Landlords demand rent. Bills need to be paid.
The reality for the overwhelming majority of composers, actors, writers, dancers, singers, bands, comedians, photographers, music supervisors and others pursuing their dreams is that they aren’t going to be initially supporting themselves financially via those pursuits. (and, in hard reality, in most cases, they will never be able to achieve that at all.)
The need to make a living while following a dream leads to a few paths:
1. MAKING MONEY DOING SOMETHING ELSE
It is likely your waitress in Los Angeles or Manhattan is also an actress juggling auditions or a writer knocking out scripts/articles/books between shifts.
That guy behind the Kinko desk has been up all night waiting to get just a few minutes of time in front of an audience at a comedy club during Open Mic Night.
The temp in that office is really a dancer waiting for a break.
The babysitter is working on her photography portfolio as the gal bagging your groceries moonlights at tiny coffee shops as a singer/songwriter.
Your Uber driver has a band sending out their album to labels and publishers.
The woman giving piano lessons is sweating over her demo for a video game score before her students arrive.
This is the reality of the vast majority of artists wanting to survive while relentlessly pushing their ideal career upwards and onwards.
2. MAKING MONEY IN AN ADJACENT FIELD
A dancers assists a choreographer. An actress works in a casting office. A writer does script reading. A composer does orchestrations or assists another composer.
This route has the advantage of being both a payday and a valuable learning experience.
The downside is that these positions are harder to get and less plentiful than other lines of work and are often so all-encompassing that they don’t provided for as much time and flexibility to follow your own pursuits.
THERE IS NO SHAME IN WORKING ON THINGS OTHER THAN YOUR DREAMS
Very few are born with the financial wherewithal and luxury to pay their bills without working. And very few start out making enough money in their chosen field to support themselves doing the things they eventually want.
It is not a sign of defeat that you need to do something else to make money while also striving for what you eventually want.
Maybe the real expression should be “FOLLOW YOUR BLISS… (AND PAY YOUR BILLS)
THE MYTH OF COLLEGE
There are certain fields where a college degree paves a fairly predictable path towards earning a living in that field of study.
Composing certainly isn’t one of them.
Getting hired by someone to write music is REALLY hard to pull off. Doing it consistently and at a level that one can support oneself and/or one’s family is REALLY, REALLY hard.
Having any sort of expectation of making a living as a composer straight out of college (or any other launching point) is highly unrealistic.
It typically takes YEARS to reach that point IF you even ever get there. Be willing to stick it out for a LONG time before the ability to make a living at this kicks in.
STAYING IN THE GAME
So much of the success of an actress or writer or singer or composer is just staying at the gambling table long enough for luck and relationships to start paying off.
The most talented actor isn’t necessarily the one who is going to make it. It is frequently just the one who doesn’t quit first.
And the way to not give up is to be able to do something to make a living long enough for that amorphous combination of factors like luck and timing and relationships and persistence and talent to kick in and provided the career that will allow you to pay that landlord and everyone else through the things you dream of doing.
