Bassist Doug Ross: The Path Less Taken
How do you make a career out of playing music? This is one of the most common questions I get from the young, aspiring professional musicians I teach at L.A. Music Academy. It’s a difficult question to answer, because every pro musician has a unique story and occupies a unique niche in the business. Let’s face it: there really is no civilized job placement system for musicians! But that is not cause for despair. It only means that, like any other entrepreneur, you will need to be creative, flexible and open to whatever opportunities arise as you build your career.
And I do mean build. A career in music is an ever changing, growing, evolving thing. It sometimes seems to take on a life of its own, quite apart from your original intentions. I can’t tell you how your own story will play out, but the one thing I can assure you of is that it will not go exactly as you had envisioned! Mine certainly hasn’t. As an example of just how magically, alarmingly, unpredictably a career can develop, I offer my own humble story.
Like most of us, I was raised on rock ‘n’ roll and probably had stars in my eyes for the first few years when I picked up the bass. Being from a very pragmatic family, I pretty quickly realized that rock stardom was a long shot at best, so I resolved to get some formal training and shoot for a career as a “session musician” (whatever that meant).
The decision to seek out mentors proved to be a wise one, although fate began taking over my course almost immediately. I enrolled in a music theory class in high school, and when the teacher found out that I played bass, I was immediately drafted into ALL of the school bands. It didn’t matter that I could barely decipher written music. There were no other bass players around, so within weeks I found myself performing with the jazz band, show choir, orchestra, etc. I didn’t have a particular interest in any of that music at the time, but it was sink or swim! I managed to swim.
I continued to study privately and enrolled in a full time music program for a year following high school. My teachers and peers challenged and exposed me to lots of different musical styles and techniques, as is typical at this age. By the time I graduated from school, I was fairly well trained to cope with a variety of music, but had no professional connections. I distinctly recall this as the scariest time of my career. Where should I start?
I bought some time by enrolling in the local community college (to the relief of my parents), while simultaneously seeking gigs via bulletin boards, classified ads, and friends in the college music department. Gradually, bandleaders started to call. I picked up a few private students. Most of the gigs I was being offered were frankly gigs that no one else wanted: low money, corny music, flaky bandleaders. It wasn’t much, but on every new gig, I met some more pro musicians and handed out some business cards. By the time I finished my degree, I was already making a living in the Washington, D.C. area.
One of the lowest paying gigs I was ever offered was playing in the pit band for a local musical theater production. I can’t remember exactly how much it paid, but I’m sure it was well under $50 per show. I almost turned it down, but I was having a slow summer that year, so I swallowed my pride and took the gig. It turned out to be a very hip show with a great band, and we all became good friends.
A year later, the bandleader of that show called me from the West Coast. He had been hired as musical director for a large, modern circus production in Japan and wanted me to play bass. The money was double what I had ever earned before, and the gig lasted for two years. Now, if someone had told me when I was starting out that I would wind up living in Japan and performing in a circus, I’m not sure how I would have reacted, but I certainly couldn’t have predicted it. And I never would have guessed that one of my lowest paid gigs would lead directly to one of my best paid gigs, but that’s exactly what happened.
The move to Japan changed my life forever. I wound up making more musical connections over there, and opted to stay after the circus gig ended. I immersed myself in the language, traveled around and contacted as many musicians as I could find. Eventually, I landed a job heading the bass department at one of Japan’s largest music schools. I stayed for a total of seven years.
Through the job a Fukuoka School of Music, I got well connected within the music education community. Though I had never really set out to be a music teacher, I discovered that I enjoyed teaching, and I also liked the relatively steady nature of the work. I kept gigging weekly with local Japanese bands, too.
Eventually, I decided that I wanted to get back into performing more and be challenged at a higher level, so I left Japan and moved to Los Angeles with a completely empty date book. In some respects, this was a conscious choice to put myself back at square one. The move certainly wasn’t dictated by some tempting opportunity, as the move to Japan had been. But, by this point, I had established hundreds of connections with music business and music education professionals worldwide, so I took a leap of faith that I could make something happen. I wasn’t even going to try to make any more predictions about what exactly would happen, but I figured I’d survive.
I’ve been surviving in L.A. for 6 years now, and in retrospect, I have very few regrets. My life has been nothing if not interesting, and every unexpected opportunity has taught me something new and made me a stronger musician. I’m finally feeling experienced and confident enough to indulge in defining my own musical challenges and projects more proactively, such as my original CD project. I still work mostly on a freelance basis, but even if I could have lived out my original rock star dream from the beginning, I don’t think I could have produced very substantive work without these 20 years of experience and perspective. May your own journey be interesting, enriching and unpredictable. It’s good for you!
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