- There are many different choices
in terms of what kind of career someone is gonna have.
You know, if you're going to be in an orchestra,
of course, all your gigs are set up for you
and your schedule is set up for you,
and you don't really have to spend time looking for work.
But if you're a freelance musician
who doesn't maybe have a steady teaching job,
and you're really interested in just performing
and all sorts of different options,
you really have to realize
that you're gonna have to be your own business person.
And that you're gonna have to spend a certain portion
of your daily work, looking for work, organizing the work,
setting up the music, making phone calls,
keeping connections, reminding people you're around
and available, or calling performance spaces.
So there's really a lot of business time to your day,
and it's extremely important to understand that
and find a way that works for you,
where you can organize your time,
where you spend enough time doing that,
but you also have time for your music.
And that's a challenge for everyone I know
who's a freelance musician, but you have to decide
whether that's right for your temperament.
You know, making choices about what direction
you wanna go in really has a lot to do
with what your taste is, what you wanna do musically,
and also what your personality is,
and what you feel you can handle, or what turns you on.
For some people, playing in a show, eight shows a week,
and knowing where they're gonna go,
what music they're gonna play,
and what they're gonna do every day
is what they really need and really enjoy.
For other people, they could never think of doing
the same thing every day, and playing the same music,
and the variety outweighs that maybe insecurity
of knowing when you're gonna be working and when you're not.
So it takes a certain amount of discipline
to really be able to organize your day,
and realize that you are gonna have to be proactive
and make certain phone calls,
and do your business every day and also have time for music.
But that's part of the choice that goes
with whatever direction you go in.