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>>> When I finished school in 2010 (yep, along time ago now), I wanted to go try and make it as a musician. I figured if punk bands could just learn on the job,

>>> When I finished school in 2010 (yep, along time ago now), I wanted to go try and make it as a musician. I figured if punk bands could just learn on the job, I could too. But my mum insisted that I needed to do something, just in case. Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. My mom also talked me out of it. Her argument was: If there's no way to learn it in school, then go to school anyway and learn something fun, like math. Then you can still be a rock star. Or a programmer, since I had already learned programming. So I went to college as a math major, and eventually ended up with a physics degree. I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job.

grugagag 1y ago
Luckily you can still pursue being a musician without all the pressure of having to be successful. On this road, one day you are free to declare your own success to yourself
- analog31 1y ago
  Indeed. On the other hand, I also know my limitations, since roughly half the people I play with are pro's with music degrees. And I'm still trying to improve. I'm inspired by the quote from Pablo Casals when he was in his 90s. They asked him why he still needed to practice, and he said: "Because I'm finally beginning to see some improvement."
- bitwize 1y ago
  Maybe if the internet and piracy hadn't fucked artists over, they could have made decent money as a musician selling their work without having to be a major-label superstar. Alas, we do not live in that timeline.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Did most artists (in whatever form) ever have a good living in and of itself?
    - analog31 1y ago
      Yes. Mostly, until relatively recently on a historical time scale. In the middle ages, musicians were employed by towns, and had a guild. They also worked for princes, the church, etc. I read an article saying that they often did double duty as cops on market days. There was perhaps less of a distinction between "arts" and trades. People did all kinds of work on paintings, sculptures, etc., and expected to get paid for it. They rarely put their names on their works. I've read a bit about Bach's life, and he was always concerned about making money. One music history textbook I read identified the invention of printed music as the start of the "music industry." Before the recording era, people composed and published sheet music. There were pianos in middle class parlors, and people bought sheet music to play. Two names that come to mind were Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. Movie theaters hired pianists or organists, though that employment vanished when talking movies came out. The musicians of the jazz era were making their livings from music. One familiar name is Miles Davis. His father was a dentist, and his parents considered music to be a respectable middle class career for their son. People did make a living from recordings before the Internet era. Today, lucrative work in the arts still exists for things like advertising and sports broadcasting. (Revealing my bias, I'm a jazz musician). In fact the expectation that an artist should not earn a decent living is kind of a new thing.
    - peterfirefly 1y ago
      No. The best/luckiest did, at least some of the time. Most didn't.
  - analog31 1y ago
    Ah, one of the luxuries of not having to support myself from music... I have no interest in making recordings. That audience means nothing to me.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Piracy didn't fuck artists over I think (anecdotal), because it was the precursor to Spotify which has been great for artist discovery. Until the industry / artists caught on and started pushing shit. And the payment model for Spotify is bad, a million streams earns about $3-5K according to a quick google and few actually get that far. But it's good for discovery, and artists generally don't make much off album sales either; concerts and merchandise is where it's at.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    Right, before the internet the labels were great to artists!...
rtpg 1y ago
Really still kicking myself for not majoring in robotics in school. I wanted to program, so I studied computer engineering but hadn't really absorbed that much in classes. But I will likely never have access to all the robotics stuff my school had, nor the guided learnings. Never too late to try stuff out of course, but very little beats structured higher ed education in relatively small classes (think there was only about 24 people in the robotics major?)_
- ghaff 1y ago
  On the other hand, the one robotics course I took involved getting access to computers at 3am and doing horrific matrix multiplications by hand that took hours. Of course, this was a long time ago.
- speed_spread 1y ago
  I worked with robotics engineers, their code and development methods were poor even though software is essential. You need both sides.
- peterfirefly 1y ago
  Nothing beats concentrated work. You can do that without formal education. It might even be easier: you can probably afford pretty good arduinos and raspberries and H-bridges and sensors and actuators and... It shouldn't be hard to go beyond what almost all universities provide.
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. > I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job. Some people say; Pursue your dream or you will regret it. This is said by people who regret their own choices. Other people say; Don't make your dream a job, because all it will be is a job and no longer special. This is said by people who had misconceptions about what pursuing their dream actually entailed. I say; Happiness is found in neither a dream chased nor a chosen profession. It is instead a choice we make each day in what we do, in how we view same, and if we allow ourselves to possess it. What constitutes each day is immaterial. But that's just me.
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  I say if you have money to do whatever you want everyday, there’s an overwhelming chance you’ll be happy. The rest of those sayings are just for us plebs that have to rationalize working 40-60 hours a week.
  - AdieuToLogic 1y ago
    My key point is that happiness is a choice. I hope everyone can find a way to choose it.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - balamatom 1y ago
      That's wrong. Plenty of people have "found a way to choose happiness" already, and we've all seen what exactly they've wrought.
  - totetsu 1y ago
    I think PP's point was .. that even if you spend your whole life pressed into laboring to produce a surplus to satisfy the excessive consumption of the elites of your heretical society, in ways that create existential risk for future generations, and are at odds with your own inner values and moral compass.. you can still see the 'immateriality' of all that in the grand scheme of things and choose to be happy.

grugagag 1y ago

Luckily you can still pursue being a musician without all the pressure of having to be successful. On this road, one day you are free to declare your own success to yourself

analog31 1y ago
Indeed. On the other hand, I also know my limitations, since roughly half the people I play with are pro's with music degrees. And I'm still trying to improve. I'm inspired by the quote from Pablo Casals when he was in his 90s. They asked him why he still needed to practice, and he said: "Because I'm finally beginning to see some improvement."
bitwize 1y ago
Maybe if the internet and piracy hadn't fucked artists over, they could have made decent money as a musician selling their work without having to be a major-label superstar. Alas, we do not live in that timeline.
- ghaff 1y ago
  Did most artists (in whatever form) ever have a good living in and of itself?
  - analog31 1y ago
    Yes. Mostly, until relatively recently on a historical time scale. In the middle ages, musicians were employed by towns, and had a guild. They also worked for princes, the church, etc. I read an article saying that they often did double duty as cops on market days. There was perhaps less of a distinction between "arts" and trades. People did all kinds of work on paintings, sculptures, etc., and expected to get paid for it. They rarely put their names on their works. I've read a bit about Bach's life, and he was always concerned about making money. One music history textbook I read identified the invention of printed music as the start of the "music industry." Before the recording era, people composed and published sheet music. There were pianos in middle class parlors, and people bought sheet music to play. Two names that come to mind were Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. Movie theaters hired pianists or organists, though that employment vanished when talking movies came out. The musicians of the jazz era were making their livings from music. One familiar name is Miles Davis. His father was a dentist, and his parents considered music to be a respectable middle class career for their son. People did make a living from recordings before the Internet era. Today, lucrative work in the arts still exists for things like advertising and sports broadcasting. (Revealing my bias, I'm a jazz musician). In fact the expectation that an artist should not earn a decent living is kind of a new thing.
  - peterfirefly 1y ago
    No. The best/luckiest did, at least some of the time. Most didn't.
- analog31 1y ago
  Ah, one of the luxuries of not having to support myself from music... I have no interest in making recordings. That audience means nothing to me.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Piracy didn't fuck artists over I think (anecdotal), because it was the precursor to Spotify which has been great for artist discovery. Until the industry / artists caught on and started pushing shit. And the payment model for Spotify is bad, a million streams earns about $3-5K according to a quick google and few actually get that far. But it's good for discovery, and artists generally don't make much off album sales either; concerts and merchandise is where it's at.
- pixl97 1y ago
  Right, before the internet the labels were great to artists!...

rtpg 1y ago

Really still kicking myself for not majoring in robotics in school. I wanted to program, so I studied computer engineering but hadn't really absorbed that much in classes. But I will likely never have access to all the robotics stuff my school had, nor the guided learnings. Never too late to try stuff out of course, but very little beats structured higher ed education in relatively small classes (think there was only about 24 people in the robotics major?)_

ghaff 1y ago
On the other hand, the one robotics course I took involved getting access to computers at 3am and doing horrific matrix multiplications by hand that took hours. Of course, this was a long time ago.
speed_spread 1y ago
I worked with robotics engineers, their code and development methods were poor even though software is essential. You need both sides.
peterfirefly 1y ago
Nothing beats concentrated work. You can do that without formal education. It might even be easier: you can probably afford pretty good arduinos and raspberries and H-bridges and sensors and actuators and... It shouldn't be hard to go beyond what almost all universities provide.

AdieuToLogic 1y ago

> Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. > I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job. Some people say; Pursue your dream or you will regret it. This is said by people who regret their own choices. Other people say; Don't make your dream a job, because all it will be is a job and no longer special. This is said by people who had misconceptions about what pursuing their dream actually entailed. I say; Happiness is found in neither a dream chased nor a chosen profession. It is instead a choice we make each day in what we do, in how we view same, and if we allow ourselves to possess it. What constitutes each day is immaterial. But that's just me.

dyauspitr 1y ago
I say if you have money to do whatever you want everyday, there’s an overwhelming chance you’ll be happy. The rest of those sayings are just for us plebs that have to rationalize working 40-60 hours a week.
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  My key point is that happiness is a choice. I hope everyone can find a way to choose it.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - balamatom 1y ago
    That's wrong. Plenty of people have "found a way to choose happiness" already, and we've all seen what exactly they've wrought.
- totetsu 1y ago
  I think PP's point was .. that even if you spend your whole life pressed into laboring to produce a surplus to satisfy the excessive consumption of the elites of your heretical society, in ways that create existential risk for future generations, and are at odds with your own inner values and moral compass.. you can still see the 'immateriality' of all that in the grand scheme of things and choose to be happy.