“Brutal”, “challenging”, “not even talking about it,” “scary”... what is your word to describe how work has been for you in the last year?
I’m putting together some thoughts on this subject and I need to hear from you musicians. If you want to send me info at hannah@musicvillage.ca I would be really glad. If you want your name to remain anonymous for the writing I do, please put something like “don’t use my name” in the subject heading.
I guess that I can’t ask people to share without sharing myself, so here goes. This year has been bad, really bad. When the economy was tanking, I was enjoying collecting employment insurance and taking care of my baby, Etienne. I didn’t even notice, really, how things started to slow down for my musician husband. I was thinking to myself that EI was not great money, but that soon I’d be back to my work as a Music Director.
Then things changed really fast.
I was laid off from my position as MD, and had no work, not a thing. EI ended, and I was scrambling to find something to do to make money. I wanted to apply for composition grants, but couldn’t get to it, as I was so busy taking care of the baby and doing home stuff, while my husband went out to do jobs. I was looking at retail, or restaurants, or anything. I went to interviews for music schools that wanted me to invest $500 for certification and spend three months in training, even though I’ve been teaching and training since I was a teenager.
So what did I do?
I got Music Village up and running. I set up our website, made online presence and am going through my contacts to let them know about the work that we do. I’ve gone to networking sessions and training sessions.
I’m looking for publication for my children’s book. I’m making my album (on credit). I’m putting myself and the artists I represent out there so that people can find us and bring us for their live events. I’m writing and recording music it for film. And on and on...
I’m interested to hear from you. How have you felt through the last year? What have you done to make things last? How have you felt yourself represented in the media? What does your community look like right now.
You can respond to me at hannah@musicvillage.ca. I think it’s important for our community and our city to hear how we’ve been coping.
When things are tough, remember that “this too shall pass.” This is just a season in our lives.
Hannah
Showing posts with label musicians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musicians. Show all posts
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Artist in Canada
It’s funny business being an artist in Canada. If you doubt, just ask any artist how many different things they have to do to make a living.
Perhaps acting, music, painting, and other performance mediums are the only career paths where you can train for a lifetime and still make less in a year than someone working full-time for minimum wage. In addition to making very little, musicians suffer the injustice of being undervalued in Canadian society.
Imagine training for hours a day, taking a degree, and then coming out of school with no prospects for work. You must do you art on the side so that you can survive. Then, potentially, several years (or more) down the road, you have enough experience that you can quit your day job and do only your profession, and you still make less than $600 a week.
The busiest and best musician in town can have no money in the bank, and be unknown to the general public. Think for a moment of the Canadian performers that you are familiar with. Who in ballet, contemporary dance, painting, mixed media, film-making, acting, writing, rock music, jazz, world music can you name? Who is Toronto’s Poet Laureate? For every one person that you can name, there are 1000 others also trying to make it in the arts business.
Musicians become known to the public through making recordings and playing free festivals and putting music out through the internet. Once we have interested you then we hope you’ll buy our records and pay ticket prices to come and see us. Each record costs us a significant amount of money to make, upwards of $15,000 and often double that, just for a basic record. We apply for help from arts councils but they are very selective and many musicians do not get help. Making a record is daunting financially when you are not making extra dollars and you have to feed your family.
The art that we make is special because it costs us so much to make it.
Who brings tourists to our cities? Artists, of course. As much as we despise dirty streets, we don’t travel to a city to see how clean it is. We travel to cities to feel the vibe, and to move with the energy in the streets. We go for shopping and concerts, shows and festivals. Designers, musicians, poets, artists, dancers, film-makers and performance artists are the heart of our cities. We need people like you to come to hear and see shows, visit galleries, find out who are the designers in the city and buy their clothes, furniture and other wares.
Artists coming from all countries on the planet, congregating in Toronto and making art that comes from integrated living is what sets Canada apart from every other country on earth.
--
(Pier Giorgio Di Cicco is our Poet Laureate in Toronto)
Perhaps acting, music, painting, and other performance mediums are the only career paths where you can train for a lifetime and still make less in a year than someone working full-time for minimum wage. In addition to making very little, musicians suffer the injustice of being undervalued in Canadian society.
Imagine training for hours a day, taking a degree, and then coming out of school with no prospects for work. You must do you art on the side so that you can survive. Then, potentially, several years (or more) down the road, you have enough experience that you can quit your day job and do only your profession, and you still make less than $600 a week.
The busiest and best musician in town can have no money in the bank, and be unknown to the general public. Think for a moment of the Canadian performers that you are familiar with. Who in ballet, contemporary dance, painting, mixed media, film-making, acting, writing, rock music, jazz, world music can you name? Who is Toronto’s Poet Laureate? For every one person that you can name, there are 1000 others also trying to make it in the arts business.
Musicians become known to the public through making recordings and playing free festivals and putting music out through the internet. Once we have interested you then we hope you’ll buy our records and pay ticket prices to come and see us. Each record costs us a significant amount of money to make, upwards of $15,000 and often double that, just for a basic record. We apply for help from arts councils but they are very selective and many musicians do not get help. Making a record is daunting financially when you are not making extra dollars and you have to feed your family.
The art that we make is special because it costs us so much to make it.
Who brings tourists to our cities? Artists, of course. As much as we despise dirty streets, we don’t travel to a city to see how clean it is. We travel to cities to feel the vibe, and to move with the energy in the streets. We go for shopping and concerts, shows and festivals. Designers, musicians, poets, artists, dancers, film-makers and performance artists are the heart of our cities. We need people like you to come to hear and see shows, visit galleries, find out who are the designers in the city and buy their clothes, furniture and other wares.
Artists coming from all countries on the planet, congregating in Toronto and making art that comes from integrated living is what sets Canada apart from every other country on earth.
--
(Pier Giorgio Di Cicco is our Poet Laureate in Toronto)
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