Should You Quit Your Art?

The answer should be a resounding no, unless you really are bored with it.

I read a very saddening post last week, by a younger songwriter who had just had enough struggling with the Music Industry Machine. In early middle age, he had decided to give up his dream of making it big in Pop Music. It hadn’t happened yet, and he couldn’t see his way clear to continue a perpetually thankless career path that now seemed entirely unpromising.

I sympathize with the writer’s frustration. I’m a pianist, a very old-fashioned variety of music maker of the concert type. There is very little call for people playing or singing Mozart or even Liszt these days except at the very top rung of the profession. There are too many artists, and not enough jobs no matter how good you are. It has been like that for a while because the concert management and classical recording industries (they are separate) have really lost their individual ways for the last 4 decades. So, what is a capable practitioner to do? Should we all give up, and dust off that real estate license in the closet, as one of my more celebrated teachers recommended to me 30 years ago?

Popular music has had an evolving and ever-increasing market share over this period, whereas Art music’s market footprint has dwindled and shrunk. Popular music has helped foster the mystical cult of the personality in the mind of the public, very much like Art music used to do. This has brought to the spotlight an increasing number of Pop superstars and celebrities, of vast wealth and world-wide attention. They, and especially the singers, now command the love, admiration, and envy of hundreds of millions of people.                                                                                                                   

Art music and its practitioners commanded that kind of attention for a briefer flash during the period. Virtuoso art singers of course have cast their spells over the public since the birth of opera. Farinelli made piles more money than George Frederick Handel, whose operas he famously refused to sing. The singer was universally idolized and worshipped, while the composer was only admired and beloved. Today, there are more brilliant, capable and well trained virtuoso singers than ever before in history. The wealth of beautiful, entrancing voices is almost embarrassing, there are so many. Yet it has become increasingly difficult for most them to make a living on stage.

The same goes for instrumentalists. Virtuoso concert violinists and pianists could gather and hold the public’s attention almost as well as the virtuoso singer in times past. A fair number of concert pianists could make a living doing nothing but concerts up until the 1980s, for example. But that began to fall apart as the concert presenting and classical music recording industries got more and more confused, chasing after what they saw as a dwindling and graying market share, then pricing themselves and their artists out of the market.

The situation is worse for popular artists, for contrasting reasons. Andy Warhol is credited with predicting back in the 1960’s that in the future, everybody would be famous for 15 minutes. Today, it is simply impossible to make one’s self heard above the deafening roar of too many amateur musicians blocking up too many channels of public expression.   The legendary fame and vast wealth of a handful of successful popular artists makes it even less likely that anyone else can cut through the noise. The odds appear slim indeed that anyone can make it without connections, or without the backing of a huge war chest the size of the national debt.

So what is a budding musical artist to do? The situation is grim. The available options are few to none on the ground. Everything in the industry costs money you don’t have. Even if you do, it’s impossible to get anybody who counts to pay attention to you. Should you give up now, before it costs something that will hurt? Should you even start? Is it even possible to have a career in music, or in any art?

The tentative answer to those questions is no, yes, and yes. I have been asked professionally many times in my career to guide all ages of people confronted with this dilemma. And here are a few points I always ask them to consider and plan for:

 1- Passion.  Art is the most thankless job there is. Even trash collectors are more respected than artists, and better compensated. You will get scant support from friends and family, and none from the world if you decide to take it up professionally. You’d better be in love with the Art enough for it to be a satisfying consolation on its own if the world doesn’t deliver. You’ll have to give up many things that normal people take for granted to pursue it.  It’s foolish to even try if you don’t love it that much.

That is what happened to me. I certainly had great and powerful ambitions early on, but some very tough love from my first teacher knocked the vaunted dreams right out of my head. I discovered, after the wounds had healed, that I was still so in love with music, so fascinated by it, that I really didn’t care at what level I could pursue it. I didn’t care if I became nothing more than a neighborhood piano teacher that nobody ever asked to play. I would pursue this no matter what, because I wanted it that badly.

The humility I was forced to accept in that first reversal has stood me in very good stead all through my life. It also taught me a very important lesson, because it turned out my first teacher was quite wrong about how far I could go. And that understanding leads me to my second point:

 2- Never Listen to the Critics.  You will run into a great deal of opposition in the beginning from everyone, starting with your friends and family, your teachers, society, and the stark economics of the situation. Hardly anyone will support you even philosophically if you decide to pursue Art as a career. The only people whose opinions you can trust will be your direct teachers, because nobody else knows anything about what needs to be done. Other people are nevertheless full of opinions, and they will give them all too freely. Even your teachers may turn into the opposition after a long enough while. Then, how do you know if what you are doing is any good?

 Beginners lack the experience, knowledge and skills needed to assess their own work. That’s why a teacher is essential in the beginning. A good teacher holds up an ideal, an image of what is possible in the student. They also correct the student onto the right path, avoiding obvious traps and pitfalls, while the student develops the abilities, taste and discernment necessary to assess their own work. But that developmental phase is transitory, even if it is lengthy. Eventually, after a long enough period of growth, the student will finally have the eye, or the ear, or the sensibility, that can guide the hand on its own. 

It is essential that the professional artist develop their skills and discernment to this level, or they will never find a way to pursue a legitimate career. They must have great confidence in what they are doing to succeed professionally. Yet many people are threatened by that kind of assured independence. You will know even in the beginning if your critical audience is telling you anything useful. If not, don’t pay any attention to them.

 3- Training.  I sometimes get calls from stage parents, usually in the Spring. They want to know if I can coach their “gifted” child into a win at a TV Talent Show audition in, say, 5 lessons? When I ask, why not 10, they always say the audition date is coming up, and can I do it or should they call somebody else? At this point, I let them down rather hard by saying that in my studio, any student who wishes to audition professionally must study with me a minimum of two years before beginning to prepare for a professional audition. The conversation invariably ends right there.

Art is possibly the last place in modern life that requires a consummate level of skill, technique and taste. 100 years ago, several professions and trades required tremendous skills of the eye and hand, coupled with inordinate patience and perseverance to acquire them. Apprentices were trained rigorously for years to accomplish to perfection the basic tasks of their craft. Now, almost no one undertakes that kind of personal or technical development. Hardly anyone teaches any subject to that level, unless you are becoming a surgeon. So, the student’s expectation of success is often completely unrealistic with what the artistic professions still demand.

Take me, as one example example. I play the necessary representative sampling of the major works for my instrument as the profession requires. I can show up on a few day’s notice and give an almost note-perfect 90-minute solo recital, be ready for a rehearsal on the two concerti under my fingers, and sight-read a big chunk of the vocal literature as needed when working with singers.

I can do more than that. Since my training was very old-fashioned, in a conservatory setting, I had to develop other skills that make me a competent musician. I can transcribe by ear a song or instrumental work just by listening to it, and copy it correctly by hand on paper. Although I am not trained as a composer, I can write a fugal exposition in the style of both Palestrina and Bach. Yes, the two styles are very different. I can make an arrangement of the completed work for instrumental ensemble or voices, and copy out all the parts by hand. I can both rehearse and conduct the ensemble. I can re-arrange the work for, say, wind ensemble including the transposing instruments. I am also conversant in the 1,000 years of documented history of Western Art Music and have passed exams to that effect. 

I’ve only had to use all these skills a handful of times in my career. Yet each time they got me professional respect, a check, and an invitation to more work. These ancillary skills have also deeply informed the way I think about and hear music, and thereby how I play it. They have helped me tremendously as a teacher and a performer, and have given me authority and credibility as a professional. 

Contrastingly, I hear lately about young teenage kids who are trying to make it as “musicians” but have no skills. A radio show I listen to recently presented a program about young Latinx teenagers wanting to make it big in music as disk jockeys. They think of themselves as musicians, because they have learned somehow to spin disks in a way that appeals to the tastes of the party or nightclub crowd. The radio show host worried that the careers of these young people didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I, too, am concerned about young people in this situation. They obviously have some talent, but no musical education of any kind. They cannot sing or play an instrument. Their rhythm is untrained, and they cannot read music. They have no musicianly skills that would give them any range or depth, enough to do anything in addition to being a disk jockey. All they have is an innate, undeveloped taste. How far can that possibly get anyone? 

Music is an art that requires a relentless pursuit and some sacrifice in order to achieve a great level of mastery. The average person vastly underestimates how much time and effort it will take to become a musician that can compete professionally.  People are always shocked, for example, when I tell them that I had to practice scales for at least an hour every day for 15 years before I could play them as evenly or as fast as a professional.  Yet that is a common experience for any professional musician. If you decide you want this badly enough, prepare yourself for a lifetime of hard work with little obvious reward. Be aware that other people will not understand what it takes, or why anybody would want to do it.  

4- There’s the Art, and Then There’s the Business. The legendary Argentine concert pianist Marthe Argerich very famously told an interviewer in the 1960s that she loved playing the piano, but hated being a concert pianist. I quite agree. One spends a lifetime developing a level of art and craft that is not found anywhere else in the world today. And then you have to deal with a business machine that has undeniably lost its way, and only cares about you so far as you can be packaged and sold. Norman Lebrecht’s book “Who Killed Classical Music” describes the trend in excruciating detail. Then there is the problem of management, and it is a problem. Managers and agents these days are more of a hindrance to developing a career than a help. Many classical arts managers require early career artists to pay them a retainer for the initial period of service. You still have to find all the work yourself in the beginning, and then pay the agent commission and the retainer. It could be years before your agent actually starts finding you work where you will make more money than you are paying out. 

Classical record labels are just as tricky. Labels are having a tough time staying afloat, due to the graying and dwindling of the classical music buying audience. Sales have fallen enough that getting a record deal will not pay the working classical artist hardly anything. Recordings are useful for marketing, but that’s about all. One of my teachers had made many recordings in the 1950s, 60’s and 70’s that he actually got well paid for. When I was studying with him in the early 90s, he still had as many as four new discs released every year. But one lesson, he complained to me that he stopped making any money on any of these projects several years before. 

The situation is even more difficult in the Pop world. Music streaming platforms have created a marketplace that is so diffuse and accessible to anyone, that record labels no longer know how to make money on recordings. Early career Indie artists can of course now release their own music on streaming, for anyone to hear or buy. But getting noticed above the tidal wave of music online has become an impossibility unless one has a huge marketing bank roll for promotion. Signing a record deal seems like it would take care of the problem. But recording executives insist on contracts with emerging artists that grow into a straitjacket over time. 

Unfortunately, I don’t see any alternative to the current market conditions at this level. The professional musician at some point has to work with management to get the next concert gig, or the recording deal, or to have their songs appear on the radio or in a TV commercial. If you get as far as that, you will have to steel yourself to being treated like a commodity, with no regard for Art or yourself. And you will have to think and plan at least one step ahead of your management in order to control anything about the situation.  

4- Day Job. Artists have had day jobs for centuries, especially musicians. The church used to be the biggest employer of professional musicians, singers and other artists in the Western World and possibly still is. The nobility joined the employer pool in the Middle Ages, and then the emerging banking and mercantile class joined after the Renaissance. In the last 200 years, academia has kept a number of classical musicians employed as well. I had planned on an academic career for myself that began to take shape during my graduate school years. Except that by a very lucky, almost freakish turn of events, I instead opened a consulting office in ergonomics and industrial safety that became successful and kept me afloat for 25 years. It also turned me into a recognized expert in upper extremity injuries. Those skills enriched my music teaching greatly and helped a number of my students recover from their physical problems.  I subsidized my career as a teacher and performer by working my very well paid day job 8 days a month. 

I am not at all sorry how things turned out. Income diversification became a godsend during the periodic economic downturns these last several decades. My day job became a springboard to publication, spots on TV, an issued patent, other media attention in the days when that was hard to get, and too many public speaking engagements to list here. I had to learn about cost accounting and marketing, which artists NEVER learn about. That all helped my performing career tremendously. I did not have to depend on concert gigs to pay the rent. I did not have to depend on my teaching exclusively either. If things got slow in one area, and they did periodically, the others filled the gap. I also had plenty of time to work as a musician, a real one, only with a comfortable cushion behind me. 

A day job helps out in another critical way. You will have to learn about business when you work for one, or work for yourself. A great weakness among artists is to think of Art as “…above the sordid topic of coin.” It’s not. Anyone who indulges in that kind of snobbery is doomed to fail. I’ve already mentioned how cost accounting became one of the most important things I learned being in business. The other was project management and strategic planning. The two combined make it possible to accurately make future plans that can avoid the obvious traps and pitfalls. They can tell you if a project will fail, or what conditions are required to make it work. 

A day job is almost inevitable, and can be a big help. Find one you like, working for yourself or for somebody else. Pursue formal studies if a teaching career attracts you most. No matter what, take enough classes in business and accounting so that you become competent at them. Study the heck out of the music industry as both a business and an Art, until you understand what kind of business you are getting into. Develop a network of business contacts and advisers, starting with an accountant, who can help as events unfold. When you know how, start making a plan about where you want to go. 

5- …and Oh Yeah, Reversals. Reversals and failures happen to everyone. They are a part of Life. They are not Divine Judgment punishing you, even though it might seem like it at the time. This over-long post began as a response to somebody who had suffered a major reversal. Since reversals cannot be avoided, they must be embraced. I have a spiritual teacher who speaks often about the uses of adversity. Adverse conditions challenge us to change and grow so that we might overcome them. They are a test of character. Do you have what it takes, morally and spiritually, to become something more and greater, so that you can finally realize your dreams? I learned a long time ago that our successes teach us nothing. We only learn when we fail, and then afterwards see the failure in the right light. By overcoming our failures, we gain wisdom that cannot be had any other way. Failure teaches us humility, honesty and perseverance. It also makes us let go of personal expectations that only get in the way of what is truly important. 

An artist will have every possible kind of reversal including the personal, the interpersonal, the familial, the financial, the professional, the natural, the logistical, the artistic, the intellectual, the philosophical, the religious, the linguistic, the grammatical, and even reversals of politics, public taste and opinion. I know I certainly have experienced all these and more. The Pop megastar Cindy Lauper, as just one example, very publicly filed bankruptcy three times before she started to have any success in her career. That kind of difficulty usually crushes the average person, who might decide that the Universe was trying to tell them to stop being an artist. Ms. Lauper decided not to see it that way, fortunately. Her music has become a gift to the world and to history. What would have happened if she had just given up during her moments of difficulty? 

Art has many pleasures and benefits that few other pursuits can boast of, and that more than repay all the difficulties. It is the kind of thing that can be pursued at any age. It is a vocation that can be engaged in throughout the entirety of the human lifecycle. With a few exceptions, you don’t need to be able bodied, or a particular ethnicity or gender. Art requires very little money to make. You don’t need to be young or beautiful on camera to be a great artist.  The vast majority of successful artists strive to meet their own standards, not other people’s. They will all tell you that the minute they stopped trying to please the public, or their managers, or their producers, or their teachers, or their mothers, their Art got better. There appear to be many rules in Art. But all these strictures boil down to issues of personal taste at the end of the day. Art is one of the last places in modern life where you can please no one but yourself and still get away with it. 

Making music has many benefits specific to itself. Making your own music will turn your house from an empty shell into a home. Making music together with your family will make your home glorious. Inviting others to either make music with you, or just listen, will make them a part of a shining glory that can be had nowhere else, more satisfying than the best steak dinner. The ability to make music is very hard won and dearly bought. But when you have it, it will be a thing entirely your own. No one can ever take it from you, and it cannot be lost. Modern life has become a spiritual desert, an ocean filled with desperate people starved for some meaning in life. Art in general, and music making in particular, can be one way to find it. 

So when you are confronted with a reversal, don’t make any life-altering decisions right away. You will be too upset to think clearly, or to understand completely what has happened. If at all possible, and it almost always is, put off any big decisions until you are calm enough to make them. Remember, there is not only one way to be a successful musician. Just because you couldn’t get there by your chosen path doesn’t mean there isn’t another one waiting for you to find it. Other people have. But you won’t see it in the midst of a great disappointment. You must be patient enough, passionate enough, perseverant enough to wait until you can again find your way.  

You know, I have not yet been invited to play Carnegie Hall. A gig there was one of my earliest aspirations. It was a powerful fantasy, as I thought such an invitation meant something about me as an artist and where I was going. Youthful ignorance and insecurity led me to believe I needed this. I am in late middle age now, so the chances are dwindling that I might get that gig while I still can and want to do it. But I am not regretful, not at all. Instead, I was sponsored by the U.S. State Department in a debut recital at the American Embassy in Paris very early in my career. That’s quite a feather in my cap, that only a very few musicians can ever claim. Anybody can rent Carnegie Hall.