I am glad to hear that, Eddie. 150K should be the minimum wage. The skill needed to play in The Cleveland Orchestra requires a substantial amount of work and education. They deserve all they can get.

The good thing about living in Cleveland is a good bit lower median new house prices from realtor.com. 130K for a new house?

Many of us here on this forum are old enough that all these uploads don't affect us much.

I feel for the kids coming up who will have a substantially more difficult time pursuing making music for a living. These young people are doing what they can to beat to odds. They use stuff like TicTok to get exposure, and some get known on youtube.

These guys just work really hard at it. The year before the pandemic, a band of three young guys was doing well around Miami playing live gigs. All could sing very well, and all played drums, bass, keyboards, and guitar and switched off in the shows. I sat in with them from time to time. I never had any interest in the money, but they made six or seven hundred just in tips regularly, plus what they got paid.
Yes, of course, they had day jobs, except for the drummer, who played in several bands. The drummer was a bit older and had played professionally all his life. He had all the contacts he needed to stay busy. Well...enough of this, Eddie, see you in the funny papers...lol

Billy

“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”