• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass My Pops is hard

#61
Scot said:
Sorry, kwd. I wasn't trying to be a smart @ss or question what you said. It was just an attempt to make fun of the Pacifica climate - you know everyone in the bay area associates Pacifica with fog and crummy weather. And it was also an attempt to be funny with the "staying on topic for the topic police" thing. One thing's for sure - I don't have any asperations for becoming a comedian someday. :)
Click to expand...

Off topic for 1 second....Scot, do you know Bobbe Norris and Larry Dunlap? Two Pacificaites who I once recorded with and are good friends of mine.....
 
#64
Ed Fuqua said:
re:CLEAN AND STABLE - I think (hope) what YOUR STREAU is getting at is a pretty observable phenomena. That is to say being a 75 year old bassist who has been afforded the opportunity to buy a house and live in it, raise a family in it, play in the same place etc for the majority of his career is generally in better physical and sometimes psychological shape than the 75 year old bassist who has spent 45 years doing up to 200 one-nighters a year, riding that bus, eating that road food, trying to maintain a relationship in the face of all that. It takes a toll, physically and mentally. It's harder to get a jazz gig like that...
Click to expand...

OK cool, hope HE STROHS will scuse my flare.
 
#65
Scot said:
Sorry, kwd. I wasn't trying to be a smart @ss or question what you said.
Click to expand...

No worries. The thought never crossed my mind. Someone else made the point that the climate is a lot different up there -which it is. That's good news for you. You can use Carlson year 'round. I wish I could. :)

Also, T-Bal. The 'searing flames of hell' comment wasn't because your post struck a nerve. It was just an observation and you validated it for me.
 
#69
MAESTRO said:
Given the cost of living in Kentucky, that might be a pretty comfortable gig. Yeah, if you were in NY, CA, or WA it would be tough to survive on $42k/yr salary, but in Kentucky?
Click to expand...


Wayull, ever since they done put in that there FREE way, thing's' picked up a piece and it's easier to move mah moonshine. Heyall, ah kin even afford SHOES now, son.

Speaking of shoes, you might want to walk a mile in Sid's before you go desribing his gig as "comfortable". He works his ass off, and does a LOT of teaching and performing on the side. And all of this when he isn't giving old DURRL another lesson in thumb position technique. He's doing all right, but it's not like there's an incredible amount of security there, or margin for error. And if I'm not mistaken, he had to pay the same for his new car as they charge in NY. :eyebrow:
 
#70
Hello! HELLO!
$98k in San Francisco in not enough to live on. In 1999 a co worker bought a condo there it cost over $1 meg.

I live 70 miles east of San Francisco I know about what it takes to live in the bay area. If you make $90,000 where I live you would need to make about $225,000 to have the same live style in The City, as it is called around here.

Joe
 
#71
If I had the chops I drop my day job in a heart beat. But I don't. I also did not hit the wood shed enough when I was young and old fingers have a hard time learning the things that should have learned 40 years ago. There is not a day that goes by that I don't wish I would have gone into music education as a employment path.

Since the first musican plucked his bow string and his buddy said "nice" musicans have been under paid for the amount of work that is required to get on top and stay there.

About living on 98k a year in S.F. sure it can be done but you will be scraping by renting not buying a home or ever buying a new car. And you better like roommates lots of roommates.

Joe
 
#72
Well, there are two threads in this. I can weigh in on "playing for a living" in the circuit style. And I doubt you could do this in the north.
The routine goes like this: Practice when you can grab it. Toss your bass and stuff into the car and hit the road for 5 or 6 hours, for rehearsals, then back. The more days you do it, the more you make.

Do the same for the concerts, but a day early. They put you up in a jernt, pay your mileage, and pay you a decent concert scale. So you pull $400 to $500 a gig, and need a couple or three to get through the month. The mileage is the best part if you gotta nice little Karrrr.

Play everywhere they offer you a job - be relatively non selective. Restaurants, churches, backyards, well... on and on.

You can do it if you're single, with very low overhead, and can stay alert. Or have a pretty tolerant girlfriend (etc.) with extra patience and income.Then you might make $24,000/ann., in which case you have to add some students. this sort of lifestyle CAN produce around $40K, if a fellow is really serious, works at it, and takes good political care of himself.

That's ok for deep south living, but not really incentive for most other climes.

So the $98K guys have a certain advantage, if they've got a good steady orchestra gig and some students. But who the heck wants to live in Philly, or Baltimore, or NYC - except for natives? Certainly not us ol' country boiz. Pays yer money and takes yer pick?

College professors - $50K to maybe 75 or 80K, in most of the middle latitudes?
 
#73
Joe Taylor said:
If I had the chops I drop my day job in a heart beat. But I don't. I also did not hit the wood shed enough when I was young and old fingers have a hard time learning the things that should have learned 40 years ago. There is not a day that goes by that I don't wish I would have gone into music education as a employment path.
...
Click to expand...

Joe - Never give up. I felt as you do. I gave up the DB as a teenager because I didn't know how good I was / how low the bar was for bass players because I was the only one I knew! It's differn't now of course, but seven years ago I was relearning how to play a Cmaj scale in tune. Now I am gigging with a proffesional group and learning the solo rep. I'm going back to school in music in the Fall and in less than a years time I plan to start auditioning with major symphonies if I can get on the lists. It can be done - If you have the heart. At your age you have wisdom and life experience that will help you change carreers if you really want or need to. Coinidentally, I quit my day job (due to diagreements with management, not to pursue music full-time) right before I got all this music work. I',m lucky though since I have no kids, and a spouse who fell in love with me as a musician, not as a desk jockey, and who makes major dough. I can't believe how happy I am now that instead of sitting behind a desk dreaming about playing whil I should have been focussing on work, I can now focus on what I really love. Who knows if I will make it or not. I can't really aford to question that right now. I've got to go practice!
-Jon
 
#75
Just FYI, from the AFofM paper this week

TAMPA - section position $770 per week, no calendar listed (but all others list a 37 to 42 week season, so that's a range of $28,490- $32,340)
MISSISSIPPI - Concertmaster $26,000
Principal Horn $12,650
RICHMOND - principal English Horn or principal 2nd violin $32,874
CHARLOTTE - principal flute $990/wk, 38 week season $37,620
LOUISVILLE - 4th horn $844/week 42 week season $35,448
assistant concertmaster $987/week $41,454
KC - Assistant principal cello $46,673 (reg season + 8 optional small ensemble performances)
Section cello - $40,000 (+8 optional as above)
JACKSONVILLE - Principal bassoon $42,920 (37week season)
CHARLESTON - Principal bass $21,829
DALLAS - principal trumpet $80,860


According to the Study of the Worklife of Jazz Musicians done by the Research Center for Arts and Culture, the majority of jazz musicians (62%) reported their income as being "below $40,001"; the largest percentage of THAT figure (26.2%) reported their income was in the $20,001 - $40,000 range.
The major difference between that Charleston bass player with the symphony and the other bassist who lives in Charleston and plays jazz isn't income. It's that the jazz player has fewer opportunities to make that income by being part of an organization that performs primarily in the same venue, that has health benefits, that is connected to funding organizations at the city, state and federal level etc and instead has to get on a bus or scuffle a variety of local and regional venues or play music that they really aren't that interested in. You play a certain music because you HAVE to...

Ben Allison is a very interesting guy to talk to.
 
#80
matt macgown said:
Some of our gigs on the Maine coast netted us $30.00 and a bottle of champagne apiece; that coupled with a sea food dinner cooked at the beach, free put ups at a sailors house, helped to take away the sting of low pay. See if y' can work in some perks! Cuz you never get rich off a bass fiddle.
Click to expand...
Depending on the Champgne, that could've been a pretty decent paying gig. :)
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back