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The article in question

I've heard mixed things about tubas and career paths. Is this true at all?

Unfortunately, this is true. Even unpaid gigs in community bands sometimes have more tuba players available than needed. It is best to have a back up plan unless you are very luck and are the Michael Jordan of tuba players.

"Mixed??"

Who's told you anything positive about tubas and career paths??

Definition of a successful tuba player------- one with a day job.

pineapple-power wrote:The article in question

I've heard mixed things about tubas and career paths. Is this true at all?

Comment from article;

Veloise Jeffrey Joyce • a year ago

I can think of several folks on my friends list who've done exactly this. Carol Janstch does a lot of touring and "special guest artist" gigs. Deanna Swoboda is a proessor and she has several children's recordings out. Chuck Daellenbach formed his own band; so far it seems to be going well. Matt Perrine relocated to New Orleans to be a professional tubist.
Despite the sad outcome, every city would benefit from having someone like Seattle's Tuba Man.

Yes, murdered is a "sad outcome"



http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... to-be-now/" target="_blank"

A job playing tuba that would allow one to survive is an everyday thing; there ought to be another one open within a few years, give or take.

Three Valves wrote:"Mixed??"

Who's told you anything positive about tubas and career paths??

The voices in my head.

According to some of my friends in college presently*, low brass is relatively better. What they mean, I believe, is that a tubist is better off than a flutist in the classical music world.

*maybe the take away here is "don't listen to college students"

opus37 wrote:Unfortunately, this is true. Even unpaid gigs in community bands sometimes have more tuba players available than needed. It is best to have a back up plan unless you are very luck and are the Michael Jordan of tuba players.

In my opinion, Jantsch IS our field's Michael Jordan, and she still does side gigs...

swillafew wrote:A job playing tuba that would allow one to survive is an everyday thing; there ought to be another one open within a few years, give or take.

By this do you mean professional orchestras and marching bands, or more that I'm not thinking of?

bloke wrote:Those who came before us (those whose names are mentioned reverently - as if godlike) had to do all of these thinks (and more) to eek out their modest livings:
- play in their cities' orchestra(s)
- recording (if available)
- summer and/or year-round concert bands
- shows
- circuses passing through town (Shrine, Ringling, etc...)
- jazz bands
- polka bands
- dance bands
- boat cruises
- Klezmer
- weddings
- Christmas/Easter/church gigs
- store openings/store promotions
- teaching
- instrument sales

All of these put together probably generated today's equivalent (adjusted for inflation) of around $40K tops (only a FEW thousand dollars back around the mid-1950's, etc...), but they were able to get by because across-the-board taxation levels were so much lower. ...and well...$4000 - during that time - was represented by 90% silver coins (dimes, quarters, 50-cent pieces, solid dollars)...the amount of silver in them, today, worth about $70,000

Prior to around the early-mid 1970's, most colleges/universities had "low brass" teachers who primarily played the trombone. Through the 1980's, more-and-more universities (competing with each other - and perhaps 5 to 10 years late - for the huge throng of baby boomer students, but with a growing 1980's economy sending more money flowing into state governments and their universities) loaded up with "tuba professors".
Today, there are many state government tuba teaching jobs (mostly in the high school band directors generating "music education degrees" business, but also casting out many dozens annually - nationwide - of "performance majors"...as well as young people with band-director papers who never had any intention of band directing, and who always viewed themselves as "performers"), but - as the economy continues to severely contract (and the money just won't be there) I predict that many of these jobs will evaporate via attrition. As it is, when many of these people retire they are replaced with "adjuncts" (c. $3K/yr. - $8K/yr. with no benefits and only contracted year-to-year) which is one of many ways that universities (many of which are in severe financial straits) can reduce their budgets. For the full-time jobs that are preserved at state universities for tuba players, many of the young people who accept those jobs are discovering that "others" in their metro areas have most of the performance work sewn up - finding themselves artistically frustrated and mostly limited to solo/quintet recitals, and hiring each other to travel to each others' universities and do masterclasses and solo recitals.

probably a good strategy: Become very highly-skilled doing things that people NEED (or at least WANT) that could hopefully furnish an income that could cover life expenses...along with becoming very highly skilled at doing things that YOU enjoy. There IS time in one's life to develop more than one "set" of skills. In fact, there is plenty of time to develop MANY sets of marketable skills.

Hmm... I'll marry a doctor.
My plan for the rest of high school is mostly centered around developing the "things I enjoy" set of skills. (And by things I enjoy, I mean tuba and tuba alone, because I'm a loveless band nerd.)
I was told by a flutist that the average salary in a major orchestra is $200,000 / year. Is that different for tubists? [Also, tuba seats are much rarer, seeing as orchestras only need one.]
I just don't know if there will be viable careers in tuba when I graduate from college. (I'm a freshman in high school right now.) That's a part of the reason I'm trying my best to find all the beneficial opportunities I can and take them.




So, to ask a slightly off topic question, as inspired by my read through of bloke's post: What opportunities and activities helped you grow the most as a tubist in high school and college? Additionally, what ones do you wish you'd taken? (blokePlace is an acceptable answer, assuming that thread wasn't a prank.)

Holding an AARP card, I've observed that he quality and number of tuba players seems to have increased over time. In high school if you were big kid who wasn't sure what you wanted to play, you got tagged to play the tuba. When I was in college at a big 10 school, they literally had flute players switch to tuba during the 1970's to fill the ranks in the marching band. it was something that non-music majors did for fun. Now it's pretty competitive to get in to any slot.

Tubas also seem relatively cheaper. You can pick up a decent used 3 valve BAT for under a grand. A chinese clone is relatively cheap now also. So more kids and schools have access. You are not playing a beat-up 40 year old conn in HS anymore and more kids own their own horns. They have nicer (OK, newer) horns than I do and I didn't purchase my first tuba until I was 40, I just played what the school or community band owned.

The wage thing is just a part of the overall economy. Relatively few jobs pay what they used to and many people who have college degrees don't have access to good middle class jobs in their fields because the ed system churns out graduates in fields where people have little chance of getting jobs. In MN we have an orchestra that built a beautiful building then attempted to cut the wages of the members, pleading poverty. After a year long strike, players got wages back but I don't believe that they made any gains.

The boom and bust of this stuff cycles. The Music Man was based on real events, in the late 1800's, when there were entire town bands outfitted by salesmen with catalogs. Many of the horns they sold were stencils from Europe. Then in 1910 or so Conn sued Pepper for selling stencil horns, WWI broke out and all of that kind of ended. Many of the companies selling horns on the side then are still in business selling sheet music.

I have many friends who were music majors and working other careers, a significant percentage of our community band contains old college players or music majors. My observation on the career potential is that you have to be really good, really dedicated and lucky (right place at the right time). It's a sacrifice sometimes to do what you love. I simply have a job that pays the bills, has good benefits and I do the fun stuff on the side. But it works for me.

I think that Bloke's contributions here have been brilliant and right on the money (and I don't use "right on the money" in a purely analogical way).

You know, it's great to pursue your dreams, and I wouldn't discourage that. But don't pursue your dreams by shutting doors that will be difficult or impossible to open up again. Now isn't the time to constrain the rest of your life by focusing on some narrow interest to the exclusion of learning things that will allow you a broader range of opportunities in the future. The "things you enjoy" will likely change a lot over the next 10 years, and certainly over the next 20. You may discover that you enjoy having a reasonable income, enjoyable work, not having to worry about whether you'll have a job next week or next month or next year, not having to continually market yourself for the next job in an area where opportunities are few and the competition is severe, having and being able to support a family, etc. It's extremely likely that in 10 years you won't be telling people that you are and enjoy being a "band nerd".

You've already said that you don't know that there will be viable tuba careers when you graduate from college (assuming that you do, and at this point THAT's an assumption -- however much it may be your intention). So in that situation, why would any rational person make a total commitment to a future that may be a fantasy? But already your "plan for the rest of high school" is committed to that?

This is the wrong approach to college (and to life in general). But I've seen way too much of it over the past 10-15 years -- both from the point of view of a casual observer and up close from the point of view of faculty. Too many go to college now with the idea that they'll decide what they want to do -- or they'll start to try to do it -- AFTER they graduate. Then they discover that all the time they spent in college hasn't prepared them for any of the realities of the world they're facing. They can't get the kind of job they fantasized about (and in way too many cases, it was just an ignorant fantasy), and they're not qualified for any jobs that are available. This includes people with bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and Ph.D.s

I realize that what I'm saying here counts as a "lecture". But really: drop the "band nerd" focus and develop a more reasonable plan. Let that plan include pursuit of a professional musical career if you want, but don't let that plan close the other doors you need to keep open.

pineapple-power wrote:
So, to ask a slightly off topic question, as inspired by my read through of bloke's post: What opportunities and activities helped you grow the most as a tubist in high school and college? Additionally, what ones do you wish you'd taken? (blokePlace is an acceptable answer, assuming that thread wasn't a prank.)

I was a band nerd, all my friends were band nerds.

My band nerd friends that majored in engineering make more money than I do.

My advice to young people??

Go to work every day on time.

Sober.

Live within your means.

Never underestimate the value of marrying well.

(Not necessarily in that order)

Think of a Venn diagram.

Seriously, there's a reason for that image.

If you don't remember those, it's just a circle that visually represents a set of "things." It's one of those math things.

Okay, one circle for the things you like to do, are really interested in.

Another one for the set of things you are good at doing.

Do they overlap?

Third circle, set of available jobs, things people are willing to pay for. This one needs to overlap too. Lots of people get really good at things like playing Candy Crush that have very few job opportunities.

Now, consider that most people live long enough to have three careers, and long enough to change their minds about what they like doing. So it's good to build in a little flexibility and leave some options open.

Conclusion: The VERY BEST THING you can do in high school is take every math class available. If you do not take four years of math in high school you have disqualified yourself from 90% of the world's careers. Even if you are sure now you will be perfectly happy staying inside that 10% circle, do it anyway.

Math is not hard. But it's not easy either. It's like music, you have to put in the work, but it's unlike music in that it doesn't require natural talent. Do it whether you like it or not.

Okay, end of soapbox. Sorry for the rant.

Play the tuba for enjoyment, do do anything else to make a living. This goes triple for the euphonium.

I play in a pretty decent brass quintet. The members education/professional history is below.

Master's in performance from Cincinnati Conservatory - now elementary music teacher - trying to get out and into the business world.
Bachelor's in performance/Master's in Music Ed. - High School band director - loves it never wants to do anything else.
Bachelor's in performance Fla State - housewife - married well, works her butt off as a mom. Probably the best musician in the group.
Double major music/business SMU - Highly successful software designer/IT engineer - "I have a good job that feeds my family but music feeds my soul"
Bachelor's Music Ed. Ark Tech Master's Music Ed. UofA - Band director for 5 years then insurance for 35 - What he said above.

See a pattern? My professional musician friends view their music as a job. They have no choice. Several have confessed that they envy me because I can do it for my own enjoyment. I play what I want, when I want, with whom I want, period. That way it feeds my soul. If I don't think a gig will do that I say no. The pros don't always have a choice. One of the pros we hired for our church Christmas gig told me, " I love this gig every year. This is my son's Christmas." That's pressure. Don't get me wrong, I don't play nearly as well as they do, I just enjoy it more.

All of the above is true in spades, but on the flip side there is no better seat in the hall than on stage and you are actively working with a team that know exactly what your contribution to the product is (or isn't... )

With that said:

-- tuba jobs exist
-- lots of jobs are held by old people, who will eventually retire or die
-- lots of excellent "could be" or "could have been" tuba players will give up, and you could benefit from their lack of persistence (or, their realistic attitudes)

Think of it like this -- it's like you are trying to be a quarterback in football. They clearly exist, they are hard to get, and a high percentage of people who strive to have careers in those positions simply never succeed. But people never stop trying, and never quit. And you can be REALLY good and still not make it (and still never quit). Love him or leave him, Tim Tebow was an excellent college quarterback, but he struggled to make a career as an NFL player. Or Kurt Warner, who wasn't "good enough" for the NFL, so he scrapped together a career in Canada, until he finally got a break in the NFL and was successful.

Or, any number of college basketball and college football players who end up playing professionally in other countries... China, eastern Europe, etc. It's not the job they dreamed for, but it keeps them playing and doing what they can't not do.

Being a musician has never been an easy job. Throughout history, musicians and composers who are instantly recognizable now had lives of struggle, poverty, messed up family lives, political problems... and some never even gained popularity as composers until after their deaths. On the very surface of it, yes, being the top dog tuba player in the world's best orchestras, you will make a lot of money (not $200k though). But really, it's a life of struggle, requires not only talent and skill, but dedication, determination, and a lot of stubbornness. I don't know when people got the idea that "musician" is a cushy job with high salary, benefits, and was all sunshine and rainbows.

I've posted this before, but this may be a good thread in which to do it again:

This is reality with respect to "major" orchestras in which there is ONE tuba player. I believe there are 16 orchestras that have 52 week contracts, if that's the criteria for "full time" or "major" orchestra. Three big orchestras are very busy (Detroit, St. Louis, Indianapolis) but do not, as far as I know, currently have 52 week contracts.

Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are typically the top three orchestras in terms of highest pay. Base pay at each of those orchestras is $150k-$160k or so annually. Most (not all) of the orchestras on the following list are closer to $95k-125k annual base pay. The dollar amount, as bloke pointed out, doesn't tell the whole story though: cost of living is a major factor. $150k in San Francisco is different than $150k in Atlanta or Houston, to use examples from the list below.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Los Angeles Philharmonic
San Francisco Symphony
New York Philharmonic
Boston Symphony
National Symphony
Cleveland Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
Pittsburgh Symphony
Cincinnati Symphony
Dallas Symphony
Houston Symphony
Atlanta Symphony
Baltimore Symphony
Utah Symphony

And...yes, also as pointed out by bloke, these are jobs. It's typically 6 days a week (that means almost every weekend Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun concerts). As with a job in nearly any other field, you're told when to show up, what to wear / how to look, and what to do [play] and that's that. Not too different than any other job except that instead of sitting behind a desk at a computer, you sit on stage and play a tuba. Many here would be surprised by the attitude and outlook of some of the musicians that have some of these jobs. The thrill wears off after a little while and they realize that, yep...they've got a job.

Those are orchestra jobs that are "full time" and don't require you to seek additional employment to make a living wage. On the other hand (also as mentioned by bloke) there is rarely, and almost never, time to do any side gigs if you have a job in one of those orchestras to begin with.

timothy42b wrote: Now, consider that most people live long enough to have three careers, and long enough to change their minds about what they like doing. So it's good to build in a little flexibility and leave some options open.

This is true. I had three careers: (1) professional university philosophy professor, with tenure (10 yrs); (2) software engineer/researcher/product developer (15 years); and (3) a kind of "scientist" career that's difficult to describe but involved a lot of computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, set theory, and software development. When I was in high school I had NO idea that these were the careers I'd end up in. When I was in high school, (2) and (3) weren't even careers that were available. When I was in graduate school (2) was beginning, in some people's eyes, to be a possible career path, though it didn't really exist yet. I'd been out of school and working for about 15 years before (3) began to appear in even its earliest stages.

In college and graduate school, I focused on (1) -- that was the dream. I got it. But along the way I took every math course that I could. When I got tired of the philosophy/university gig, it was both easy and interesting and fun to move into the computer science gig. When I got tired of that kind of computer science gig it was easy and interesting and fun to move into the weird "I don't quite know what to call it" gig (where most of my colleagues thought that I was either a computer scientist or a mathematician).

Conclusion: The VERY BEST THING you can do in high school is take every math class available. If you do not take four years of math in high school you have disqualified yourself from 90% of the world's careers. Even if you are sure now you will be perfectly happy staying inside that 10% circle, do it anyway.

Hooray! However, most people won't listen to this kind of advice, and many think they "can't do it". Some of them are right (though it took me years of teaching to come to concede this).

You don't have to go the "scientific/engineering math" route. Business math (which will overlap to some degree with the scientific stuff) is an alternative that might be more appealing. But in addition to the math, you have to learn to write well. If you have both those areas covered, you will be highly adaptable -- in part because they make it possible for you to learn OTHER things.

Math is not hard.

Yeah, it is. A certain amount of it isn't -- though it can be made hard by teachers. But a lot of it is hard. It's not realistic to take the attitude that "everyone can learn this if they just work at it". I believed that for years. My daughter -- a middle school math teacher -- is struggling to continue believing it, but she's losing the struggle. And she's a math teacher BECAUSE she had trouble with math and wants to make it easy for others.

But it's not easy either. It's like music, you have to put in the work, but it's unlike music in that it doesn't require natural talent.

Largely true up to a point -- and the point is somewhere around the area of integral calculus. Or maybe elementary analysis. After that, things get pretty weird pretty fast. Most people struggle with things like non-Euclidean geometry in n-dimensions, infinite-dimensional vector spaces, number theory, topology, and the various other even more complex realms that await. Yeah, everyone can learn to play tennis. They can't learn to be Roger Federer. Yeah, everyone can learn to play tuba. They can't learn to be Oystein Baadsvik. Only a few can do those things. But that's not the point.

Everyone CAN learn math (and science, and how to write well, and how to think reasonably) at least to a certain level -- and can (at least should) be able to do this in four years of college. So yes, you should take all those courses that are available to you as a normal undergraduate. And the time to do it is when you're young and have the time and energy to do it. It gets a LOT harder as you get older, and it gets MUCH MUCH harder to try to do it while you also have a job. Do the hard stuff first. Then you've got it.

Do it whether you like it or not.

Yeah, though I'm afraid that this is way out of fashion.

Okay, end of soapbox. Sorry for the rant.

It needed to be said. Most often it has no effect.

ghmerrill wrote:
Largely true up to a point -- and the point is somewhere around the area of integral calculus. Or maybe elementary analysis. After that, things get pretty weird pretty fast. Most people struggle with things like non-Euclidean geometry in n-dimensions, infinite-dimensional vector spaces, number theory, topology, and the various other even more complex realms that await. Yeah, everyone can learn to play tennis. They can't learn to be Roger Federer. Yeah, everyone can learn to play tuba. They can't learn to be Oystein Baadsvik. Only a few can do those things. But that's not the point.

My absolute favorite was algebraic topology. The class was two students and the professor and we met in the professor's office and in addition to the course matter talked a lot about rock climbing.

I tried non-Euclidean geometry, but even as a math major, I just couldn't stomach it.

Number theory was my jam.

To start off my (surely lengthy) response: Thank you so much to everyone who has responded so far. This thread has been an important perspective shift for me that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

bloke wrote:I am very close to a person in one of America's very few top-echelon orchestras. Their negotiated pay is about $120,000 (nowhere near $200,000), they have no time to accept any "side" gigs, their standard of living is lower than it was with their previous orchestra job (as the very few higher-paying orchestra jobs are in cities where living expenses are also very high), and they (with increased monthly higher-cost-of-living budgets) have not managed to climb any farther out of debt than they had with their previous orchestra job. "Winning" the job they currently have "won" them better working conditions (i.e. a better-sounding orchestra with which to perform), a smaller older/funkier house, one less car, higher taxes, rougher winters, and not much else.

bloke "It's not the All-State Band...It's a five-or-six-days-a-week most-every-week job."

Ok, but bloke's sign offs are a work of art themselves.

I feel like what I'm being told is "orchestra jobs aren't all that." Previously (as you may have noticed) I was of the opinion that an orchestra seat meant "making it." Clearly no.

Another thing, as I'm reading through this: There isn't a "making it," either. Your survival as a full time tubist is predicated upon being willing to be a freelancer or in debt indefinitely.

Well, balls.

ghmerrill wrote:I think that Bloke's contributions here have been brilliant and right on the money (and I don't use "right on the money" in a purely analogical way).

You know, it's great to pursue your dreams, and I wouldn't discourage that. But don't pursue your dreams by shutting doors that will be difficult or impossible to open up again. Now isn't the time to constrain the rest of your life by focusing on some narrow interest to the exclusion of learning things that will allow you a broader range of opportunities in the future. The "things you enjoy" will likely change a lot over the next 10 years, and certainly over the next 20. You may discover that you enjoy having a reasonable income, enjoyable work, not having to worry about whether you'll have a job next week or next month or next year, not having to continually market yourself for the next job in an area where opportunities are few and the competition is severe, having and being able to support a family, etc. It's extremely likely that in 10 years you won't be telling people that you are and enjoy being a "band nerd".

You've already said that you don't know that there will be viable tuba careers when you graduate from college (assuming that you do, and at this point THAT's an assumption -- however much it may be your intention). So in that situation, why would any rational person make a total commitment to a future that may be a fantasy? But already your "plan for the rest of high school" is committed to that?

This is the wrong approach to college (and to life in general). But I've seen way too much of it over the past 10-15 years -- both from the point of view of a casual observer and up close from the point of view of faculty. Too many go to college now with the idea that they'll decide what they want to do -- or they'll start to try to do it -- AFTER they graduate. Then they discover that all the time they spent in college hasn't prepared them for any of the realities of the world they're facing. They can't get the kind of job they fantasized about (and in way too many cases, it was just an ignorant fantasy), and they're not qualified for any jobs that are available. This includes people with bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and Ph.D.s

I realize that what I'm saying here counts as a "lecture". But really: drop the "band nerd" focus and develop a more reasonable plan. Let that plan include pursuit of a professional musical career if you want, but don't let that plan close the other doors you need to keep open.

Teens pursuing dreams is rarely a thing that ends well for the teen. Just a thing I've noticed. (Which is why threads like this are important, because it reminds me that I need to think in more realistic terms. I digress.)

Maybe I worded that badly: not the plan to the exclusion of other things, except maybe some free time. For example, I'm interested in several sciences as well, so I'm taking every math and science class my school offers sometime in the next few years that I can fit (physics, chem, biology, calculus, trig, geometry, etc).

I'm planning on joining my local community band over the summer. Probably in my sophomore year, I want to attend a nearby college's pre-college (i.e. this) for at least a year. In my senior year, I'll participate in a handful of tuba competitions and decide, depending on how that goes, from there. (Also no idea if that's reasonable or not. I'm a teen, and I'll admit I don't know anything.)

Lectures aren't inherently bad, you know.

Three Valves wrote:
I was a band nerd, all my friends were band nerds.

My band nerd friends that majored in engineering make more money than I do.

My advice to young people??

Go to work every day on time.

Sober.

Live within your means.

Never underestimate the value of marrying well.

(Not necessarily in that order)

<teen angst about wanting to marry for LOVE and live out a HAPPY FAIRYTALE SOMETHING SOMETHING>

timothy42b wrote:Think of a Venn diagram.

Seriously, there's a reason for that image.

If you don't remember those, it's just a circle that visually represents a set of "things." It's one of those math things.

Okay, one circle for the things you like to do, are really interested in.

Another one for the set of things you are good at doing.

Do they overlap?

Third circle, set of available jobs, things people are willing to pay for. This one needs to overlap too. Lots of people get really good at things like playing Candy Crush that have very few job opportunities.

Now, consider that most people live long enough to have three careers, and long enough to change their minds about what they like doing. So it's good to build in a little flexibility and leave some options open.

Conclusion: The VERY BEST THING you can do in high school is take every math class available. If you do not take four years of math in high school you have disqualified yourself from 90% of the world's careers. Even if you are sure now you will be perfectly happy staying inside that 10% circle, do it anyway.

Math is not hard. But it's not easy either. It's like music, you have to put in the work, but it's unlike music in that it doesn't require natural talent. Do it whether you like it or not.

Okay, end of soapbox. Sorry for the rant.

Favorite description a Venn diagram to date: it's just a circle that visually represents a set of "things." It's one of those math things."

As aforementioned, many a math and science class are in my future, so I have already made you proud, wise sir.

The one thing I've learned in my long wandering across the Internet for advice - if anything - is "Don't close any doors, ye whippersnapper! Ye'll wish ye didn't!" But I never really knew what those doors were, besides "math stuff maybe?" So thank you for your answer / rants. (Rants aren't inherently bad either.O

Rick F wrote:Play the tuba for enjoyment, do do anything else to make a living. This goes triple for the euphonium.

A joke I believe was in the original article:
"What's a euphonium player not in a military band? Unemployed!"

nworbekim wrote:are music schools being honest with students about their chances of making pro? or are they allowing them into the program because of the money?

i have always been advised to keep a backup plan and have always taught my students to. that's in my nature though, my wife says i have the "just in case" syndrome.

the life of a free lancer is too insecure for me.

I'd say it's the latter, especially with smaller programs.

The life of a free lancer is fine to me... right now, as a fifteen year old. Which is one of the main issues of the thread: "nO sToP yOu NaIvE cHiLd"

windshieldbug wrote:All of the above is true in spades, but on the flip side there is no better seat in the hall than on stage and you are actively working with a team that know exactly what your contribution to the product is (or isn't... )

That end! What a Shamalyanian twist!

For me, playing is MUCH better in a group for this reason. I understand the appeal to a solo career, but working in a group and contributing to a whole is more fulfilling.

bort wrote:With that said:

-- tuba jobs exist
-- lots of jobs are held by old people, who will eventually retire or die
-- lots of excellent "could be" or "could have been" tuba players will give up, and you could benefit from their lack of persistence (or, their realistic attitudes)

Think of it like this -- it's like you are trying to be a quarterback in football. They clearly exist, they are hard to get, and a high percentage of people who strive to have careers in those positions simply never succeed. But people never stop trying, and never quit. And you can be REALLY good and still not make it (and still never quit). Love him or leave him, Tim Tebow was an excellent college quarterback, but he struggled to make a career as an NFL player. Or Kurt Warner, who wasn't "good enough" for the NFL, so he scrapped together a career in Canada, until he finally got a break in the NFL and was successful.

Or, any number of college basketball and college football players who end up playing professionally in other countries... China, eastern Europe, etc. It's not the job they dreamed for, but it keeps them playing and doing what they can't not do.

Being a musician has never been an easy job. Throughout history, musicians and composers who are instantly recognizable now had lives of struggle, poverty, messed up family lives, political problems... and some never even gained popularity as composers until after their deaths. On the very surface of it, yes, being the top dog tuba player in the world's best orchestras, you will make a lot of money (not $200k though). But really, it's a life of struggle, requires not only talent and skill, but dedication, determination, and a lot of stubbornness. I don't know when people got the idea that "musician" is a cushy job with high salary, benefits, and was all sunshine and rainbows.

Really, there aren't many jobs besides Being Rich that are "cushy." Especially not in the humanities.

I have stubbornness and a everything-will-work-out mindset to boot. Where do I sign up?

The problem, I guess, is that there are lots of tubists before me who have persistence in spades. What says I'll beat them out when the older tubists die or retire? (the cynicism of this thread has claimed my soul by now) That is, I suppose, where an "unrealistic" mindset comes to play - only those with one can properly apply their persistence.

Tom wrote:I've posted this before, but this may be a good thread in which to do it again:

This is reality with respect to "major" orchestras in which there is ONE tuba player. I believe there are 16 orchestras that have 52 week contracts, if that's the criteria for "full time" or "major" orchestra. Three big orchestras are very busy (Detroit, St. Louis, Indianapolis) but do not, as far as I know, currently have 52 week contracts.

Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are typically the top three orchestras in terms of highest pay. Base pay at each of those orchestras is $150k-$160k or so annually. Most (not all) of the orchestras on the following list are closer to $95k-125k annual base pay. The dollar amount, as bloke pointed out, doesn't tell the whole story though: cost of living is a major factor. $150k in San Francisco is different than $150k in Atlanta or Houston, to use examples from the list below.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Los Angeles Philharmonic
San Francisco Symphony
New York Philharmonic
Boston Symphony
National Symphony
Cleveland Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
Pittsburgh Symphony
Cincinnati Symphony
Dallas Symphony
Houston Symphony
Atlanta Symphony
Baltimore Symphony
Utah Symphony

And...yes, also as pointed out by bloke, these are jobs. It's typically 6 days a week (that means almost every weekend Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun concerts). As with a job in nearly any other field, you're told when to show up, what to wear / how to look, and what to do [play] and that's that. Not too different than any other job except that instead of sitting behind a desk at a computer, you sit on stage and play a tuba. Many here would be surprised by the attitude and outlook of some of the musicians that have some of these jobs. The thrill wears off after a little while and they realize that, yep...they've got a job.

Those are orchestra jobs that are "full time" and don't require you to seek additional employment to make a living wage. On the other hand (also as mentioned by bloke) there is rarely, and almost never, time to do any side gigs if you have a job in one of those orchestras to begin with.

Full time jobs that you have to play a Classical Music Battle Royale to win. Fun stuff.

That's a bleak way of looking at things. Would they consider having a job playing better or worse than sitting behind a computer, if you know?

ghmerrill wrote:

timothy42b wrote: Now, consider that most people live long enough to have three careers, and long enough to change their minds about what they like doing. So it's good to build in a little flexibility and leave some options open.

This is true. I had three careers: (1) professional university philosophy professor, with tenure (10 yrs); (2) software engineer/researcher/product developer (15 years); and (3) a kind of "scientist" career that's difficult to describe but involved a lot of computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, set theory, and software development. When I was in high school I had NO idea that these were the careers I'd end up in. When I was in high school, (2) and (3) weren't even careers that were available. When I was in graduate school (2) was beginning, in some people's eyes, to be a possible career path, though it didn't really exist yet. I'd been out of school and working for about 15 years before (3) began to appear in even its earliest stages.

In college and graduate school, I focused on (1) -- that was the dream. I got it. But along the way I took every math course that I could. When I got tired of the philosophy/university gig, it was both easy and interesting and fun to move into the computer science gig. When I got tired of that kind of computer science gig it was easy and interesting and fun to move into the weird "I don't quite know what to call it" gig (where most of my colleagues thought that I was either a computer scientist or a mathematician).

Conclusion: The VERY BEST THING you can do in high school is take every math class available. If you do not take four years of math in high school you have disqualified yourself from 90% of the world's careers. Even if you are sure now you will be perfectly happy staying inside that 10% circle, do it anyway.

Hooray! However, most people won't listen to this kind of advice, and many think they "can't do it". Some of them are right (though it took me years of teaching to come to concede this).

You don't have to go the "scientific/engineering math" route. Business math (which will overlap to some degree with the scientific stuff) is an alternative that might be more appealing. But in addition to the math, you have to learn to write well. If you have both those areas covered, you will be highly adaptable -- in part because they make it possible for you to learn OTHER things.

Math is not hard.

Yeah, it is. A certain amount of it isn't -- though it can be made hard by teachers. But a lot of it is hard. It's not realistic to take the attitude that "everyone can learn this if they just work at it". I believed that for years. My daughter -- a middle school math teacher -- is struggling to continue believing it, but she's losing the struggle. And she's a math teacher BECAUSE she had trouble with math and wants to make it easy for others.

But it's not easy either. It's like music, you have to put in the work, but it's unlike music in that it doesn't require natural talent.

Largely true up to a point -- and the point is somewhere around the area of integral calculus. Or maybe elementary analysis. After that, things get pretty weird pretty fast. Most people struggle with things like non-Euclidean geometry in n-dimensions, infinite-dimensional vector spaces, number theory, topology, and the various other even more complex realms that await. Yeah, everyone can learn to play tennis. They can't learn to be Roger Federer. Yeah, everyone can learn to play tuba. They can't learn to be Oystein Baadsvik. Only a few can do those things. But that's not the point.

Everyone CAN learn math (and science, and how to write well, and how to think reasonably) at least to a certain level -- and can (at least should) be able to do this in four years of college. So yes, you should take all those courses that are available to you as a normal undergraduate. And the time to do it is when you're young and have the time and energy to do it. It gets a LOT harder as you get older, and it gets MUCH MUCH harder to try to do it while you also have a job. Do the hard stuff first. Then you've got it.

Do it whether you like it or not.

Yeah, though I'm afraid that this is way out of fashion.

Okay, end of soapbox. Sorry for the rant.

It needed to be said. Most often it has no effect.

This is quoteception, lol.

My (1) right now fluctuates between "tubist," "astrobiologist," and "person who professionally speaks another language (interpreter??)." I don't know what I want, though this thread points me toward the latter two. (If you read lots of people being very cynical about their jobs, maybe rethink that field, you know?) So yes, lots of math for me.

I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle of "math can be learned!" debate. Some comes very easily for me (i.e. imaginary numbers are my domain) but some I only learn to pass the test. One can learn to enjoy math, as well, though it varies. For example, I only enjoy math when applied to science. I can't math for the sake of mathing.

ghmerrill wrote:

timothy42b wrote:

Do it whether you like it or not.

Yeah, though I'm afraid that this is way out of fashion

Which is unfortunate, because it shouldn't be. There are many people on Earth, and many of them must bite the bullet and do what is logically best. (Myself included.)