I have a friend (my former guitar instructor) who makes his living playing music.

He plays 500 gigs a year!?!?!

How does he do it? Well, he plays 2 nursing home gigs 5 days a week; he plays in a jazz duo about twice a month; he plays in a rock/cover band trio about 3- 4 times a month; gives lessons on Thursday night for 4 hours; and he does solo gigs at night about twice a week.

He makes between $80,000 - $100,000 a year. Certainly not riches but a comfortable living (he wife works also as a teacher which adds another $75k and benefits (a school teacher)).

But 500 gigs a year is a heckuva lot of work. I have “hung out” with him for a couple days and it’s a lot of driving, load in, load out (2-3 times a day), a day may start at 10am and finish up at 1am. But he loves it and he is an excellent musician who loves playing to the crowd in the same way that Notes Norton describes his stage demeanor.

I love playing music and occasionally, I fantasize about playing music for my living but working as hard as I see musicians work to live…without seeing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (you know, U2 kind of living), it doesn’t seem worth it to me (I’m 55 so dreams like that have long ago evaporated…but don’t worry, I still have other dreams).

Sometimes dreams of making a living at what you love to do causes “what you love do” to become “just a job.” I hear that in some of our forum members saying that they “became burned out on music.”

From my 16th birthday until I was 45, skydiving was my passion…I accumulated 5,000 jumps, was National champion in 1982, 1999 and 2002. So I certainly was qualified to make my living as a professional skydiver (instructor, demo jumps, competition events, etc.) and make a comfortable living ($80-100k, like my guitar playing friend). But I chose NOT to because I did NOT want my entire life to be engulfed with what gave me incredible joy…it would have become a JOB and rob the pleasure it gave me (in other words: burned out).

But if I was 20 again (!), maybe chasing after the musical dream would be fun!!! Kinda reminds me of a song…

Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance, forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose, we’d fight and never lose
For we were young…
And sure to have our way!

(Just saying my couple of pennies)