What do you do for a living?

You honestly think that what most people do for a living is their career choice? Naive, dear girl.

 

By my definition, it is their career choice. Here I am using those terms synonymously. But if we are obsessing over minor semantics, than by your definition, no.

 

What are minor semantics to you means a great deal of difference to others. My career choice does not afford me a living, so I have to do other things to pay the bills. Probably something to do with my morality...{rolls eyes}

 

Lighten up, man. It's an internet forum. There is some sense of morality in all of the choices we make, but obviously, it's not the only variable.

 

I own a business. It can be a pain in the ass but I can't complain. The one thing that makes it worth it is that I control my own schedule (and my own pay, for the most part). There isn't anyone cracking the whip and telling me what to do. I do whatever I want (but I do go to work on most days).

Earlier this evening, I decided that I have something else to do tomorrow. I just sent the right person a quick text to say I won't be in. That's it....nothing happens. I don't even have to say why. That's the only thing I love about being the boss....that and we do shit my way. Nobody with their head shoved up their ass telling me to do things their stupid ass way.

 

My chosen career is stay-at-home-mother/grandmother. I've been doing it for 33 years.

 

I think that's great.

 

I've been fortunate that I could hang on and do it all these years. It's not easy to pull off.

 

I think many people may underestimate what it takes to do that or do a job like being a teacher. I do fine with kids but I'd rather have to deal with a bunch of rough/tough guys in hardhats out in the timber than the same number of small children on a daily basis.

 

It is true that many people aim for one career and hit another one. That story does tell you a lot about a person.

I more or less fell into my current office job because it seemed like my best option at the time that my first choice went away. Remember when it used to be possible for small to medium sized bookstores to make money? That's what I used to do. I loved it, and had no desire to do anything different. At least I was eventually able to continue being a business owner, after a transition period of having to work for someone else.

In a perfect world, I would be able to make a good living from music without having to live the lifestyle of a musician. I never pursued that career path, in any form. Living on the road with a band, or teaching little kids with no talent, or going into church music ... none of those options appealed to me at all, though I once had the skills (and most of the education) to do any of the three. I've accepted the reality that most musicians (probably >99%) will always have to have music as a zero income hobby.

 

i haven't been to church in years, but from what i remember of the bands they had, i have the skills to do church music too. and i can't sing or play any instrument.

 

Retired now but had a host of jobs over the years, including (but not limited to) picking worms, counseling teens, garbage collection, selling fishing equipment and running a business - all augmented by freelance writing.

 

Contemporary christian music? Most of those church bands are unpaid.

In the town where I went to high school, the larger churches around there were more into the classical style of music, like Bach and Handel. They had a paid choir director, pianist, and organist who all had formal classical training. Usually, at least one of them had a four year degree in music. A church in a neighboring town also had violins and a brass section. Most of those players, like me, had studied and played at the college level, but got their degrees in something else.

I think the worst music job on the planet is high school music teacher. They have to spend all day every day hearing bad music, from students with no talent or potential, and often with bad attitudes. I feel bad for those teachers. Such a waste of talent, and a miserable way to spend their days.

Playing in a cover band at bars may be the second worst paying music job. I tried it one summer. The second time I had to carry my own keyboard, by myself, late at night, in a driving rainstorm, and had to make it fit into the back seat of a Honda that was smaller than the keyboard, after playing for a room full of drunks, and barely made enough money to pay for the gas to get to the gig and back, I was ready to say FUCK THIS SHIT.

 

yeah, these people were definitely unpaid, and definitely not contemporary. i grew up going to a small church in the middle of a corn field, which was surrounded by several small towns with similarly small churches. i'm quite sure nobody in any of them had any sort of formal training; the choirs consisted of several old people who were not very good at singing, and either one organ player or piano player or guitar player, depending on which area church we're referring to at the moment.

 

LOL, I did that for 8 fucking years. Toward the end we had worked our way to the 'A' list clubs where the gigs paid real money, 2-3 grand per night. Good money for the early 80's. It still wasn't enough to pay for all the drugs 'n booze to keep the band from shooting themselves in the head from the top 40 schlock we had to play to get there!

 

We had to go to the Raleigh / Chapel Hill / Durham area to get those gigs. We saved up money all summer to make an ultra-low budget beach trip to Jamaica in September. It was a wild experience, but once was enough. :dizzy2:

If I'm going to be a professional musician in my next life, either I have to come back to earth as a muscular man, or I need to specialize in a smaller and lighter instrument!

 

I pretty much play the "A list" places around here but nobody is making $3k a night these days.

 

I've heard that, WTF is up with that?
They stack up bands four and five deep at clubs around here, they are all lucky to walk away with a coupla hundred bucks each, but this is just a small city. Denver was a boom town when I was playing, lotta money going around, plenty of huge clubs.

Even in big city's though there's a lot more bands vying for a lot less gigs than there used to be.

 

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i don't think some people on here would believe me if I say what I do.