ways, but a 2012 car does the transport job perfectly well. There was once 50 car manufacturers in a single town in the UK. Today there are a handful globally. It takes a new platform (Tesla) or a new market (China) to make anything new in this space. [2] outside the odd viral game, which has its 15 minutes of popularity, you can't make money with a soley mobile app. You can make money with the app as an interface to a big backend system, but its the system making money not the app. [3] in some cases it's already there. How many times are upgrades basically a collection of visual updates coupled with features nobody uses? We fiddle around the edges but most languages are interchangeable. Good luck making money in developer tools these days - novelty is not enough. Yes tool x is better than everything else, but so is tool y, z and a. Sure everyone has their favorite editor, but the reason we can't decide on vi or emacs Is because functionally they both do the editing job just fine.
- tnecniv 3y ago
  Yeah it’s supply and demand. There’s a lot more people that would love to be concert pianists than there are concert pianist jobs. I feel like these conversations often ignore the middle class of musicians that make a decent living gigging, touring, doing studio work, publishing with small labels, etc., but are not making huge money pumping out top 40 hits and filling stadiums.
- wude935 3y ago
  Yes, but your favorite type of music may not be my favorite type of music. “Good enough” music might be a commodity, and with the commodification of “good enough” music, the more niche genres will start to disappear.
westernpopular 3y ago
This is just "capitalism breeds innovation" with extra steps, and the answer remains No.
npteljes 3y ago
>perhaps the cutthroat nature of the industry makes it so that only the best of the best rise to the top I think that's proven false, by the existence of Marketing as a field. Deep pockets achieve that it's not the "best X" that reaches places, but whatever they are pushing is reaching places. Not 100% the case, but still, music production is so an industry, and it's arguable whether this is good for the artists - or the public, for that matter. TL;DR the deeper the capitalism, the more exclusively the capital prevails

tomdell 3y ago

As someone who tried the music-or-nothing approach for several years after college and two years in ended up with semi-regular panic attacks, persistent existential dread, and crippling anxiety over finances, I can't recommend getting a day job enough. It saddens me to think of all the creative work I could be doing and all the artistic growth I could be seeing instead of developing marketing software, but at least I'm able to pay my bills, maintain a relationship, and generally live a life that consists of more than just obsessing over music. Less existential dread, too, which helps with focus when I do work on art after work and on the weekends.

swayvil 3y ago
I was in art pretty heavy. And ya, instability and dread the norm. And obsession. To fixate on the creation of the hour 24-7. To be master of my tiny creative walled paradise and let everything else go to hell. Now I'm not doing that. I'm doing the opposite. I'm expanding. I like it.
ericmay 3y ago
> semi-regular panic attacks, persistent existential dread Ha - I’ve known a number of friends who have had this same problem working a “useless 9-5” job and missing out over what they’re passionate about. It’s all about trade-offs.
- tomdell 3y ago
  I definitely still feel sadness and anxiety over the feeling that I'm wasting my life on something I don't care about, but it feels more manageable for me than the earth-shattering feeling of having nothing but one thing and that one thing isn't working out the way I thought it would. Trade-offs indeed.
  - wnolens 3y ago
    Thanks for writing this and your previous statement re: panic attacks. It resonates and helps me attribute these feelings. I once went on hiatus from full-time work to "make it on my own" and after the manic honeymoon period, I found myself stuck between just a similar but shittier local maxima and despair. I've tried to understand this experience but it might just come down to this - that sufficient certainty in some level of security can't be overruled by attitude for too long. > having nothing but one thing and that one thing isn't working out After my experience I started to think about my life like a house supported by many pillars. It can withstand one pillar completely breaking, or a few in state of disrepair. But if there's only one or two to begin with (or if most are in disrepair), then when the next one breaks it all comes tumbling. And I might incorrectly attribute my problems to that pillar, when really it's the lack of others.

nomaxx117 3y ago

FWIW the open source scene (at least in the US) can often have very similar dynamics. I believe it was Ashley Williams who put it best by saying that in the Rust community (where I am), one's influence is determined by one's free time. I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence.

trane_project 3y ago
I'd love to work full time on my open source project (see profile) but I'll have to keep working for the man for now. It works and is useful for me already, but without the time needed to polish it and add more content, won't be that useful to other people. One can dream.
hospitalJail 3y ago
I think that is what HN is getting out of this article. Lots of us have side biz, or are working on something important to us, and we often think our product is better than the leaders of the industry. Heck, from a data/math point of view, mine is the best, without a question. I just don't have the charisma or connections to make it the number 1. I know my output(science) is going to last beyond my lifetime, even if I'm not nationally popular. I have academics and international leaders reading my work. Good enough for me. t. Dayjobber
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
> I've noticed over time that in certain areas it can very much be those with the least experience on a subject (but the most free time) who wield the most influence. Unfortunately, I have found similar. A prime example I feel is Reddit mods, who all do it for free and spend countless hours moderating a community. In fact powermods, the most influential ones, were moderating a decent handful of communities. There wasn’t necessarily any reason for them to be in power specifically other than they had the time and desire for that power. No real need to interact with the community or even know what they were saying, as long as you could remove enough low quality content to retain your position.
digging 3y ago

vorpalhex 3y ago

As someone who has spent an amazing amount of time coding, it's not because someone was paying my rent. It's because I sacrificed things to be able to work on my art. I have never had my rent paid for. I did not have a secret pile of cash or someone funding me. "Everyone who made it when I couldn't was secretly wealthy" is an interesting take but it seems more like coping mechanism than reality.

alpark3 3y ago
Coding? Your art is one of the most directly financially valuable skills on the planet and you're comparing yourself to starving musicians?
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  My coding wasn't valuable when I started, anymore than the beginner guitarist is Bon Jovi.
  - platyp 3y ago
    The distinction is that working on your "art" is a direct pathway to thousands of salaried jobs with benefits. If you are a reasonably strong programmer and software engineer, you have to actively choose not to accept one of those jobs to struggle. It is not comparable at all to the struggles of someone in the fine arts.
  - sonicshadow 3y ago
    The difference is that a bottom 20% developer can make 6 figures after a few years of experience, while even a top 10% musician can barely make rent in a major city
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    There are a lot more jobs for programmers than musicians, at higher median pay (but a lower mean, because the pay for musicians is much more concentrated in a small cadre of very high earners.) Very different markets. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes272042.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes272042.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151251.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151251.htm

ipsi 3y ago

Reminds me of a couple of married friends of mine. The wife played a classical musical instrument (e.g., not an electric guitar) and had her sights set on being a professional. While working towards that she did a lot of teaching/practising/etc, and her students would often say something along the lines of "I'm so envious of all this time you have to practice music! How are you able to do it?!" and her reply was always a bit of a let-down/reality check for them: "my husband works in tech." Not quite independently wealthy, but I imagine there's a fair few artists out there in a similar position.

gonehome 3y ago
Also pretty common with authors iirc - a spouse with an income that provides stability. That said, also easy for people to use this as an excuse.
- xen2xen1 3y ago
  The plot of Breaking Bad?
- softfalcon 3y ago
  Yup, my brother is literally doing this. He stays at home, plays video games, writes his book. His wife literally works a coal mine to fund his career.
Mistletoe 3y ago
One can think of music teachers as a zero interest rate phenomenon then by proxy, so maybe it wasn’t all bad (but most of it was).
- ketzo 3y ago
  Listen, can we all agree to stop calling any expenditure of money without a direct expectation of return a "zero interest rate phenomenon"? "Starving artists" have existed for millenia. The arts patronage system began either or thousands of years ago, depending on who you ask. People have paid lots of money for gold jewelry basically since we figured out how to pull it out of the ground. I saw someone call dog-walkers a ZIRP recently. No! It's just a luxury! There's a difference!

golergka 3y ago

Yes, that's the point of making money: so that your loved ones (probably kids) could do art or whatever else. What's the point of it all if you can't invest in your loved ones? Are you a bad person for loving your kids more then some other random kid that they would be competing against? I fail to see anything bad about this.

itake 3y ago
From an ethical society stand point, yes. In the US, we agreed that we need to support everyone’s children and so we pay taxes so other people’s children can attend school. If you refuse to help other people’s children get an education, you’re evading taxes and that is unethical.
- mirror_neuron 3y ago
  It's a matter of the degree of support. Would it be wrong, in your view, for a wealthy tax-paying parent to invest in their own child above and beyond what their taxes provide for society's children?
  - itake 3y ago
    If a wealthy tax paying parent is votes against taxes to support programs like offering free lunches to children in schools, so their children can have a 'better' education, then I think that is wrong. I went to a wealthy private high school. 15 years later, most of the children from wealthy parents didn't amount to much. The top 50% work a high level role at their parent's company (probably taking the job from someone more skilled). At worst, they are still supported by their parents in their 30s, career-less. Only the top 5% multiplied their parent's wealth. The money spent on private education could have been used to support low-income students, which would reduce crime and create a more powerful middle-class.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    Is it wrong? No. But it's probably not good for society or even the kids, honestly. I struggle with how I'm going to be able to keep my kids grounded and motivated given the advantages they'll have in life. If I could change the tax code I would cut income taxes (why discourage work?) but jack up taxes on inheritances/gifts.

EamonnMR 3y ago

The indie developer from two weeks ago[1] needed to hear this. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505035 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505035

JSavageOne 3y ago

Great, practical advice. I do think however that by 2030, UBI will be the norm in many wealthy countries, and thus more people will be able to pursue their passions rather than having to sell their soul as dayjobbers to make money for corporations and rich people.

hguant 3y ago
In 7 years? I think the current crop of pilot tests for UBI are set to finish up in 7 years. No way meaningful UBI gets well enough established in 7 years to be considered "a norm." UBI is this generation's fusion - it's going to be 10 years away until the late 2070s, if at all.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I have yet to see a pilot test for UBI even begin. Which country’s people are all (universal) receiving an income? The whole thing makes no sense if everyone is not getting it.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    > I have yet to see a pilot test for UBI even begin. Pilots have been done all over the place [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      It cannot be piloted without an entire country being subject to it. The whole point is that ALL the lowest income workers (janitors/fruit pickers/nursing home workers/etc) can quit their job, causing a massive re-pricing of labor and re-allocation of labor. It would cause lots of things to increase in price that are currently priced low simply because someone's parents happened to be from a poorer country that did not speak English, and so on and so forth. Without that, the benefits of UBI can never be observed.

bob1029 3y ago

> Knowing that the game is rigged is liberating! > how should you be expected to earn a living using their platforms unless you find a way to game the system? Do you have 20 smartphones lying around, per chance? This is the message I'd take away. Once you learn that the whole capitalist hellscape operates in approximately the same way, you can start to explicitly target its mechanisms in order to improve your life. Having moral flexibility helps so much. Being actively willing to "fuck over" arbitrary, faceless entities makes all the difference. If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life.

WalterBright 3y ago
Honor is what separates men from animals. We all get to choose which we are.
- digging 3y ago
  if that's true, then the animals are in charge. you'll be miserable for the honor of being enslaved by beast? the GP hit the nail on the head saying, > If you start looking at the law in terms of "how much does it cost to do whatever I want", then you are now effectively playing by the same rules as those who seek to control your life. laws are for the powerless.
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    Trying to justify acting like an animal means making that choice.
    - pravus 3y ago
      The only way to negotiate with animals is on their terms. When in Rome as they say...
    - digging 3y ago
      yes, I'm happily making that choice. it is the only sane choice. if you really think the kingdom can be neatly divided into wolverines, nuthatches, and happy people on one side, and "honorable" people on the other side, you do you. aren't you amazed that an animal like me can argue with you though?

tonyedgecombe 3y ago

Elizabeth Gilbert has a good take on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g7ARarFNnw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g7ARarFNnw

educaysean 3y ago
If you're linking to a YouTube video without providing a timestamp, can you at least give us a quick summary of the said "good take"?

dataviz1000 3y ago

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet Reminds me of that quote. Rilke, a poet, was an apprentice to, Auguste Rodin, a sculptor, who taught Rilke how to be an artist. Although different disciplines, the nature of creativity and its manifestations are the same.

sbazerque 3y ago
Rilke is a must!!! I loved his Duino Elegies.
Buttons840 3y ago
> In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. A quick check of the suicide statistics shows that many have confessed this to themselves.

cushychicken 3y ago

I never knew Julian Casablancas was a trust fund baby, but knowing that makes a lot of sense out of The Strokes in hindsight.

sandworm101 3y ago

>> If anyone should have a shot in the various New York music scenes first and foremost, it should be local kids like Billy.If anyone should have a shot in the various New York music scenes first and foremost, it should be local kids like Billy. New York? A city founded on repeated waves of immigration. The city that put "give us your tired masses" on a big statue in the harbor. New York is not a city setup for locals. It is and has always been a dynamic city for new people doing new things. Being "local" isn't the advantage it is in other areas.

shtopointo 3y ago
Came in here to mention something similar. Seems wishful thinking that New York would owe something to anybody that grew up there. If anything, growing up there should give you the opportunity to have a network already, that would be a local's leg up... from kids you grew up with, to people you practiced music with etc. This might also be a case of a naive perspective from Billy thinking that the work is all that matters. Nope. Having connections also matters. Do you know bar owners? Do you know venues? Have you done someone a favor that they can pay back? That should be the a "local kid's" advantage. Maybe Billy just didn't form those connections or capitalize on that. Beyond not feeling bad for taking a side-job, maybe the advice should have been: Network. Get out there, meet people, do favors for people, help them and get help back eventually.
- JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
  You seem to have missed the blogger's point, which is that NYC is in the process of locking out the entire class of artists to which the young musician belongs. A one in a million musician with superior networking skill, or unbelievable good looks, or luck, or whatever, may start making bank and secure his place in the city. That's not the point. The blogger's point is that the game is rigged to the point where if you're not That Guy, you can gtfo. The reality is that there are now millions of international rich kids bringing their parents money to outbid you for that crumbling walkup. So don't feel bad about not being able to compete in this ultra-stacked game without working another job, young musician.

fiprofessor 3y ago

Nice essay, but some of the contemporary examples in this paragraph about the independenlty wealthy are not really that compelling: I’m not saying wealthy people can’t make incredible artists. Without Marcel Duchamp’s monthly allowance from his father throughout his adult life, we would never have Dada. Giacinto Scelsi was literally the heir and Duke of La Spezia castle estate. Something more contemporary? Grimes’ mother was a Crown Prosecutor, the Canadian equivalent of a District Attorney, in Vancouver. Frankie Cosmos’ dad is the guy from Wild Wild West, no, not Will Smith, the other guy. Julian Casablancas’ father ran New York’s top super modeling agency while young Julian hung out at the kid’s table with Ivanka Trump at Christmas time. The list goes on. The argument is supposed to be that these kids didn't have to worry about paying the rent, so they were able to devote more time to their craft. But I don't think some of the contemporary examples listed were necessarily like that. Take Grimes -- a Crown Prosecutor is a public servant, so you can look up their average pay ranges: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/careers-myhr/all-employees/pay-benefits/salaries/salarylookuptool/legal-judiciary/crown-counsel-level-3 https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/careers-myhr/all-employee... . That's definitely a solid middle class life, but not exactly generational wealth. Now, compared to a poor kid who has to take on jobs in high school to support their family, I'm sure she had more time and less stress in her teenage years which let her practice more, but there are lots and lots of middle class children who have that level of free time which they devote to all sorts of extracurriculars. Moreover, Grimes, Casablancas, and Cosmos blew up when they were in their very early 20s: Cosmos released her debut studio album at 20, Grimes at 22, Casablancas at 23. So, despite any family wealth they may have had, it's not like they spent years and years of their adult lives living off their parents' support, or at least not any more so than hundreds of thousands of college students do every year. Of course, they had it easier than kids who cannot even afford to go to college, or who are working 20 hours a week to pay their way, but I'm not sure it's at all comparable to Duchamp or Scelsi. Maybe there's an argument that social connections helped them to get their record deals, but the argument presented doesn't seem to apply.

bena 3y ago
Grimes's dad was a former banker working on "the business side of biotech". That's two very solid incomes. And then she was with Devon Welsh, a singer/songwriter whose father was an actor. And most famously has been the partner of Elon Musk. She's had probably a larger share of carefree living than most. However, success is never just one thing. Because there are plenty of people with the same or greater level of support that Grimes had that never make it. But the point is that there are plenty of people as talented or more than Grimes who achieve no success at all. Success is more often than not the result of avoiding catastrophic issues than it is from anything you actively choose. And the more chances you have to try, the more chances you have of doing something that avoids catastrophe. Hard work, support, talent, luck, determination, these will all help you, but none of them will guarantee you success. Not singularly or in combination.

zeryx 3y ago

This doesn't just resonate with creatives - the startup / path to tech entrepreneurship is structured in a very similar way. I've seen lifers, trust funders and day jobbers succeed and fail in different ways, raise funds or bootstrap with nothing for years. Obviously the trust fund kids succeed substantially more often than the lifers or day jobbers

solarmist 3y ago
Yup, threw my hat into the ring to try this for three years and I can see the path forward, but I don't have the income cushion or (VC) sales skills to pull it off except as a dayjobber.
Tiktaalik 3y ago
Pretty much everywhere really. Several years ago I was mulling starting up a retail store in my town and when I looked closer at some of retail stores I liked in similar/adjacent markets I couldn't help but notice the backgrounds of the young founders of those stores, that they just so happened to come from enormously rich families and were obviously independently wealthy. Their outwardly appearing successful stores may have well been simple hobbies and passion projects. Possibly these persons were also great business persons and those stores were genuine profitable successes, but there was really no way of knowing. It was something that did dissuade me somewhat from my idea of venturing down the same path. I absolutely did not have the sort of infinite safety net that they had.

hitekker 3y ago

> It’s because of this harsh reality that romanticizing the lifer lifestyle in 21st century Brooklyn, or any other major American city, as anything other than the struggle it is can be incredibly dangerous. Millennials and Zoomers have been sold the lie that the big cities remain a bastion for cutting edge arts and culture, let alone that they are even livable for working artists. What year do they expect us to believe it is? The New York Times loves to gloat about the local renaissance happening in Bushwick in the Arts Section while covering a tech CEO who recently bought a brownstone in Bed-Stuy for a cool five million in the Real Estate section. A unique paragraph. People fall in love with a story they’ve never been apart of, never will be apart of, that is told by people who only caught of glimpse of it.

solarmist 3y ago
Isn't this the modern definition of romanticism? The longing for a beautiful story that may never have existed?
api 3y ago
I see a lot of today’s dedicated artists who don’t want to have to grind like mad just to afford rent moving to mid-size cities or even small towns. It’s really the only economically rational move. Big cities have priced out any culture that is not either subsidized somehow (e.g. trust fund) or already established. I’d argue that many have even priced out entrepreneurship that is not lavishly funded by VC or founder capital. My generation (I am on the young gen-X / old millennial cusp) believed, with some truth, that one had to go to one of maybe six to ten cities to do anything cutting edge in most fields. For young people today I don’t think this is true anymore, and if anything these cities have become traps that will destroy your ability to become established. As would be predicted by the “law of rent,” real estate costs have grown so as to soak up any advantage in being in these places.

microtherion 3y ago

The article mentions Philip Glass, but not his work as a plumber, featuring this delightful anecdote he told in an interview: “While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish.”

chmod600 3y ago

I don’t see what “the game is rigged” adds to an otherwise positive message, let alone why it comes first. Why is it somehow bad that musicians need a day job? There are a lot of aspiring musicians out there compared to the audiences waiting for them to perform. A day job is a quite reasonable way to make sure they contribute something to society while we’re waiting to see if they are truly talented or not. Would we have the same feelings about the “rigged” brewing industry that doesn’t give a young brewer a chance to develop his craft? After a certain point it seems like we’re forgetting that a job is about a contribution to society, not just an expression of some inner identity.

bagacrap 3y ago
Indeed. Many kids aspire to join the NBA. That's a kind of art, isn't it? Yet I think society collapses if we let every one of these kids off from contributing to sustaining it. At least until the robots and AI take the wheel.

nomaxx117 3y ago

I mentioned OSS in a different comment, but it's not the only thing I've noticed this with. Politics at any level in the US (local, state, or national) falls into the same situation regardless of party. Activism takes time and resources to be successful and get your name out, and the moral status attached to it creates a similar set of incentives such that you end up with the same pattern of lifers who are perpetually broke, independently wealthy folks who can be heavily involved and live decently at the same time, and folks with a dayjob who are involved but never really wield much influence on any level. It's an interesting problem and I'd argue it serves as evidence that this happens to anything with attached status. Journalism I've heard has the issue as well.