Yep!!! Great read! This is my life - as a working musician the financial advice I take only comes from non-musicians. The industry sucks and its educational system sucks even more.
Thank you, Wendy. And what makes it worse is that most financial advice out there skips the part where you’re still trying to actually earn—especially as a musician!
Most financial advice is for people who already have money or a high 9-5 salary and want to invest it…
or it’s hyper-spiritual, telling you to “manifest abundance” without ever explaining how to actually generate consistent income in the first place.
If you’re an artist—or anyone building a career without institutional backing—there’s almost nothing that speaks to the in-between:
That space where you’re talented, working hard, and still not seeing income that holds.
You’re not imagining the gap. You’re living inside it.
You’re right. It’s exhausting to constantly try and be “at the top of your game” for auditions, only to run into petty politics and bureaucratic roadblocks - and that’s after you’ve uprooted your life in order to “win” a job that may or may not exist. To anyone outside, it sounds like a scam - but when you’re in it’s very hard to leave. (I have way too much to say on this!)
You’re not alone! I’ve hastily moved across state lines for far too many gigs and adjunct teaching positions that never paid anything close to enough. But the logic goes that if you “pay your dues” and your resume is just “perfect” enough, you’ll eventually get enough decent paying work.
In this Internet age, there are more avenues ways to better monetize our crafts (Substack, Patreon, Tiktok, etc.), but it has to be in the form of something viable that people will want to pay for. It takes a very different mindset and skillset than what most institutions are ready and able to teach.
To be fair, I went straight into the industry (orchestra gigs) and skipped music college - specifically because my parents said it was too expensive for very little job security - and they were right! Even still, trying to find a job vs actually studying are wildly different things…and I often wonder if I’d do better if I simply had better social/tech skills as opposed to viola technique - which is a depressing thought. Add on the horrendous behaviour of various musicians and it’s not a pretty picture 😂
My question is this. It seems like the "solution" to supporting oneself in a creative career is to become a kind of career consultant or marketing consultant for other artists. Is that the big picture here? If so, I don't see that working for me, and I'd rather keep working in corporate and doing creative things on the side. Is there a solution that involves doing actual creative work for a living? (with time allotted to marketing, self promotion, strategy, budgeting etc)
Hi Chana—thank you for this. You’ve named something really important.
A lot of people are still quietly hoping for a life where the art itself is enough—where doing your creative work at a high level leads to sustainable income on its own. That hope is completely valid—after all, it’s what we were trained for.
The hard part is: the current artistic job market and economic structure make it incredibly rare to support yourself on pure creative output alone—especially without a partner, inheritance, day job, or institutional support behind you. With the right entrepreneurial skill sets, more is possible—but no one really tells us that part with actual tangible instruction.
What I’m trying to offer isn’t a workaround or a downgrade. It’s a realistic frame—one where your creative work can still stay central, even if it needs to be supported (at least for now) by other kinds of income: teaching, commissions, licensing, or direct-to-audience sales. Not performatively. Not forever. Just enough to hold the work.
I’m not romantic about it—but I’m not cynical either.
This is exactly the kind of question more people need to be asking out loud, and I really appreciate you doing it here. 🤗
This is SUCH a good article
Thank you! ☺️
That really means a lot from you.
Trying my damndest to put clear words to what so many of us have felt but rarely get to say aloud!
Aww, thank you!
Yes, I think this was extremely well articulated
it really resonated, and I appreciated the way you laid out some actually solutions as well
i’m trying to hand the gatekeepers a better key to a better gate… But will they take it or would they rather call me the enemy? 😬
👆I’m betting the latter…institutions (and some individuals) would rather die or cease to exist than admit they were wrong.
Brian, you have been NAILING IT in 2025…your articles on church work (and this one) and the overarching theme of your writing has been GOLD….
THANK YOU for saying what we ALL have been feeling and experiencing for many years.
they don’t even have to admit everything…or they can save it for the confession booth! Just pivoting quietly will work for enough of us.
Added a few more lines to disarm even more of the status quo apologists. 😏
Yep!!! Great read! This is my life - as a working musician the financial advice I take only comes from non-musicians. The industry sucks and its educational system sucks even more.
Thank you, Wendy. And what makes it worse is that most financial advice out there skips the part where you’re still trying to actually earn—especially as a musician!
Most financial advice is for people who already have money or a high 9-5 salary and want to invest it…
or it’s hyper-spiritual, telling you to “manifest abundance” without ever explaining how to actually generate consistent income in the first place.
If you’re an artist—or anyone building a career without institutional backing—there’s almost nothing that speaks to the in-between:
That space where you’re talented, working hard, and still not seeing income that holds.
You’re not imagining the gap. You’re living inside it.
Thanks for naming it so clearly.
You’re right. It’s exhausting to constantly try and be “at the top of your game” for auditions, only to run into petty politics and bureaucratic roadblocks - and that’s after you’ve uprooted your life in order to “win” a job that may or may not exist. To anyone outside, it sounds like a scam - but when you’re in it’s very hard to leave. (I have way too much to say on this!)
You’re not alone! I’ve hastily moved across state lines for far too many gigs and adjunct teaching positions that never paid anything close to enough. But the logic goes that if you “pay your dues” and your resume is just “perfect” enough, you’ll eventually get enough decent paying work.
In this Internet age, there are more avenues ways to better monetize our crafts (Substack, Patreon, Tiktok, etc.), but it has to be in the form of something viable that people will want to pay for. It takes a very different mindset and skillset than what most institutions are ready and able to teach.
To be fair, I went straight into the industry (orchestra gigs) and skipped music college - specifically because my parents said it was too expensive for very little job security - and they were right! Even still, trying to find a job vs actually studying are wildly different things…and I often wonder if I’d do better if I simply had better social/tech skills as opposed to viola technique - which is a depressing thought. Add on the horrendous behaviour of various musicians and it’s not a pretty picture 😂
My question is this. It seems like the "solution" to supporting oneself in a creative career is to become a kind of career consultant or marketing consultant for other artists. Is that the big picture here? If so, I don't see that working for me, and I'd rather keep working in corporate and doing creative things on the side. Is there a solution that involves doing actual creative work for a living? (with time allotted to marketing, self promotion, strategy, budgeting etc)
Hi Chana—thank you for this. You’ve named something really important.
A lot of people are still quietly hoping for a life where the art itself is enough—where doing your creative work at a high level leads to sustainable income on its own. That hope is completely valid—after all, it’s what we were trained for.
The hard part is: the current artistic job market and economic structure make it incredibly rare to support yourself on pure creative output alone—especially without a partner, inheritance, day job, or institutional support behind you. With the right entrepreneurial skill sets, more is possible—but no one really tells us that part with actual tangible instruction.
What I’m trying to offer isn’t a workaround or a downgrade. It’s a realistic frame—one where your creative work can still stay central, even if it needs to be supported (at least for now) by other kinds of income: teaching, commissions, licensing, or direct-to-audience sales. Not performatively. Not forever. Just enough to hold the work.
I’m not romantic about it—but I’m not cynical either.
This is exactly the kind of question more people need to be asking out loud, and I really appreciate you doing it here. 🤗