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(23 posts) (12 people)

Good city for working musician?

Posted 2 years ago by Chris89

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Chris89 said 2 years ago

I will be graduating from music school around winter of this year, and am I trying to figure out where a good place to live/work would be. I am looking for a city with a good music scene where I could get work, but not somewhere that is extremly hard to break into and already has a very established list of first call players/teachers (want to stay away from NY and LA for now). I am a drummer who is looking to gig around, possibly do some session work, teach, and things of that nature. Any suggestions?
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David J. Hahn said 2 years ago

I think you're wise to stay away from NYC at first. It's a hard scene to break into if you are young and didn't go to school here.

My impression seems to be that these are the tier 2 cities in the U.S. and Canada:

Chicago
Boston
Seattle
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Toronto

Here's what I would think is tier 3:

Dallas/Ft. Worth
Minneapolis/St. Paul
New Orleans
Phoenix
Branson, MO
Central Florida (Orlando-Tampa)
St. Louis
Kansas City
Portland

I'm not at all basing this off anything scientific, just my personal impressions from traveling a lot.

Also, try downloading the Artists in the Workforce report from the National Endowment for the Arts. Click the link and download the PDF. Check out:

Page 15: Top 10 metropolitan areas ranked by percentage of artists in the labor force (musicians)
Page 56: # of Musician/Singers by state of residence, 1990-2000

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CarolynViolin said 2 years ago

Hi Everyone, Chris89, all the best to you in your musical career. Yes, I agree that NYC is not easy, but then, it's never easy to get a start as a professional musician. So often, there are established first-call musicians, and that makes it difficult, but not impossible, for newcomers. Wherever you are, you have to be patient, but very persistent, and you have to believe in yourself and your talent. Knowing people who are willing to help you and making contacts is one of the most important things. I cannot stress this enough. In other words, you can be the very finest violinist or a great pianist, but if no one knows it and you don't know the right people, it will be difficult. In professional music, it's more than just having the talent. A nice personality is very important. And music is a business like any other profession. The business side of music is time-consuming and not easy. You have to invest time in promotion and pr. Also you have to make yourself well liked by people so that they will want to work with you. I freelance as a professional violinist in the MD/DC area, and I also make regular trips to NYC to further myself there because I want to work there as well. There are many more opportunities up there! I am extremely versatile. I play the classical repertoire and I stroll and I improvise as well. I've played in large venues, like Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, and I've also played in restaurants and small clubs. Being versatile is extremely important! The more versatile you can be, the more opportunities you will have. In NYC, I play at places, including Birdland for Jim Caruso's "Cast Party" and at the Algonquin Hotel for their musical salon. It's a wonderful way to promote yourself. And I've met many people and made incredible contacts. It will all help but it will take a little time. Also, they take pictures of the performers at Birdland, and they have posted them at http://www.jim-caruso.com, Jim Caruso's site. It's wonderful promotion for the performers! To view the pictures, go to Jim's site and click on "news" and then on "flickr". Then scroll through the "Cast Party" pictures. There are some pictures of me, including ones that were taken on February 16 and 23, 2009. Carolyn Ohlbaum
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Chris89 said 2 years ago

Thank you both for your advice, this is very helpful.
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Andree-Ann said 2 years ago

All this talk about North American cities is very informative, but what about the European market? Which cities are the most welcoming for new musicians? Which offers the most opportunities?

I do believe it is a wise choice to stay away from New York, but at the same time, it is a very appealing city, culture-wise. Anybody has any inside tips on how to score gigs and contracts in the American market if residing in Canada?
Thanks!

Andree-Ann
http://www.myspace.com/andreeanndeschenes
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David J. Hahn said 2 years ago

Hi Andree-Ann -

The ones that come to mind for me are London, Berlin, Paris and Vienna. I've heard that places like Prague, Stockholm and Helsinki are really appreciative of jazz in particular. There are some great jazzers coming out of Scandinavia these days.

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timhallmusic said 2 years ago

I just read an article about Austin Texas saying that there is more live music per person in Austin than LA, New York and Chicago. It seems to me like a place where a musician can break into the scene relatively easy, although I'm not sure there is much money to be made there because there is an overabundance of musicians.

Does anyone know anything about Austin?

Tim Hall
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timhallmusic said 2 years ago

I am about to graduate this December and am deciding where to move as well. I just posted about Austin, and would also like to know about the music scene in San Franciso. What are the trends of live music in Sanfrancisco?

Tim Hall
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bilco said 2 years ago

timhallmusic,

Austin does have a plentiful supply of songwriters and musicians; the problem is making a living here. I have been here since 1976. The times I have tried to give up a day job and just play music have not turned out too well. I have resigned myself to being a weekend warrior for now. I am not in the top tier of musicians here by any means, but I have leveraged my way into several good gigs. I am playing every Friday and Saturday night; I was playing every Wednesday, but had to let that go, getting too old to play until 1:00 and be at work by 6:30.

I play bass. I am making $75 to $125 per night for the regular gigs, but that is not the norm. Bands are playing for less than that at a lot of the clubs, many of them for the door only. In my gigs I am playing requested music in a piano bar club with a 4 piece band and playing country and folks as a duo in a restaurant. There are corporate sponsored private parties that pay ~ $250, but the economy has cut way into the frequency of those. I have not played much in Houston or Dallas, but the times I have played in either of them the money was better than Austin. San Antonio to the south has some great players, but not much of a live music scene at all.

If you are into forming a band playing originals, you are talking playing for tips or maybe a percentage of the bar. Songwriter gigs are really grim. The last solo singer/songwriter showcase I did with 3 other writers netted me a whopping $5.

What kind of music do you play and what instrument? I can ask around and let you know what some of the side musicians I play with make on their Jazz gigs if that is what you are interested in.

bilco
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Joe Stone said 2 years ago

Hey bilco,

I'm interested in what keyboard players might make in Austin (and anywhere else, like my home town of Houston).

I should have asked you who you were and found you to say hi. We are in Austin right now but leaving today.

Is 6th a lot of beat heavy stuff like hip-hop now? We walked around there around 1:30 this AM and that's almost all we could hear, but maybe it was because the bands were done and the clubs were just playing music, I don't know. This has me wondering where rock and blues bands play if this is the case.

Joe
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Joe Stone said 2 years ago

Tim,

I came across this link while I was searching for something else. It's more broad than what you are looking for, but can give you a perspective of Austin night life.

Joe
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bilco said 2 years ago

Joe Stone, I have not played on 6th street east of Congress in the last 10 years, except for 1 private party and that is by design. The loadin/loadout is the worst, between lack of parking spaces, the police giving you a hard time for double parking and wading through pools of urine from the homeless folks behind the clubs if you load in through the alley. I will not play down there again if I can help it. I play at one club, way over on West 5th by MoPac (Loop 1), called Donn's Depot every Friday night, unless I need to take the night off. I love that gig! I have played there with different bands since 1988 and I will play there as long as my hands hold out!

My perception, and I could be wrong, of East 6th street, is that bands are still playing cover music for UT kids or they are playing original music for next to nothing. The clubs that I recommend are not on 6th, look into the Continental Club, Saxon Pub, Broken Spoke. Take a look at the Austin Chronicle online and you can get a good idea of who plays where. Do not move to Austin if your primary motivation is to make money as a sideplayer. (A new keyboardist in this town is stepping into competition with Floyd Domino, Glover Gill, Ian McLagan, more than I can think of right now. If you are REALLY good and you network, you can work your way into some good cover bands, but I think you could make more in Houston or Dallas if that is what you want to do. The corporate private parties that I play are WAY down from where they were in 2008 too. If you are into original music in a new band, this is a cool place to be, just be prepared to do something else to pay the bills. If you are playing jazz, you might want to look up and contact some of the players on the calendar at the Elephant Club. I am totally unfamiliar with that scene. Got NO jazz chops at all.

There are a lot of great reasons to live here:
great Mexican Food, best places to swim, live music all the time, any night of the week, interesting, eclectic combination of people.

Reasons you may want to think twice:
The traffic is really bad and getting worse each day due to lack of planning for the future and the temperature the last couple of days has been ~ 105 and this is only June. The cost of living used to be low, but it has gone up due to the number of folks moving here for music, tech industry and great Mexican Food.

bilco
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Joe Stone said 2 years ago

We have great Mexican (and other types of) food here in Houston, so I wouldn't move there just for that! And the heat? it may be worse here because it's much more humid here. Your temps are higher, but not sure that matters when it gets as hot as it has been.

I generally like the people, the culture, and the character of Austin. I love the old buildings downtown. I love the live music and the presence of many of my favorite artists. Heck, we saw Ian McLagan Thursday night and in walked Marcia Ball. She didn't play, she was just there. That sort of thing is way cool.

I know a couple of keyboard players in Austin. Cole El Saleh used to get a lot more gigs, I think, until he started focusing on just playing with Carolyn Wonderland. Stefano Intelisano plays with Patty Griffin, Cristian Castro, Seth Walker, Boombox ATX, Sauce, Diakonos Ministries, Mingo Fishtrap, and Mike Maven. Stefano told me that a lot of the keyboard players in town aren't reliable (in that bad musician way) or they aren't diverse enough to get the other gigs.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. You definitely clarified some things for me.
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Jason Parker said 2 years ago

Seattle is a great music town. I've been here for 15 years and make a very good living in music.

I play mostly jazz, so I can speak better about that world than any. And the jazz scene here is vibrant and open. Artists like The Teaching, Industrial Revelation, Vunt Foom and others are really pushing the boundaries while still nodding to the tradition.

We have quite a few clubs that feature local jazz music, including Tula's, Egan's and the new kid on the block, Lucid. All are supportive of the scene in their own way.

I couldn't be happier here!
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roboxoby said 2 years ago

I posted a blurb regarding my recent experience gigging here in Calgary during the Stampede (one of the largest Rodeos). Lots of work, lots of fun, good money relative to the rest of the year.

http://triplefireplug.blogspot.com/2009/07/calgary-stampede-in-review.html
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David J. Hahn said 2 years ago

Good post roboxoby. Sounds like great seasonal work. I don't know if I've ever worked that many gigs at once. Call me next year!

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David J. Hahn said 2 years ago

Check out this chart I found. Thought everyone might find it interesting.

Join my songwriting newsletter at Songwriter.fm
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Joe Stone said 2 years ago

That'sâ€¦ interesting, and depressing. The sample size is a bit small, though. At least, I will keep telling myself that.
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Andree-Ann said 2 years ago

I am quite impressed by the results from San Francisco. I might have been living under a rock, but up here in Canada we rarely hear about San Francisco as being a good city for musicians. Does anybody here is based in that area and would like to share details about the music scene? I'm quite curious.

Andree-Ann
http://www.myspace.com/andreeanndeschenes
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timhallmusic said 2 years ago

Bilco,

Here is a link to a few of my recordings:
Virb.com
and Myspace.

More recently I have been writing in a more relaxed bossa nova style with occasional flamenco strumming.

Tim Hall
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chameleonize said 1 year ago

definately NOT Toronto Canada!

in the 6 years I've been here I've seen this city chew through dreamers faster than mcdonalds chews through employees.

people come here sometimes with their entire band, they get a little attention maybe sn indie deal, then realize they can't bring 5 people to their gigs!

if you're not good you won't get a gig. if you're too good they'll all judge you and hate you (especially the critics and neo hippy trend setters)

if you're lucky enough to get a little respect you have to move immediately! you could go to new York and drive a cab for a year, as long as you played 2 gigs you could come back and say "we did it in new York". then everyone will love you! and beg you to stay but if you do they'll hate you again.

very much the definition of the Canadian inferiority complex here folks!

and forget about getting paid!

top session gigs are lucky to pay $100 a song in studio or $150 live per night and that's only if you"re rediculously good! I mean 6 years university, 15 years of playing and $10,000 in gear to select from and wheels to cart it all around.

kindda hard when a decent 2 bedroom apartment is $1500 a mth!!!

I play some acoustic gigs for nothing more than food and beer most times...to give you an idea (6years of university music training, toured nationally, 3 albums, and I can play just about any style or please any crowd)

I've made a living doing live sound and I've had to climb up a huge ladder for that one....

live music is dying here. I used to do live sound for big bands including "jeff healey" rip...these days I make double that doing sound for djs and corporate events.

Toronto will make you quit music, do you can have a nice apartment while working on bay street and bragging to your clients about how cool you used to be. the other option is to be borderline homeless the rest of your life.

does that put it into perspective for you?
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TTDrums said 3 months ago

This thread is pretty old but I thought that the last post about Toronto deserved a response.

I've spend lots of time in Toronto. It is the largest city in Canada, and the city really is huge. The music scene and pool of musicians in the city and surrounding suburbs is equally huge. However I think that the last post was pretty harsh as Toronto really is no different from any other big metropolis as far as the general music scene is concerned, although there are a few things that are unique to this city's music scene.

First of all, as the biggest city in the country, Toronto is THE centre of music and the arts in anglophone Canada. Many young musicians (and not-so-young musicians) from across Canada and around the world come here in the hopes of furthering their career in music, launching their career, or just in search of work for several reasons. I would say the top five are :
1. Toronto has the third largest live theatre scene in the world after New York City and London. At any given time there are several major broadway shows playing in the city.
2. There is generally widespread public support for the performing arts, something that is severely lacking in smaller Canadian cities because of the sparse population.
3. Toronto is home to the headquarters for all major record labels, most indie labels, television and radio networks, and other national media in Canada.
4. There are literally thousands of venues across the city that regularly host live music.
5. There are several top-rated music schools, universities, professional music institutions and organizations, recording studios, television and film studios, and other production studios operating in the city.

The music scene in Toronto is fascinating, but very fragmented and seemingly unorganized. I think that part of the reason for this is that this city might very well be the most multicultural in the world with 50% of the people living here having been born in a country other than Canada. Because of this, Toronto's music scene encompasses pretty much any and all genres of music. It is constantly changing and is hard to keep track of.

For example, if you play traditional Mongolian music, you will find other Mongolian musicians here. Sudanese traditional musicians? We have them. Cuban musicians? We have lots of them. Jazz cats from New York City? They're here. European classical musicians? I know lots of them. Major label top 40 stars? They're here too. The problem is that it can be hard to even locate where gigs are happening as there is no "epicenter" or part of the city that plays host to the majority of music gigs. Things here are spread out across the city and it's massive suburbs. The fact that Mississauga, a suburb located just south of Toronto, is the third largest city in Canada gives some perspective on this.

Central Toronto is where you will find live theatre shows, dance clubs, the symphonies, the ballet, as well as your jazz clubs, blues bars, music cafe's, folk clubs, all of the large and influential venues and of course all major concert and corporate events. If you're looking more for the ethnic music scene, you will want to try Scarborough, Mississauga, Brampton or Markham. Country Music? Pickering or Oshawa is where you'll want to go. Chinese music? Try one of the three Chinatowns in the City or Markham. Those are all generalizations of course but my point is that it can seem almost impossible to break into the scene here, because there are so many scenes. Another other thing is that language barriers can be a big problem here. There is over 100 languages spoken in the city, so don't expect everyone you meet to speak English or French. It is a frustrating and discouraging process to figure out where to start.

I agree that it is very expensive to live in Toronto. The housing market here has been booming for years, and it can be hard to find even a bachelor or studio basement apartment in a bad part of town to rent. It's very much like New York City in the fact that it is a place where people from around the world WANT to be.

My advice for any musician considering a move to Toronto, make sure you do your homework before you arrive. Networking is key. Researching the city and it's arts community is imperative. Have a definite plan of what you want to do here and how you are going to go about doing it. Chances are it is going to be very tough for the first year that you are here so keep that in mind. Don't expect things to be easy, and don't expect things to be handed to you.

I find the vast majority of musicians in Toronto to be kind, warm and welcoming. But this is not a city to move to unless you are a serious musician with a plan. People's experiences are all about what you make of them. These days especially, music work is very hard to find and it is extremely competitive so don't expect every musician you meet to be happy to see you, and don't expect to be making top dollar on every gig or session right off the bat. You will be competing with many other excellent, established musicians for the work.

If you have the chops, the work ethic, the right attitude, and you are determined enough, Toronto can be a rewarding and exciting place for any musician to live and play music for a living.