Oops!

While I did work for a short time as a receptionist, it didn’t stick!

Being an artist isn’t just about having talent or making good music. It’s about facilitating a situation for yourself in which you can dedicate your time and resources to your passion! Can you imagine, just for a moment, how hard it is to be a working musician?

You have to be talented enough just to start. It helps if you come from a privileged enough background to have taken lessons and developed skills. Then you have to have the time and inspiration to write really good songs, AND you have to get a team of people together to help you play and record them. If you choose to record in a studio, you’re looking at 10s of thousands of dollars just to get in the door. Once you’ve finally got a finished track, then you have to have amazing marketing abilities! Online promotion, posters, festivals, local shows, malls, coffee shops, social media…

You have to promote your own releases and make people want to listen to you! You have to book your own shows, hire a band, hire a sound person, have lighting crews and pay for a venue. (If you’re established, they might even pay you!)

You also have to pay to get on the right playlists and to be reviewed by reputable magazines and websites. You have to find a way to go viral and get MILLIONS of views, clicks, and likes just to get noticed and even then, none of that is paid work! You have to spend a few more thousand dollars on graphics, PR, and videos. You have to be a social media wiz and come up with daily content to keep people interested.

Imagine now, on top of everything, you have to pay rent. You need to get a ‘real’ job that actually pays you instead of one that costs money.

Rant over.