by Jason Heath

One would have to be crazy to go into music for the money. Dozens of career paths spring to mind (medicine, law, web development, programming, engineering, etc.) that have great salaries and benefits and ample opportunities for employment. Music careers by and large lack these great benefits. Cream-of-the-crop jobs in the world of music (outside of international soloists) pay what would be considered a fairly pedestrian wage in many other fields.

This basic assumption underlies everything else I discuss here. I know that we musicians did not go into this profession for the money, and the purpose of this series is not to carp about how little we all make. My concern is that we musicians are compensated fairly for our work and allowed to earn a living doing what we do. My experience, unfortunately, has been that the hidden costs of the freelance life quickly erode any seeming profit from far too many gigs. Since teaching is a component of nearly every freelance musician’s employment palette, I will analyze a university teaching position I held for the first installment in this series.

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