I can't quite understand why someone would think it made sense to major in classical music, unless they had family money to support them for the rest of their lives. Same goes for majoring in oil painting after the arrival of Photoshop (or for that matter, after the arrival of photography), or majoring in horsemanship after the invention of the internal combustion engine.
Basically, these are nostalgia careers. There is nothing wrong with loving old things, but they make sense as a hobby, not as a career you need to make a living.
I say this as someone who was (for a time) married to someone who "followed her dream" at the advice of her dad, and majored in operatic singing. Good as she was, all she was able to get as a job was in an opera chorus, while teaching music in elementary schools. The opera she was in was eventually closed, the music program in that school district was canceled, but neither paid much anyway. Eventually she took on more loans (while I paid rent and groceries etc) to get a degree in speech pathology.
The economics of this was driven home once when we were together, when we went to see an opera in San Francisco. There was no amplification, but an actual orchestra. The ratio of audience members to performers was ridiculously low. The house was mostly full, but it wasn't that big a house (how big can it really be with no amplification?).
Meanwhile, the same evening, a young coworker of mine was attending an EDM show right across the plaza at the Bill Graham center, so we walked over together. That show was basically a couple guys on stage with laptops. Apparently not much on stage resembling musical instruments. And the crowd lined up outside was so enormous it made it hard for me to find my wife and to get to the opera house.
Some people see that as sad, I guess, and in some ways I can agree. (although I tend to prefer electronic music more than classical, I don't see the point of attending a live show if the music is pre-sequenced, that's just weird)
> Same goes for majoring in oil painting after the arrival of Photoshop (or for that matter, after the arrival of photography)
Based on the books my kids read, illustration/painting is alive long after photography was invented. (Granted some illustrators "paint" digitally but that doesn't mean the computer is doing the creative work.)
Also the complexity and unpredictability of some media such as watercolours isn't even close to being replicated digitally. E.g., check out the work of master Melbourne watercolour artist Joseph Zbukvic at https://www.instagram.com/josephzbukvic/.
It's alive, but more and more is being replaced. Photography doesn't replace children book illustration, but there used to be demand for people to paint portraits, which were first replaced by photographers, and now by the fact that everyone has a pretty good camera in their pocket. (I feel no need to go to a portrait photographer, I'd much prefer all the photos and videos I capture every day)
I majored in Industrial Design and learned marker rendering, as well as drafting. (and yeah I took oil painting classes, etc) Even did professional drafting for a while on paper in the mid 80s. Very few people work on paper for either of those anymore. I found it so liberating to move to computers soon after graduating and never looked back.
Zbukvic's stuff is beautiful, but I'm not all that convinced comparable stuff couldn't be done digitally. He looks about my age or a bit older, so he certainly learned before photoshop etc. Most people today would find it incredibly frustrating to have to paint without access to things like layers, undo, etc. which are incredibly powerful.
The biggest thing traditional media has going for it in art is that it produces an original.
Well, there are painting apps like Krita or Rebelle. But my favourite watercolour app in terms of realism for water flow, damping, brush behaviour etc is Expressi. It is quite awesome, though quirky.
That's ridiculous; I know many professional musicians who have a decent life.
This guy had a hard time of it the same way any kind of regular schmuck might if he had delusions of grandeur. Yes, life ain't fair: you generally won't excel the rich kids who went to Yale unless you have some crazy hustle. That's just how life is.
Meanwhile there are a number of actually fake subjects in college which cost just as much as learning to be second fiddle or third trombone or whatever, but which don't have any useful or interesting skill associated with them
One guy had training in classical guitar, he does session music for commercials and stuff, basically because he likes it and it pays well enough to fool around with jazz guitar (or whatever it is; I am a different kind of nerd) at night.
True, but until self-driving vehicles are actually available, there have been lots of jobs for drivers. And of course mechanics. Horse related jobs are few and far between though.
In the case of music, though, there were a good number of jobs for musicians prior to the phonograph, radio amplification, etc, for instance playing piano at a saloon or the like. Now a single musician can entertain tens of thousands at a time live, or hundreds of millions with recorded/broadcast/YouTubed/Spotified music.
Oddly enough, you can actually make a good career as a farrier (working with horseshoes). There's not a lot of demand for farriers, but there's an even smaller supply, so they tend to have plenty of work. It's one of those careers that most people don't even consider or even know exist, so they struggle to get new apprentices and workers.
It's one of those jobs that won't be automated very soon either, and demand is steady (there aren't many horses these days, but the numbers aren't going down).
Sure, the demand for farriers has stabilized, but it is very low compared to 150 years ago, when farriers and blacksmiths had a lot of overlap and it was a very common profession.
The difference with music is how many people want to be professional musicians. So many people love music and discover they have talent, so it is seen as a desirable profession.
You can, but it will be as part of a team funded by a wealthy person or corporation. Similar to the patronage model that was classically used to support the arts.
Orchestra is probably difficult, but you can make a living giving recitals. It's not a salaried job, so you'll have to manage yourself and do the selling, building up your reputation in the right places, but it's possible.
For instance, a couple of months ago I went to the church to a recital with a cellist who was bicycling on a tour giving something like 40 recitals in a little over a month. I looked her web site up afterwards, and she charges the equivalent of 800 USD per job. It was near the end of her tour, and no, she didn't seem like she was falling apart. :)
I don't think there's any real money in recorded music these days. You're competing with absolute top stars from the whole world.
But classical music is a very different experience live. If you do the job well, introduce people to the music, help them understand it and give them a touching experience, people will want you back next year.
The fact that it's possible to make a living at it doesn't mean it is remotely typical to be able to. To do so you need to be some combination of extremely talented and extremely good at all those other things (marketing oneself, etc). Just like my ex, she could of course point to people who were making a good living as opera stars, but there were far more people who got the masters degree in operatic performance, and then did other things to actually buy the groceries.
And you are right that recorded music is hard to make a living at as well. Some people do, but the vast majority fail.
Whether classical or otherwise, recorded or live, everyone in music is competing against mass produced, broadcast or streamed recorded music. You can't just learn to play piano and get hired at a saloon anymore.
Basically, these are nostalgia careers. There is nothing wrong with loving old things, but they make sense as a hobby, not as a career you need to make a living.
I say this as someone who was (for a time) married to someone who "followed her dream" at the advice of her dad, and majored in operatic singing. Good as she was, all she was able to get as a job was in an opera chorus, while teaching music in elementary schools. The opera she was in was eventually closed, the music program in that school district was canceled, but neither paid much anyway. Eventually she took on more loans (while I paid rent and groceries etc) to get a degree in speech pathology.
The economics of this was driven home once when we were together, when we went to see an opera in San Francisco. There was no amplification, but an actual orchestra. The ratio of audience members to performers was ridiculously low. The house was mostly full, but it wasn't that big a house (how big can it really be with no amplification?).
Meanwhile, the same evening, a young coworker of mine was attending an EDM show right across the plaza at the Bill Graham center, so we walked over together. That show was basically a couple guys on stage with laptops. Apparently not much on stage resembling musical instruments. And the crowd lined up outside was so enormous it made it hard for me to find my wife and to get to the opera house.
Some people see that as sad, I guess, and in some ways I can agree. (although I tend to prefer electronic music more than classical, I don't see the point of attending a live show if the music is pre-sequenced, that's just weird)
Regardless, this is reality today.