Political Roundtable - Part VI

[dckingsfan]

Ummm, actually if you have a full time gig with the Met or with any major orchestra or Opera company in the US, you are much more likely to be making 6 figures than not. Those same professionals also generally teach in college or private lessons. They also generally play gigs in quartets. It is a very entrepreneurial endeavor.

[dobrojim]

Still, it's really really competitive in the music field. In popular music there is arguably a minimal talent threshold
that you have to meet. Only then you also have to be really lucky being in the right place at the right time. If not,
you're making $20K a year and hoping like all get out your spouse/significant other has health insurance.

[dckingsfan]

Agreed, and absolutely. It is like playing hoops, only a few ever make money in the field and you should always have a backup plan. But those good enough do reasonably well. And the superstars do fabulously well.

[dobrojim]

interesting read for techno geeks re a new utility industry buzzword, grid defection.

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2015_04_07_rep ... _defection

[Induveca]

Ummm, actually if you have a full time gig with the Met or with any major orchestra or Opera company in the US, you are much more likely to be making 6 figures than not. Those same professionals also generally teach in college or private lessons. They also generally play gigs in quartets. It is a very entrepreneurial endeavor.

See that's the thing. I live in NYC getting those jobs is like making it into the NBA. Competition is fierce. More likely than not you end up on Broadway making 25k.

Hell's Kitchen is chock full of broke musicians.

[DCZards]

I didn't "trash" the arts, just think it's time to dial back the traditional 1800s approach. Learning to code a game is just as creative as playing a trombone. And more practical/useful in the real world.

I see far too many amazing musicians on the streets and subways daily. If they had put that same level of effort into creating music for applications/games via PC they'd have learned multiple programming languages/interfaces.

Music, like writing or acting....should be viewed as a hobby or side-job. Not your full time job. The competition is fierce, and almost all jobs in those fields are 20-40k/year. I didn't say stop teaching them, I agree they important skills. Just let your kid know a staff writer at the Post is lucky to make 40k in his 7th year on the job. Then show your musician kid the business realities of music. Broadway pit musicians are lucky to make 25k a year with multiple gigs.

I’m astounded by how easily you dismiss the importance/value of the arts and artists. While the arts may be a “hobby” for some, it’s a passion for many, many creative people and those of us who support, enjoy and benefit from the arts.

And why must it be about how much money you can make in the arts vs. other careers? What about personal fulfillment or making a contribution to society? My life has been—and continues to be—enriched and inspired by music, dance, poetry and the other arts. So I value highly the arts and artists.

Some of the happiest, most spiritually-connected people I know are writers, artists, musicians and other creative people with very little material wealth. They/we know there is something far more important than money.

[dckingsfan]

Ummm, actually if you have a full time gig with the Met or with any major orchestra or Opera company in the US, you are much more likely to be making 6 figures than not. Those same professionals also generally teach in college or private lessons. They also generally play gigs in quartets. It is a very entrepreneurial endeavor.

See that's the thing. I live in NYC getting those jobs is like making it into the NBA. Competition is fierce. More likely than not you end up on Broadway making 25k.

Hell's Kitchen is chock full of broke musicians.

Okay, different perspective in the DC area where there are plenty of musicians making it on $75 to $150k per year. That isn't your "band" musician. I agree, that should be a hobby in their case. But professional musicians that perform and teach.

I would also add, it is an outstanding "second income" job for a family given the flexibility that comes with the job.

[dobrojim]

not so sure about flexibility. In order to make meaningful amounts of money, one needs to put in a LOT of time.
On an hourly basis, it's min wage or worse. About the best you can probably do in many cases in build up
a sufficiently large number of student that you teach. Even at that, you'd be much more secure if you also
had a spouse/so who had benes.

I have, after playing as a hobby for a lifetime, a modest amount of talent and I'd starve and/or have
to live dramatically less well if I depended on music for my primary source of income. I love it, don't get me
wrong. Wish it weren't so.

one friend - "there's tens of dollars to be made playing bluegrass"
joke - what is the difference between a banjo player and a large pizza

Spoiler:

large pizza can feed a family of 4

[Induveca]

I didn't "trash" the arts, just think it's time to dial back the traditional 1800s approach. Learning to code a game is just as creative as playing a trombone. And more practical/useful in the real world.

I see far too many amazing musicians on the streets and subways daily. If they had put that same level of effort into creating music for applications/games via PC they'd have learned multiple programming languages/interfaces.

Music, like writing or acting....should be viewed as a hobby or side-job. Not your full time job. The competition is fierce, and almost all jobs in those fields are 20-40k/year. I didn't say stop teaching them, I agree they important skills. Just let your kid know a staff writer at the Post is lucky to make 40k in his 7th year on the job. Then show your musician kid the business realities of music. Broadway pit musicians are lucky to make 25k a year with multiple gigs.

Whew! I’m astounded by how easily you dismiss the importance/value of the arts and artists. While the arts may be a “hobby” for some, it’s a passion for many, many creative people and those of us who support, enjoy and benefit from the arts.

And why must it be about how much money you can make in the arts vs. other careers? What about personal fulfillment or making a contribution to society? Personally, my life has been—and continues to be—enriched and inspired by music, dance, poetry and the other arts. So I value highly the arts and artists.

Some of the happiest, most spiritually-connected people I know are writers, artists, musicians and other creative people with little material wealth. They/we know there is something far more important than money.

Hey more power to you, for my kid I just want him to have options. If he becomes an awesome musician, great. But I'll be responsible and explain to him the reality of the industry.

I myself am an artist, actually have been recognized by many major publications for my UI work years ago (wow I'm old almost 20 years ago). However, UI designers top out at 60k after 5 years, and usually start at 20.

As much as I loved doing my design work, I realized quickly to support my family at a level I wanted design *only* was a dead end. So I quit every time I hit that hurdle and tackled a new area of my industry. Literally bounced around until maxing out my skills in the tech realm to my satisfaction. However I *never* stopped designing, it's a very creative industry which always requires UIs for proof of concepts, patents etc.

Love music? Keep playing, but work up to a high paying job in the music industry, or making programmatic music for video games etc. You'll still be doing what you love, just at a level where you can take care of your family.

[dckingsfan]

not so sure about flexibility. In order to make meaningful amounts of money, one needs to put in a LOT of time.
On an hourly basis, it's min wage or worse. About the best you can probably do in many cases in build up
a sufficiently large number of student that you teach. Even at that, you'd be much more secure if you also
had a spouse/so who had benes.

I have, after playing as a hobby for a lifetime, a modest amount of talent and I'd starve and/or have
to live dramatically less well if I depended on music for my primary source of income. I love it, don't get me
wrong. Wish it weren't so.

one friend - "there's tens of dollars to be made playing bluegrass"
joke - what is the difference between a banjo player and a large pizza

Spoiler:

large pizza can feed a family of 4

Are you a classically trained musician? Or more "bluegrass" type? Example: Violin teachers in the area get $40/hour up to $85.

So, say you are a mom, and do 3 hours per day working at home. And dad has benefits. If you make $50/hr x 5 days x 40 weeks, That's 30K. That is a nice supplemental wage.

Just saying.

[Induveca]

not so sure about flexibility. In order to make meaningful amounts of money, one needs to put in a LOT of time.
On an hourly basis, it's min wage or worse. About the best you can probably do in many cases in build up
a sufficiently large number of student that you teach. Even at that, you'd be much more secure if you also
had a spouse/so who had benes.

I have, after playing as a hobby for a lifetime, a modest amount of talent and I'd starve and/or have
to live dramatically less well if I depended on music for my primary source of income. I love it, don't get me
wrong. Wish it weren't so.

one friend - "there's tens of dollars to be made playing bluegrass"
joke - what is the difference between a banjo player and a large pizza

Spoiler:

large pizza can feed a family of 4

Are you a classically trained musician? Or more "bluegrass" type? Example: Violin teachers in the area get $40/hour up to $85.

So, say you are a mom, and do 3 hours per day working at home. And dad has benefits. If you make $50/hr x 5 days x 40 weeks, That's 30K. That is a nice supplemental wage.

Just saying.

Probably on different wavelengths but I'd rather take equity in app startups that need soundtracks instead of that route. That route the person is literally wasting their earnings potential.

I'd suggest: Offer your services to app builders/companies, take 3% equity for each app.....do 80 soundtracks in a year. Two apps hit you might make a few million bucks.

That's actually a good idea. 3% for an individual app for a bootstrapped firm with 50k in the bank would probably get it done. Of course, start at 5%.

[Kanyewest]

I know some guy who is a piano teacher in his late twenties and he owns a house and a sports car. But I guess he also teaches Spanish on the side.

I guess ultimately do what you are passionate about combined with what your actual skills in some sort of combination.

[dckingsfan]

Exactly - if you want to perform and teach - that is the way you should go. You won't get rich teaching - that is for damn sure. But we still need teachers and coaches of all sorts. Life would pretty much suck without them.

[tontoz]

Blatant cop execution caught on video.

http://news.yahoo.com/protest-planned-w ... 32016.html

[popper]

The Insiders: The consequences of the anti-business Obama administration


By Ed Rogers April 6

Thomas B. Edsall of the New York Times has written an important piece entitled, “Has American Business Lost Its Mojo?” The leadership of both political parties should study this material. In the piece, Edsall chronicles the tragic decline of business start-ups in the United States. He quotes Brookings Institution economists Ian Hathaway and Robert E. Litan as saying that “business deaths now exceed business births for the first time in the thirty-plus year history of our data.” I didn’t realize until I read this — in the New York Times, of all places — just how bad the circumstances are for entrepreneurs in America.

To start a business, an entrepreneur must be confident and optimistic. What do we know about confidence and optimism during the Obama era? Well, in the November 2014 exit polls, only 22 percent of Americans said they thought life would be better for future generations, and in Gallup’s latest “Economic Confidence Index” poll, 50 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse. Not to mention, only 29.3 percent of Americansthink the country is headed in the right direction, while 61.3 percent of Americans believe we are on the wrong track. What does malaise look like?

That bleak outlook is consistent with an essay Gallup chief executive Jim Clifton wrote at the beginning of this year, where he noted that, “Until 2008, start-ups outpaced business failures by about 100,000 a year. But in the past six years, that number has suddenly turned upside down.” Despite quoting this stunning fact, Edsall doesn’t make the connection between this negative economic data and a certain election in November 2008. Oddly, Edsall’s piece doesn’t even mention President Obama, except to identify a quote from the former chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Obama’s negative impact on the economy should be a lesson for the next president.

I don’t think there has been a president in my lifetime who has been more hostile to business than Obama. I could be corrected, but I don’t think anyone in the president’s Cabinet has ever started a business, and I would doubt that many of his senior staffers have either. At the end of the day, Obama doesn’t seem to have much respect for what it takes to start a business. And this cratering in the number of start-ups under his administration reminds us of the gratuitous smackdown he gave business owners everywhere during the 2012 campaign when he pointedly said, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” ………………………………………..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pos ... istration/

[dobrojim]

not so sure about flexibility. In order to make meaningful amounts of money, one needs to put in a LOT of time.
On an hourly basis, it's min wage or worse. About the best you can probably do in many cases in build up
a sufficiently large number of student that you teach. Even at that, you'd be much more secure if you also
had a spouse/so who had benes.

I have, after playing as a hobby for a lifetime, a modest amount of talent and I'd starve and/or have
to live dramatically less well if I depended on music for my primary source of income. I love it, don't get me
wrong. Wish it weren't so.

one friend - "there's tens of dollars to be made playing bluegrass"
joke - what is the difference between a banjo player and a large pizza

Spoiler:

large pizza can feed a family of 4

Are you a classically trained musician? Or more "bluegrass" type? Example: Violin teachers in the area get $40/hour up to $85.

So, say you are a mom, and do 3 hours per day working at home. And dad has benefits. If you make $50/hr x 5 days x 40 weeks, That's 30K. That is a nice supplemental wage.

Just saying.

I am certainly not classically trained. However you might be surprised by how much an expert
BG musician can get paid for lessons. But as you state, it's only viable as supplemental income,
not primary income.

[tontoz]

^^^ so business failures went up after the banking system collapsed? Never would have guessed that.

[Wizardspride]

Blatant cop execution caught on video.

http://news.yahoo.com/protest-planned-w ... 32016.html

It's all Obama's fault.

Oh, yeah. I forgot Eric Holder,Al Sharpton,Jesse Jackson etc etc.....

[dobrojim]

underinvestment in maintenance of and improvements to infrastructure isn't very business friendly
dang that Obama

[DCZards]

underinvestment in maintenance of and improvements to infrastructure isn't very business friendly
dang that Obama

But wait...hasn't it been the Obama Administration that has consistently implored the Repubs (the Party of "No!") to invest in the nation's infrastructure.