The schedules of musicians do not align with the modern working world. Employers do not look highly on people who take 8 weeks off to tour. In order to make mon

The schedules of musicians do not align with the modern working world. Employers do not look highly on people who take 8 weeks off to tour. In order to make money touring, you have to be pretty well established. I don't think it has anything to do with "schedules" - if that were the case, there would be no book industry, no training industry, or any industry in which it takes 6-18 months to churn out a product. Besides, with the rise of 360 deals in the past decade [0], the labels can get a chunk of touring/merch/etc. Also, unlike software development, there is no 'day job' that musicians can work while saving to bootstrap their own venture. Musicians for hundreds of years have used teaching, selling musical services/instruments, and wedding/event gigs as a day job. Practice does not make you a good stage performer. Practice does exactly that. Bands practice having "stage presence". They rent out massive venues, build their stages, and they practice the #($% out of their shows. It is ultimately a dying art form and those that don't see that and in fact argue the opposite, don't have any inkling of what is actually going on. Where's that "scratches head" forum icon I see so often elsewhere when I need it... [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal