"Average Salary of a Professional Orchestral Tuba Player"

[Steve Marcus]

This was submitted by Paul Archibald, Artistic Director, English Brass Academy - Brass Classics, to a LinkedIn Group:

The Average Salary of a Professional Orchestral Tuba Player

Rumour has it that in the US six-figure salaries are nothing new to orchestral musicians, especially when it comes to those playing for the most celebrated orchestras in the nation. The high salaries are a reflection of the years it takes for a professional musician to master his or her instrument. Tuba players are no different, and earn the same levels of pay as cellists, violinists and trombonists.

In 2012, musicians earned an average of $31.94 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those working for performing arts companies, such as orchestras, earn closer to $35.14 an hour. Assuming salaries are based on a 40-hour workweek, the yearly income for a professional musician works out to $73,091. But a survey by Berklee College of Music sets annual salaries at anywhere from $28,000 to $115,000 a year.

Read more about this story by clicking the link:
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/aver ... 17547.html

[Michael Bush]

But a survey by Berklee College of Music sets annual salaries at anywhere from $28,000 to $115,000 a year.

That looks about right in a strictly literal sense, but isn't very informative.

[royjohn]

One has to note that these figures don't take into account the need for daily practice of fundamentals AND of the current music. This probably reduces the actual hourly compensation by 1/3 to 1/2.

[Uncle Markie]

This article is superficial - I suggest a little more homework if you want legit figures.

There are three conferences in the AFM - ICSOM, ROPA and OCSM that keep up pretty up to date information on orchestra musicians' salaries. The Berklee School would be the last place I would look for that information, but I didn't write the article. (acronyms decoded - International Congress of Symphony Orchestra Musicians, Regional Orchestra Players' Association, and the last one is for Canadian orchestra players) Your local orchestra likely has a representative to one of these organizations; call the local AFM union and if you're student aspiring to be a professional ask nicely who that person is. Call them up and ask respectfully and you'll probably learn a lot more than surfing the internet for this type of information.

I was fortunate - I had several teachers who not only taught me how to make music - they taught me the BUSINESS too. I hope YOUR teacher is cluing you in on some of this stuff.

Symphony salaries get a little complicated. You have to factor in the teaching positions that usually come long with a major orchestra position (or a minor orchestra for that matter), and recording opportunities that come along as result of holding down a symphony chair.

Then there are major cities with the low-paying orchestras. These will have a "core" of players then add on "on-calls" to flesh out the ensemble for big stuff - depending on budgetary concerns. There is theme and variation on this, too. Most of these orchestras do not have full year seasons and the musicians double up on ensemble work, pit work, augmenting acts that come through and freelancing to make a living.

Plus you can add to the computation that no orchestra actually turns a profit - ticket sales usually cover no more than 35% of any evening's performance. That's right - you are studying all those excerpts and saving up for a "Jake" horn to work for an employer that doesn't turn a profit. Symphony orchestras are much like art museums. The recession hit the orchestras hard because their donors got hit hard. Then there are mismanaged orchestras that never build their endowments to ride out their tough years, or overinvest in facilities, etc. The Philadelphia Orchestra, despite its storied history and continued high standards of performance (as a New York guy I was always a fan their sound, too) has struggled mightily to keep afloat in recent decades. Their management became complacent because of dependence on their Columbia Masterworks contract - that ship sailed a long time ago.

The last time I looked, not one American symphony orchestra had a recording contract with a major label. Plus the record companies have had their problems too.

That said, the "old" money (and the "new" money that wishes to be regarded as such) in major cities always seems to find a way to keep orchestras, ballet companies, opera companies and museums going. Those folks are different from you and I - they own big piles of moolah and many are rich just from having it around.

I have to confess I didn't actually do much orchestral work until I was in my 50s - up until that time I paid the bills, fed the kids, etc. playing everything else. And I mean EVERYTHING. I'm still an advocate of being versatile - there's only two kinds of music as Louis Armstrong used to say. I've done some of my finest playing in jazz trios while keeping up the legit chops too. Playing good music with and without printed music in front of you is not a mutually exclusive exercise.

BTW props to Taylor Swift for helping out the Nashville Symphony - more of these wealthy pop stars should do the same. It would seem like an easy choice - preserve the culture or pay the IRS...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mark Heter

[ralphbsz]

... But a survey by Berklee College of Music sets annual salaries at anywhere from $28,000 to $115,000 a year. ...

The minimum salary of any musician in the San Francisco Symphony is $141,500. That number probably applies to back benchers in the string sections. I presume that the tuba player there is considered a principal, and probably makes somewhat more. If you assume the standard formula of 2000 work hours per year (which is pretty ridiculous for a professional musician, since hours worked is hard to define), that would correspond to an hourly pay of a little over $70.

Because of the very public strike and negotiation involving the SF Symphony, that number has actually been talked about very openly in the press. Here is just one example: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/04/1 ... -contract/

According to the press, this figure is reasonable compared to other large orchestras in the US. It is higher than salaries in Europe (an old friend of mine is a string section leader in the BR symphony orchestra in Munich), but then salary structures are pretty different on the two sides of the ocean.

And for comparison, you have to remember that this is San Francisco, which is both a very high cost-of-living area, and an area with many highly paid people (because of the electronics and internet industries). Matter-of-fact, given how much time a professional musician has invested in their education and training, a technical person of comparable skills (say with a MS or PhD in electrical engineering or computer science) would probably make at least the same amount. And I'm quite sure that the symphony doesn't issue stock options.

[Jay Bertolet]

There are three conferences in the AFM - ICSOM, ROPA and OCSM that keep up pretty up to date information on orchestra musicians' salaries. The Berklee School would be the last place I would look for that information, but I didn't write the article. (acronyms decoded - International Congress of Symphony Orchestra Musicians, Regional Orchestra Players' Association, and the last one is for Canadian orchestra players) Your local orchestra likely has a representative to one of these organizations; call the local AFM union and if you're student aspiring to be a professional ask nicely who that person is. Call them up and ask respectfully and you'll probably learn a lot more than surfing the internet for this type of information. Mark Heter

Just a minor correction: ICSOM = International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians & OCSM = Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians.

The whole discussion of musician wages in the context of per hour calculations is absurd. It is pointless to think in those terms. That would be like trying to quantify and justify the salaries of professional athletes as a per hour calculation. These people are not hired because the numbers add up that they can be an asset to the "company". They are hired, just like pro athletes, because they can do something that very few other people can do. They have a limited career life, frequently have to plan for secondary careers after their musical ones, and labor for organizations that can disappear in a heartbeat based on the whims of a very small number of people. I always advise my students the same: Don't go into professional playing unless you feel it is your calling. That sort of heartfelt dedication is the only thing that will sustain you. There certainly aren't chicks, money, or fame.

[cjk]

Bloke gets all the chicks. Eggs too.

[Tom]

Symphony salaries get a little complicated. You have to factor in the teaching positions that usually come long with a major orchestra position (or a minor orchestra for that matter), and recording opportunities that come along as result of holding down a symphony chair.

This isn't completely accurate. Each time orchestra salaries get brought up on Tubenet, there is always someone that brings up the "add-ons" that sweeten the deal. The issue, however, is just that. Teaching opportunities are add-ons that really are completely separate jobs from separate employers with completely separate checks. Consider it "moonlighting," if you will, or as though you're working a second job for a little extra cash. Some teaching positions are substantial, some are not, but one needs to keep in mind that the two are totally separate and that having an orchestra job is no guarantee a teaching position will fall into your lap.

It is not straight forward to factor in "recording opportunities," either. Some orchestra contracts do not compensate musicians for recording beyond their base salary and some do. Some contracts have a built in weekly payment to their musicians that allows for X amount of recording. It should be noted that these days even the largest orchestras in the US are only recording and releasing a handful of recordings per year and most "big" orchestras are really doing either one or zero.

Plus you can add to the computation that no orchestra actually turns a profit - ticket sales usually cover no more than 35% of any evening's performance. That's right - you are studying all those excerpts and saving up for a "Jake" horn to work for an employer that doesn't turn a profit. Symphony orchestras are much like art museums. The recession hit the orchestras hard because their donors got hit hard. Then there are mismanaged orchestras that never build their endowments to ride out their tough years, or overinvest in facilities, etc. The Philadelphia Orchestra, despite its storied history and continued high standards of performance (as a New York guy I was always a fan their sound, too) has struggled mightily to keep afloat in recent decades. Their management became complacent because of dependence on their Columbia Masterworks contract - that ship sailed a long time ago.

The last time I looked, not one American symphony orchestra had a recording contract with a major label. Plus the record companies have had their problems too.

That doesn't tell the whole story, either. Orchestras in the US are 501(c)3 non-profits. They are not in business to be profitable and, as you said, they aren't based on earned revenue alone such as ticket sales. This is why they have development departments and are able to solicit donations that donors receive tax write-offs for. A for-profit corporation cannot do that. When a non-profit finishes the fiscal year with more money than they started with, it's a surplus, and is really what most are shooting for.

Mismanagement is a whole separate issue, but I can tell you with certainty that an endowment fund is not a golden ticket, nor were the recording contracts in days gone by. The recent Philadelphia bankruptcy, for example, had much more to do with the employer's pension and retirement obligations to the musicians and the amounts of money they owed to use their new hall, pay marketing firms, etc. than it did for recording contract that went away. Philadelphia stopped recording for Columbia in the late 1960s and recorded under a variety of labels since then, so to think that the Columbia contract is the root of their problems, now 45 years later, is a little far fetched. They actually DO have a recording contract Ondine (from Finland) that is a 10 year deal.

I agree with Jay that figuring wage per hour is absurd. Take the largest orchestras, for example...they have 52 week contracts and their players are on salary. That is all fine and good, but a lot of people (especially students) don't quite understand what that means. It means that they literally collect a salary every week for playing or not. They are not paid by the hour or even by the service. They are not "losing money" (as many seem to think) when they are not playing. They do not work a standard 40 hour week even in the largest of orchestras...it is actually closer to 20 hours spent in rehearsal or concert services. I actually cannot think of ANY orchestra, large or small, that pays by the hour. By the SERVICE, yes but not by the hour. And yes, when you see "contract minimum" or "base salary," it is just that...the minimum. So, yes...that last stand 2nd violin player that's 21 years old and fresh out of school is earning the base pay. And yes, premiums are paid for principal players, so they typically earn an amount beyond the base pay.

I also have to say that I don't personally understand the "I spent a lot of time in school" or the "I spend lots of my own time practicing" argument as justification for a salary at a particular level. So what? Where you went to school and the time you spent there was your decision. If I could win a job out of HS vs. someone that went on to get a MM, DMA, and maybe even an Artist Diploma before winning a job, who should get paid more and why? Likewise, if I feel like I need to practice just 1 hour a day on my own time to be able to do the job but the 3rd trombone player feels like he needs to practice 5 hours per day to do the job, should he/she get paid more?

[ralphbsz]

There is one significant difference though in the calculation of hours. Since I am in silicon valley, I'll compare a computer science major with a MS degree from Carnegie Mellon, who is a 1st-level manager at Google or Oracle, with the principal trombone or bassoon player of a large symphony (the tuba player is different, since he doesn't lead a small group of people).

The musician spends perhaps 20 hours per week on stage, blowing into a pipe. But he also spends an hour or two a day every day at home practicing. And he takes care of his own instrument, owns a half dozen of them (each pretty darn expensive), and spends considerable effort and money on instrument maintenance. As a section leader, he also has other "managerial" duties, like showing up when the orchestra auditions new members or substitutes.

The computer scientist shows up in the morning, expects to find a working computer in the office, and knows that maintenance of that computer is done by the IT department. While many computer people are hackers at heart (and spend their evenings at home improving their home automation system, or learning Ruby-on-Rails or OpenStack), they are not required to do so; they could instead go home after work, practice tuba, and play in the local community band. And if he has managerial duties, they are done on the clock, not in addition to his regular work.

Let's not even worry about the length and difficulty of the education, other than to say that few high school kids practice computer science for an hour a day, while I know many high school band and orchestra kids who do (or at least feel guilty about not having time for it, because Algebra homework and being the goalie in the school soccer team took too much time).

Our society has chosen to pay the engineer at Oracle or Google well, and pay the trombone or bassoon player somewhere between OK and very badly. That is an outgrowth of our society in general paying way too little attention to the arts, which leads to the fact that we have way too few professional ensembles. Im my opinion, every city of a million people should have a symphony, a theater, an opera, and a ballet, with the staff paid like similar professionals in other fields (whether it's a computer engineer, or the OR nurse in the hospital, or a captain in the city police). But that's not the world we live in. Bummer.

[ghmerrill]

The computer scientist shows up in the morning, expects to find a working computer in the office, and knows that maintenance of that computer is done by the IT department. While many computer people are hackers at heart (and spend their evenings at home improving their home automation system, or learning Ruby-on-Rails or OpenStack), they are not required to do so; they could instead go home after work, practice tuba, and play in the local community band. And if he has managerial duties, they are done on the clock, not in addition to his regular work.

I can see you've never held the sort of "computer science" job you're talking about.

To begin, there is simply no "on the clock" concept for most of the jobs you're talking about (except perhaps for low-level support jobs, but even many of those are often on call 24-7, at least for extended periods). Just last week my eldest son (who has worked in system architecture, design, implementation and support for about 20 years -- and by the way does not have a college or graduate degree) for such firms as IBM, HP, Red Hat, and a large regional bank remarked that only in the past three years has he not been, as a practical matter, on call in one way or another 24/7. Likewise for his brother who is a developer at IBM (where for the most part things are a bit less frantic than at other companies). In my last few years prior to retirement, and running a small team to develop new methods and software for adverse event reaction, we were constantly working 12-16 hour days. And I'm way too old for that . Developers are required to be constantly enhancing their knowledge (sometimes in rather diverse fields) and skills, and the rate at which the technology advances (including blind alleys now and then) is staggering. And this doesn't count the additional time that may be required to both develop and deliver formal presentations at conferences or to publish in journals (both trade journals and peer-reviewed journals) -- which for someone even anywhere close to the comparable level of an orchestra "principal" is indeed required. And don't forget to add those late (10:00 PM or later) or early (2:00 AM or so) phone and online conferences with the entire team, some of whom are in China, England, Western Europe, India, or wherever. That's not "on the clock" either. Theoretically you should get "comp time" for that, and so maybe you come in a little late the next day ... maybe ... if you don't also have an early morning meeting or presentation then as well.

It's fine if you think you work really hard. It's fine if you think that orchestra members work really hard. It's fine if you think that academics work really hard. But your view of what a job in the software development or support industry (particularly in places like Silicon Valley) amounts to is highly fanciful. None of which has anything to do with what a professional musician "should" be paid.

[Uncle Markie]

I didn't intend to address the wage per hour discussion in my post. The organizations I listed have compiled a lot of data over the years about wages, benefits, etc. of symphony musicians and I still think if you're looking for the best numbers their data is where you'll find them.

If someone is looking for a direct monetary return on their education, daily work ethic, professionalism, and talent there are many career paths that offer less risk than a career in music.

You make whatever income you receive in music because the people with the money - be it a symphony, a record company, a beer hall, a theme park or a circus - have in their heads that they need your services. How badly their perceived need for your services is what determines your paycheck for the most part. If someone gave you $70 million and choice of putting it into tax free municipal bonds, financing a symphony orchestra for part of a season, or producing a Broadway show what choice would you make? When you're working on Broadway you're working for people who gambled $70 million that enough people would like the show that they will make their money back.

It's always good remember the difference between perception and reality - you can change reality....

Mark Heter

[ralphbsz]

I can see you've never held the sort of "computer science" job you're talking about.

Actually, I do have exactly that job: I am a computer scientist in an advanced development group of one of those employers you mention (the one often maligned as "Inferior But Marketable" or "Irish Business Machines"), and I've worked at quite a few similar companies (including "Hubris Pachyderm" for a few years). Since I'm right in Silicon Valley, most people I know get to experience the tech industry from inside. I've done enough of those conference calls with China or Israel at very strange hours in my time zone. And while I have to travel very little (lucky me), I have colleagues who are in a different city every week or two. You are absolutely correct, the job is not 9-5, nor is it 40 hours a week.

But at least I don't have to come home, and practice coding for two hours (doing scales and arpeggios in Java? long tones in the cloud?). Nor do I have to buy my own laptops (one in CC, one in F, and a small one for chamber programming and quintet). Nor do I have to take my computer apart and oil the valves, or make my compiler out of pieces of reed. If my computer breaks, the IT department will actually try to fix it for free, without me having to drive for three hours to take it to their repair shop.

But: The job of a professional musician is also not 40 hours a week, and is even less 9-5. My post above was trying to say the following: The task of a performing musician doesn't begin when they walk on the stage, and doesn't end when the applause stops. That is a tiny part of the job. But it tends to be the only part the general public sees, and thinks about. For most other careers, the opposite is true, and the job is (commonly) done when you leave the building.

[ghmerrill]

My post above was trying to say the following: The task of a performing musician doesn't begin when they walk on the stage, and doesn't end when the applause stops. That is a tiny part of the job. But it tends to be the only part the general public sees, and thinks about. For most other careers, the opposite is true, and the job is (commonly) done when you leave the building.

"Most other careers"? I really don't think so. Tell it to any middle school teacher in the public schools. See what reaction you get.