3/18/25
“I would not recommend a person make music their career unless they have no other options.” This is the advice my guitar instructor gave me when I was 15. He went on, “You see, I can’t do anything else, so I do this.” I did not question these statements and went on with the lesson, which was probably about the different approaches for improvising over modal music. He was the guitar instructor at a local university in addition to being the prominent gigging jazz guitarist in Connecticut. I loved and respected him; he generously shared his knowledge of jazz guitar with me for 4 years. But that advice seemed so cynical and disheartening to me at the time. I did not understand how he felt that he “Couldn’t do anything else.” Was he joking?..He certainly seemed smart enough to me; he had a masters degree. Surely he could’ve had another career. I didn’t have the courage to ask what he meant.
It was not until the Spring of 2022, 7 years later, that I began to understand what he meant. I was living at home after a mental breakdown. I know that phrase might seem insensitive…I suppose I should say “mental health crisis,” but it felt like a breakdown, so I am sticking with that. This breakdown forced me out of college and more generally, the everyday life that most of society was partaking in. There were many reasons for my mental collapse, of which I may explore in a different essay. To try to put it succinctly, the cause was a single traumatic event which catalyzed the acceleration & intensification of life-long, untreated mental illness. At the same time, I was also coming to the realization that I had been living an incredibly, well I guess, “American life” for lack of a better phrase. A life where I thought if I could just achieve xyx, (graduate from a good university, have a good job, be able to afford a mortgage) then I would be happy and fulfilled. As I approached the end of college, I realized that I was achieving xyz, and was still incredibly unfulfilled…With this epiphany, on top of the traumatic event, untreated depression and OCD, I sorta, well…lost it.
It was not until this episode that I understood how homeless people become homeless, or why people commit crime, or just more generally, “lose their mind.” Suddenly, within the course of a few weeks, I had lost mine. Without the love and support of family & friends at that time, the stark truth that I live with everyday, is that I would either be living on the street or dead.
So, it was not until this breakdown that I started to grasp what my teacher meant. During the height of the crisis, I could not play music. But in the months after, as medication, therapy, and other treatments stabilized me, music was all I could do for work. The idea of re-entering the workforce in the field of my degree, accounting, seemed laughable. While that career, or one like it, seemed plausible to me before my breakdown, I just couldn’t do it, after. It’s not that I didn’t WANT to do it...I simply couldn’t. Music was the only thing I could do to make money; suddenly, nothing else was worth the effort. Having my life fall apart narrowed my sense of what my options were, and the possibilities that were left became more real.
Before my descent, having a career in music seemed similar to declaring that I would make a career by building a spaceship by hand to deliver candy to aliens on venus. In other words, having a career in music seemed like a myth. I did not grow up around artists, so I thought the options if one wanted a career in music, were #1: to be a popstar like Taylor Swift, or #2: to be a public school music teacher. One seemed improbable, and the other, I knew, was not for me. So I decided, at the age of 15 (that wise age where people are known to do their best decision making), that I would not pursue a career in music.
But 7 years later, in the Spring of 2022, that is what started to happen. Slowly, but surely, I began to make money playing music; accompanying musicals, soloists, small concerts, church work, freelance composing, and private teaching.
My friend, who works as a professional trumpet player, told me a few weeks ago as I was dropping him off at the train station after a show, “What a brutal, yet, totally satisfying way to make a living.” It’s true, I can not think of a more satisfying way to make money than playing music. But the reality is also that we have to feed ourselves, and pay rent, and make car payments. The reality is that, for myself, and a whole network of working musicians in the scene, we go from gig to gig, play our instrument, get handed checks for $100-$300 a night, and go home. There is not health insurance included, or paid time off, or other protections.
Yes, it is true that we are doing what we love. But more importantly, for me, I am still unable to do anything else. I do believe in the future, the day will come where I can do a different field of work, and I will pivot to that, but right now, I just cannot.
I would not give the advice I was given at 15 to someone who was thinking of a career in the arts. I would encourage them, not hiding the very real difficulties, but also would try to communicate how it is a real possibility, and how wonderful it is. How I think meeting other artists is the most interesting thing in the world. How the arts have the power to change the world, or at the very least, the human spirit, and transcend the banality of everyday life.
I would not give the advice I was given when I was 15, but it doesn’t mean I do not think it might be true…perhaps this is not the field for someone who is capable of doing something else.
With Peace,
John