{"id":761,"date":"2013-08-09T12:04:17","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T19:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/?p=761"},"modified":"2013-10-19T18:01:35","modified_gmt":"2013-10-20T01:01:35","slug":"5-things-most-people-dont-know-about-gigging-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/5-things-most-people-dont-know-about-gigging-musicians\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things Most People Don’t Know About Gigging Musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many aspire to be world-famous musicians, but the truth is that most of these aspiring musicians do not end up with a glamorous life. Here are some things you might not realize about living life as a musician.<\/p>\n

\"band\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image via Flickr<\/a> by Valerie Everett<\/p>\n

Many musicians end up playing backup to the headliner rather than being the actual star. For these types of gigs, musicians spend a lot of time on the road traveling<\/a> from city to city. Depending on who they’re playing for, this might mean traveling in an uncomfortable bus or even by car or van. The hotels can be comfortable, but not exactly luxurious. But probably the hardest part about traveling constantly is being away from family and friends, especially for those who have spouses and kids.<\/p>\n

Honing the Craft<\/h2>\n

Many probably think that musicians sleep in, get up when they want, work for a few hours and then are done. This actually isn’t the case. In order to land the higher paying gigs and play better venues, they spend hours a day working on their craft. From meeting with mentors or teachers to practicing on their own, their skills come from extensive practice rather than an innate talent.<\/p>\n

Low Paying Gigs<\/h2>\n

When first starting out, many musicians have to take gigs that don’t pay a lot just to break into the industry and make contacts with other musicians and singers. Just like any industry, networking is essential to success. For those that aren’t willing to travel or those that don’t live in any area with a large music industry, low paying gigs might be par for the course.<\/p>\n

Inconsistent Income<\/h2>\n

Unlike a nine to five job, musicians don’t have the luxury of having consistent income. Many gigs are just for the night or week and often musicians will need multiple gigs each week in order to make any real money. Because of this, many musicians rely on other forms of income to supplement, often with day jobs since many gigs are at night and on the weekend. Whether they work as a loan officer or an exterminator<\/a>, it’s a great way to keep up their dream of making it as a musician and still pay the bills.<\/p>\n

Irregular Hours<\/h2>\n

For musicians that are able to get gigs recording music for albums, along with live gigs, hours can be very irregular. They might be recording during the day, playing a gig late into the night and then have to get up early for a recording session the next day. Sometimes, depending on time constraints of the headlining artist, recording might have to take place late into the night and not end until early morning hours. This fluctuation can wreak havoc on a musician’s sleep schedule.<\/p>\n

So in the end, is it worth it? For those that love music more than anything, the answer is a resounding yes! With all of the frustrations, travel, low paying gigs, and irregular hours, it’s rewarding to create something beautiful. Would you want to be a professional musician? Why or why not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many aspire to be world-famous musicians, but the truth is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-songwriting-tips","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aST-ch","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1002,"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/1002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/songregistration.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}