From what I have seen as an occasional musician and running sound is that these days most musicians are not willing to make the sacrifices and put in the time, they will not take that poorly paying weekly gig and spend a year or two refining their performance and learning to read the audience which is a major part of making it in music.

I know a good number a professional musicians who have made it to the point where they can live off of music without constantly working, every single one of them started out the same way, playing every single show they could regardless of pay or location. This started to change around 2010, the venue I used to do sound for primarily targeted musicians who were starting out either on the local scene or national scene (just starting to tour and trying to make a name out of their home town), by 2015 music was mostly done there because the 19 year olds who had only played a few shows were not happy with $25 and a meal to sit on stage with their guitar for an hour, they wanted $100 and expected to play to a full room.

The boom in home recording also probably played a role, the starting out musicians are often resistant to it because they see it as pedestrian and not for serious musicians, musicians record in studios, not at home. Record on anything anyway you can and bring a few dozen copies to sell at those poorly paying gigs.

I've played music my entire life (picked up a guitar at 6 years old and just never put it down). I actually just released a new record last Friday (https://open.spotify.com/album/6JU0jmz537a6r2xrTvCcmn?si=eg4...). I joined a band when I was 15 (~2004), and we had some long tail success. We were able to tour, play huge shows (the Gorge in Washington, sell out the Showbox in downtown Seattle, an arena here or there). After high school I went to school for audio production, and even then I knew it was going to be tough to make a living. I ended up pivoting, studying math, now I'm in machine learning.

Music is the thing I love more than anything. I love writing it, releasing records, playing shows, and connecting with people on an emotional level. Never once have I considered it possible to have a fruitful career as a musician, despite seeing more success as a musician than most can ever dream of. Additionally, the industry (like many others) has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. In many ways, it has put much more power back into the hands of artists: you don't need a huge studio/record label/promotion to release a record. You can just release records, and promote them yourself. The flip side of that is there are SO many more people releasing music these days, which makes it really difficult to cut through the noise if your music is halfway decent.

Finally, recommendation algorithms have truly transformed the landscape of content creation, likely irreversibly. I get messages _daily_ from people who have "hacked" the TikTok algorithm, and can get my bands plays. There is an entire cottage industry of algorithm "hackers", some of them actually have results too.

One odd anecdote: I love Alex G. I've been listening to him for over a decade, and have flown out to see him play in places like New york/Austin TX. A few years ago he played in Seattle, and the entire demographic of the audience seem to've changed overnight. Way younger, more "mainstream" looking kids, filled the Showbox in Seattle. The strangest part was that no one seemed to know the words to his songs anymore. I did some digging, and he'd gone viral on TikTok. A few of his songs went absolutely bananas on there, and it completely transformed his fanbase. They knew the words to those songs, but not his entire set. Is this bad? I have no idea, but the trimming down of content into bite sized morsels _feels_ bad to me, and I believe it will dramatically alter this next generation's baseline attention span. Again, not a moral judgement, just a factual claim.

Lefsetz, Let the Clubs Close https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2024/11/04/let-the-clubs-close...

"You used to be able to make a living playing in a band."

Yes, but not a good living.

The article doesn't mention Patreon once. What a gig is, has changed.