On Being A Full Time Musician

I’m a full time female musician with a small entertainment company in Hawaii playing and singing jazz four days a week. I don’t have a “real” job or another daytime gig to rely on if there’s another pandemic or I get myself fired. I make my living as a musician and entertainer.

I think I might be the only female musician in the world playing/singing jazz four nights a week and getting paid for it!  Mind you, I’m not living extravagantly and I’m glad my “other half” has a job that pays for our health insurance. But I have enough to take care of me and the ones I love in warmth, health and comfort.  I travel several times a year to visit family, friends and pacify the gypsy in me. When I’m at home my mornings are filled with gym or yoga and practicing on whichever instrument I feel like playing that day; guitar, ukulele, bass, piano. Some mornings I drive down to the beach, ten minutes away, and float staring up at clear blue skies. The life I lead is a dream come true. 

It wasn’t always like this. My father, a musician himself, actively discouraged my sister and I from becoming musicians or pursuing music with the warning, “It’s a hard life.” Ours was a severely religious family encouraging women to become teachers or nurses - never musicians, even though everyone in our family had musical ability. I put myself through college, and tried NOT to be a musician but the lure, and a little bit of romance, got me to move home to Hawai’i in 2009 to pursue music full time. 

It’s A Hard Life

Note to my father:  Being a musician is NOT such a hard life, but getting there IS.

No one would probably guess but at the age of forty seven I did not know how to play an instrument and sing at the same time. My strength is my voice and all I had ever done musically, up until I moved back to Hawaii, was sing…in church, in choirs, fronting jazz combos and swing bands. My second husband, one of the most naturally gifted musicians I know, had been making a living at being a musician since childhood on drums, bass, then guitar; a long seasoned musician. When we met he promised a lifetime partnership of music and artistic fulfillment but then balked at being my accompanist while I got the limelight as the singer. And I balked at not getting paid as his vocalist. I was naive and presumptuous when I left my comfortable, jazzy life in Los Angeles for a place in his world. And then, later, I was angry about how unfairly things had turned out between us and how little I actually knew about making a living as a musician. 

I learned, the hard way, that to be a full-time, working musician here in Hawai’i, you need to play an instrument. While my second husband partied with his friends, made bad investments and slept past noon I was down at the beach every morning forcing myself to learn to play the only instrument I owned at the time - a six string cut-away Lanikai that I’d bought on eBay. I knew that in order for me to have my musical freedom I needed to be able to depend on myself as my own accompanist.  I celebrated every new chord progression, every new strum pattern, every successful picking pattern and every song I finally sang all the way through while I played that damned ukulele.. 

And I listened to what people were playing, watched audience’s faces and tried to gauge what they were thinking and what they liked. I listened more and learned and copied and practiced until my fingers hurt and blistered and peeled and blistered again and finally calloused over.

Musician versus Artiste

By the time my second divorce came through I owned a small music company of my own and established relationships with major corporations and entertainment partners in my area. I’d learned to take care of the business end of things because, make no mistake, music is a business, not just a calling. Here, at this critical juncture, is where we need to make the  distinction between MAKING A LIVING being a musician and BEING AN ARTISTE. 

Making a living as a musician means you’ll need to show up and play what you’re being PAID to play even when you dread it, don’t like it, don’t feel it and think you might hurl at an audience you can’t stand. A professional musician adheres to the terms of the contracted gig and delivers an agreed upon product. Your success as a musician depends on it. 

In contrast, the artiste will not compromise their own aesthetic value and musical ethics regardless of the outcome, positive or negative, to oneself and others. Staying true to ones artistic convictions is what counts. In my experience, a blend of both yields the greatest success both personally and professionally.

If you’re thinking about diving into the business of being a full time musician here are some things to think about:

• 
  The best paying musician gigs are the ones at the big hotels. If you think working at big hotels means you’re “selling out” you’re wrong. Working at a hotel means you will have opportunities to educate and share about the things that matter to you because you have a microphone in your hand when no one else does.
• Steady gigs are just that - STEADY. Steady income, steady hours, steady crowds. For this “insurance” you will be paid less than casual gigs. Most importantly, steady gigs will offer you the incredible gift and opportunity to experiment musically and test things out - new arrangements, new gadgets, new set lists, new songs, new genres. If you don’t take advantage of these opportunities, your steady gig could well become a nuisance, an inconvenience and perhaps even a creative drain. 
• Casual, one off or convention gigs pay a lot more but are NOT steady, require deeper pockets in terms of resources, equipment, personnel and cash. They’ll require more lead time, more follow up and getting paid will sometimes take longer.
• No one wants to pay more money when they don’t have to. That goes for big hotel corporations and everyone else. Ninety-five percent of music gigs will only pay for a soloist. If you want to take your soloist gig and split the pay with your bass player like I did for years then go ahead.  But know, also, that those venues will learn to expect a duo when they’re only paying for a soloist.
• Answer your phone promptly EVERY time, sound halfway professional and you will get jobs. This also means that you’ve developed a successful pitch for yourself or your company and have met face to face with the decision makers that actually hire the musicians.
• Show up to the gig prepared, on time and looking smart. An attractive appearance goes a long way and can buy just about anything - including forgiveness.
• The broader the range of musical genres and styles you’re familiar with the more valuable you are as a provider of entertainment. Listen to EVERY kind of music even if it doesn’t appeal to you and listen long enough to find out what others like about it. What you will be doing is building your own valuable database of creative material.
• There is no substitute for personality, a sense of humor and the gift of gab. Those three things CAN be developed in anyone.
• No matter how flawed or ugly you think you are, your audience craves the real you. Tall, short, skinny, fat, BBW, BBC, B BE YOURSELF! They want the you that thinks and says the things they wish they could say.  They want the entertainer that takes them to places that exist only in their dreams.

The Hungry Hunter

A lot of famous and successful musicians have had daytime jobs while pursuing a career in music. And if you have a family, children to raise and responsibilities that cannot be placed on hold while you pursue your musical dreams then having a steady job might be the right course for you. I do believe it’s true, though, that hunger makes a better hunter.

I was very hungry. Hungry to regain my freedom to choose the kinds of music I would play and the people I would play with and learn from. I was hungry to learn and grow and become a better musician. My pride was hungry NOT to be defeated and have to go back to a job where I’d be taking orders from someone else and punching in at all hours of the day and night.

I had to take chances playing with people I didn’t know. I had to make calls I didn’t want to make and take gigs working for less pay than I thought I deserved. I made an ass of myself many times over and got up, made changes and got back out on stage again. Even today, thirteen years later, if I have to play at a venue I’m not familiar with or play with musicians I’m not familiar with I get nervous, sometimes despondent, am very self critical and have a tendency to get depressed and self isolate. It’s the way of the entrepreneur, the self starter, the musician or artiste. And going through it is the only way to get better.

I’m a better musician now than I was thirteen years ago but I will always know  there are so many other musicians better than I am, more talented than I am, more refined than I am, more worthy than I am of the gigs I have. I will always feel as though I didn’t start early enough, that I have so much more to learn and need so much more time to practice. In spite of those feelings, I am happy on this journey and am refreshed daily with new musical discoveries. I’m doing what I want to do, I’m growing, my work brings me joy and, best of all, my music even occasionally brings joy to others! 

Be what you want to be. And if what you want to be is a musician then go for it. Be strong, be disciplined, be courteous, be observant, be humble, be prepared, be kind, be brave, be you. Being a musician, full time or otherwise, isn’t the end game.  It’s just the prelude to your own symphony.