Not sure that's 100% accurate. It is also established in history that musicians bartered their talents for other goods or services - sometimes the exchange was not monetary, but they were compensated quite often. Mozart was employed by way of commissions to write pieces. Sometimes performers played for a meal, or for a few coins. So being paid/compensated as a 'professional' musician is well established way before the 20th century. It's one of the longest-standing 'professions' where getting paid the minimum possible for a life's worth of work has been a historical constant it seems. The *recorded music* industry is a whole other topic, and one that is very modern.... and yet another income stream that has been decimated. I guess I'm just bothered by the thought process of 'historically, musicians didn't play for money, so why should they start making it now?'
Well, yes, there have always been professional musicians. A tiny number of them. But the things that created this bubble in America where a meaningful number of people could make an acceptable living as performing musicians are unlikely to occur again any time soon.
1. Traveling shows (minstrel, vaudeville) with considerable amounts of music - but music that could be reproduced at home by the average piano or organ player of modest ability; plus
2. Widespread dissemination of simplified piano/organ reductions of popular tunes, available in the local store, or by mail order through Sears and Montgomery Ward. Also instruments from mail order or (somewhat) easily available at a store in town. Keep in mind that both 1 and 2 required the development of rail networks.
This led to widespread at-home music playing.
3. The explosion of social dancing in the last years of the 19th century caused a demand for dance bands.
4. The expansion of public school offerings beyond the three Rs caused the training of many band musicians.
5. Manufacturing expansion and the growth of unions offered the opportunity for many towns, companies, and organizations to have their own bands.
Now you had a lot of people who could play music at a reasonable level.
6. The invention of the phonograph and radio, and the widespread availability of records, phonographs, and radio sets, both through local merchants and mail order (Sears and MW, again) meant that people could hear professional musicians playing music, that would never come to their local towns.
7. But! Phonograph records were only 3 minutes long. Radio was not clear quality. People wanted more. They wanted professional-grade music, to dance to all night, but the available reproduction methods were NOT a suitable substitute for actual living musicians right down there at the Armory on Saturday night.
8. In most towns there were limited entertainment options - until television it was listen to the radio, go dancing, or go to the movies. So dancing was EVERYWHERE, and most of it was supported by live musicians, as trying to hold a full scale dance using just records wasn't going to work very well.
And let's consider too, the private automobile and improved roads made it possible for traveling territory bands to cover a lot of ground, that they would't have been able to had they relied on mule drawn wagons.
Most of these factors are different now. TeeVee in all its forms, plus video games, and the movie gigaplex, have greatly expanded entertainment options, even in small towns. Social dancing is far less popular. Public school music programs are being defunded. And the advances in technology have made it possible to have music entertainment with one person (at most) required to program the playlist and push the button. When you can have pretty much any band you want, playing through your speakers, with perfect sound quality, for almost nothing, the local yokels aren't nearly as impressive.
The many thousands of dance band musicians that were making pretty good money, either full time, or on Friday night and Saturday night after they got through at the mill, in the period 1920-1965, could not be supported by today's entertainment industry.
It's not a matter of whether musicans SHOULD be paid well; it's a matter of there is not enough demand, and far too much supply; and demand goes down every year, and supply increases every year.
That's why I'm saying that musicians need to wake up and realize that the days of yore are gone, they're not coming back any time soon. The performance of music is going to be very different 60 years from now than it was 60 years ago. That's the way it is. Personally I believe that as I said above, music is going to continue to divide into three streams. 1) A tiny number of talented superduperextramega stars (Taylor Swift style) will make fabulous amounts of money putting out rather bland music performed to the very highest level of precision, probably accompanied by a variety of extracurricular effects, attractive perfectly-choreographed dancers not wearing too much clothing, etc. 2) Generic "music-like sound product" will be the mainstay of radio and nightclubs, generated by AI and all programmed for maximum monetization and designed to be the most effective ad delivery device possible. 3) Actual humans will continue to compose new music and perform old music, for their own enjoyment and small audiences, for very little or no money, because that's what people do as part of being humans.
Threads (1) and (2) are going to suck all the money out of the room, so we can (I believe) expect thread (3) to be largely money-free. Which will suck if you think you're going to be a full time musician in the year 2050; but will offer a certain amount of freedom too, because you'll be less concerned about whether the ordinary schmoe who just wants sound in the background to drink to, will like your handmade music.
