Why are we so unhappy in the music business? What is it that makes it a virtual prerequesite to be unhappy in order to make it in the music business? How come people keep playing in orchestras, as soloists, or as chamber musicians, teaching or coaching in various capacities, even though they are deeply unhappy? Is our profession so incredibly and irrevocably flawed that profound unhappiness is the first and only option for us that choose to stay on the chosen path?

I wish I had the answer(s) to the questions above. My honest answer is 'I don't know', and my optimistic answer is 'No, we do have a choice'. All I can speak from is direct experience, and share my observations of colleagues who I know, or have known, well as they struggled with the issue of finding one's way in a musical career.

There are three basic categories, I've found, of unhappy people in the music business. First, we have the person who has had a bad time of it early on in life, family issues, health issues, etc. They pretty much have an unhappy existence regardless of what their career choice might have been, but they were very talented musicians, and their career took off. Now, they have come to a pretty sucessful place, but it hasn't made them any happier. They complain a lot about the crappy stuff that goes on in their ensemble/school/orchestra/studio and it all has to do with how someone else is making the situation horrible - not with their own preexisting condition of being deeply disturbed and unhappy.

Second is the person who was very talented and disciplined, but never really wanted to go into music in the first place. They did it to please their parents, or a teacher, or friends - but not for themselves. They have come to hate music as a result of the fact that they never really had a choice whether to pursue the career or not - they were forced into it, and as a result, the business is crap and everyone in it is crap.

The third type is someone who loved music from the get-go, was very talented, and had the highest hopes for their future. They got to a certain point and for whatever reason, their career levels off. There isn't a Big Five orchestra job, or a major conservatory teaching position, or A-list solo bookings. They play the C or B level groups, and they're always dissatisfied with what they've got, and want more. They're so busy thinking about what might have been, or the bad luck that they've had, that they forget to enjoy what they are lucky to have, and what others would die to have. They grow bitter and make life miserable for others around them.

What do these three (very common) types have in common? They have failed to make a real choice along the way and now feel powerless. What is a real choice? It is a positive, active decision to take an action. Not acting is not a choice - at least not when it is undertaken passively. We must always be careful in life to understand as best we're able where we are. What have we done, what are we doing now, and where do we want to go from here. If you're seriously unhappy, take some time to really explore where that's coming from. It might not be from a stand partner with b.o. It might be from feeling powerless, rudderless, and hopeless. If your situation really is dire, and it's not looking to get better soon, why not just make plans for an alternative future? Take some classes, learn some new skills, get some exercise and eat well. If you're stuck in an orchestra that gives you a paycheck and nothing else, start a string quartet, brass quintet or tango orchestra and do some gigs for a little money, or for free. It will seriously change your outlook. If you hate where you live, the group you play in, and the people you play with, maybe you need to reconsider what you're doing and ask yourself if you'd be any happier somewhere else. Asking the hard questions of yourself and really searching deep for answers will enable a better sense of perspective and just plain better mental health.

In the end, if you love music, find meaning from within yourself, and give yourself a creative outlet other than music, it's possible to thrive in almost any environment. Give it a try, and let's make the stereotype of the sulking, chronically mopey and unhappy artist a thing of the past.

You are so right. I view myself as the third type right now (in everything I do, not just music), but it's too early in my career to tell- I'm just recieving my BM degree, and just took my first audition.

I feel like there are so many people in this business who want the same thing I want, and are auditioning for the same spot. And many people sound equally qualified for the job. What gets me is, this is one of the few things you can go into in college and possibly not be able to make a life out of it. It's just insane when I think about all the people auditioning for this ONE spot. Right now, maybe there are 20 spots in professional orchestras open around the WORLD for my instrument. The odds are so terribly bad. This makes me very uneasy, and I'm already a bit put-down after my first audition. But I picked myself up, and now a week later I will fly out for another one. It's difficult though, it drains a lot from me. I'm not the happiest person or most social person to begin with, so it's difficult for me to deal with more depressing things. But in the end, I always do manage to make myself work for the next thing that may come my way. I have to, otherwise what do I have? I thought about not taking this next audition, because I was just so let down about the first one, however, I thought, "If I dont do this, I will feel even more depressed that I did NOTHING about my situation, that I'll be sitting home when I could be playing the audition of my life." I'm sure I will get used to trying out and just getting the experience from these auditions in the beginning in order to do better on later ones, and I should be glad to be able to do that. I've already learned many things just from one audition, and I have to keep that in mind- that I can only get better and grow from here.

I hear what you're saying, and it sounds like you're approaching the whole process in a pretty healthy way. I think if one goes into an audition looking for a learning experience as well as trying to win a job, one comes out with something constructive regardless of the outcome. People who look for something bad will always be successful in finding that bad thing - looking for the positive is harder, much harder, but when you're done you've gained something from the experience and grown as a person.

A lot of good things...

I place myself in a fourth category, which is really a combination of the first three. I think that I have a good deal of talent, am motivated from time to time, and have been somewhat successful in my musical endeavors. However, I've never really tried too hard. I guess you could say I've gotten out of it what I've put into it.
However, I have been fortunate enough to get a really good education, win an audition, get some students, and do a good deal of freelancing. But because of the burden I accumulated financing my education, it would have been impossible for me to make enough to survive even with 4+ sources of income.
So I compromised and decided to put some of those music skills to work in an office, while at the same time continuing my life as a performer. Self-discipline, creativity, attention to detail, and self-motivation are skills we use in the practice room that are equally applicable in a number of different settings, if we know how to tweak them.

Fortunately, being able to step out of the fray has given me a perspective I would not have otherwise had: that of an administrator. Through my job, and in tandem with my training as a performer, I've learned a couple things I'd like to add:

1) We're trained to never be satisfied with our accomplishments as performers - to always strive for something better. We go into the practice rooms day after day in search of some nebulous musical ideal, and even if we are able to realize it, the next musician - who might be on our audition committee - often has quite a different musical ideal. Most of us beat ourselves up in the process of trying to be carbon copies of our teachers, rather than refining our own strengths.
2) In our studies, we're constantly presented with romanticized portrayals of incredibly talented and often tormented artists.
3) Few of us are ever prepared for what we will have to do in order to survive when we graduate from school and haven't won our dream jobs. Marketing, budgeting, program/curriculum planning, networking, etc.
4) Our industry, like any other industry, is competitive, and there is a bit of market saturation, to put it lightly. The competition is often directly proportional to the level of pay offered.

Given the four points above, and what Charles stated earlier, I think it's imperative for those of us who are entering the job market to bear in mind that we hold our careers in our own hands. If jobs are scarce, then we have to make our own opportunities. Seek out the markets, get together with like-minded people, find some sponsors, and make sure you come up with a high quality performance. Likewise, for those of us unhappy in our jobs, get proactive and creative, like Charles suggests. No job is a dead-end job if we work smart and hard to avail ourselves fully of what our jobs offer us.

All that said, this topic (job satisfaction/dissatisfaction) is one that really does require a good deal of study and discussion. One question I would ask is, why do orchestras almost always tire of their music directors/conductors, even after the musicians themselves have a hand in choosing that person?

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All that said, this topic (job satisfaction/dissatisfaction) is one that really does require a good deal of study and discussion. One question I would ask is, why do orchestras almost always tire of their music directors/conductors, even after the musicians themselves have a hand in choosing that person?

It's a tough question, and maybe ultimately there's not a good answer, but I think it has much to do with the insular nature of the workplace. There is a highly trained workforce of up to around 100 people, in crowded conditions, doing work over which they have very little individual input after they arrive onstage. As for conductors, the musicians have input, sometimes it seems like they have a lot of input, but ultimately the board hires the guy. I've seen situations where there were some great candidates, but they either declined to be considered or dropped out abruptly before the final short list got compiled. Much of this is due to behind the scenes deal-making, I believe. Anyway, I think the chemistry issue with the conductor has to do with the growth of the orchestra and conductor, and whether they both serve to elevate the other. Once one entity or the other ceases to stimulate the other, it's all over in short order. Many times conductors are ready to leave but have no exit post to go to, and linger for years in limbo, whilst the orchestra rots and seethes.

I am happy in the music business. Happiness is a choice we make every second of every day, it is not determined by the job we choose or the language we speak, or the country in which we live. I used to be unhappy, I used to think it was pre-requisite to successful non-verbal communication. It isn't, for me, anyway. Part of my job in this universe is to speak the unhappiness for the world, and part of it is to speak the happiness. It is necessary that I am capable of being either at any moment.

On my worst days, I think to myself, well, this is a bad thing, this conductor is really oppressive....I should just give up and be oppressed and miserable, and blame the conductor. But on my best days, I think, gee, this conductor is really oppressive...and I can be miserable and or angry if I want to be...I totally am allowed to be miserable, and it would be entirely socially acceptable. Or I could be something else--anything else. Sometimes as experiment I try to be anything else other than angry, it doesn't matter what, just any other emotion. Now I know I have the choice, and usually I don't feel like being miserable or angry or oppressed. It's just not the way I want to spend my years, and not the person I want to be.

Now that I know I have the choice, I have the viscosity to toggle between the two things of unhappiness and happiness, and it makes me a better communicator, because after all, it's not really my job to express my own experience of life,,,rather I think it's more my job to express 'the human experience'. Which makes it necessary to toggle at will between all sorts of emotions.

When somebody honks their horn at me on the parkway, that makes them a horn-honker, it doesn't make me a slow driver, it doesn't make me an annoying driver, it doesn't even make me an angry, wrongly-reprimanded driver. It doesn't make me anything at all. It just makes that person a person who just honked their horn. My emotional state can run independently of that horn-honker.

These are the glasses I choose to see through these days, I've been much happier and found more success than those days when I believed a frustrated being was a better communicator.

This is my experience, it's a subject very close to my heart, because the first day I woke up and chose to be calm, peaceful and at ease (as opposed to the depressed person I usually was in the morning) was a very exciting moment for me. It meant that I am not imprisoned by whatever state I wake up in, neither is anyone imprisoned by their choice of path, or the reasons they chose it, or anything/anybody else in the universe.

What would make me unhappy is to NOT be in music!
That said, i have indeed seen your 3 types at work all over the place. I wonder if that kind of attitude is translating to the audiences? I know I do not wish to go see a bunch of "unhappy" people perform. Maybe that is the pop stars edge, they are enjoying the performance. That is the single most translatable elemant of musical performance. If the performer is into it the audience will get sucked in.

I think we have to be constantly vigilant to not let ourselves get bitter in this field. I have had my ups and downs and hard knocks etc etc etc. What really gets you in the long run is expectations. If one expects to make a lot of money and have an "A" list career then one is most likely going to be dissapointed, however if one continues to make music because they love it and only for that reason then they can be happy. Do it whole heartedly and with out reservation then try to not pass on the damage to the next generation. That will start to turn things around for all of us.



Interestingly , I grew up with an opposite view of a career in music, one teacher of mine always said,

Want to be happy for two hours? Get drunk.
Want to be happy for two years? Get married.
Want to be happy for the rest of your life? Follow the arts!