That's right. It's ridiculous that we have to have this discussion.


Here's a quiz for you.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a musician posted the following on social media.

"I can't hold a concert! I don't have anywhere to play my songs! It's so hard!"

How did ordinary people (people who don't work as musicians) react to this post?

"Don't play, get to work."
"Could you please refrain from non-essential musical activities?"


Can you understand what this means?

 

Music (before music industry) used to be a "second" job. Musicians used to be farmers , shoemakers or whatever so they could earn an income and music was something extra.Don't get confused with all these highly paid pop-rock-trap or whatever clown the industry serves. The average worker, still thinks that music is not a real job. During COVID , all the artists (actors, musicians, painters etc) in my country, were treated as useless, even if all the other people , had songs and movies for company during lockdown.

 

You can make a living, but that shouldn’t be a goal, and it takes more time than you think.
Whenever you attach a money oriented goal to art, it becomes corrupted

 

well actually it is enough to publish and sell your music - it should be clear that the majority of composers do not make money from commissioned works or employment relations but from leasing their copyrights and releated fields such as publishing, recodring, mixing, beeing part of a band and so on.

the main question is always what you actually need to "make a living."

equipped with a flat and for a single household in central europe you can easily survive with 1000 euro, in london or or kuala lumpur with 2000, in turkey or bulgaria with no more than 300.

if you are sick and need a wheelchair and medical assistance and you have 5 kids and you need to pay rent in san franscisco, you needed like 20,000 a month.

example:
if you publish your own composition (yourself) (and own all neighbouring rights) you can make 1000 euro net with roughly 400,000 klicks on youtube or with selling roughly 150 CDs (each full album with 10 titles)

i know almost nobody who composes 40 hours per week. it is completely normal to combine that with one or more releated businesses.

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2026

Oy gevalt.

This calls for some Hava Nagila.

Bis speter, mentshn.

 

No.

Being a composer (for media specifically - I'm not even going to touch concert music composing, which is in a way worse situation) used to be one of the few ways to make good money with music.

Nowadays wayyyy too many composers have flooded the market, especially the past few decades, when tools and knowledge became more accessible. Demand for composers was already not that great to begin with (most projects have hundreds of artists, marketers, etc but always just ONE composer).

And thanks to this AI crap, the demand is now decreasing even further. From the producer/director/gamedev's point of view, dealing with a composer (who is expensive and takes time to get things right) when you can just use Suno doesn't make sense. Especially if said director is musically iliterate, or has no taste (which is the majority of them).

People and schools (ESPECIALLY schools) who still hype up composing in 2026 do so because they are trying to sell you the knowledge/course (they have something to gain).
Meanwhile in real life this shit is a dying profession. Only those who have been around for a while, are extremely luck, or know the right people, have a chance (regardless of skill).

It's unfortunate, but the big composers of today will likely be the last.

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2026

That's awesome you got in on the ground floor before the floor became a sink hole. The publishing is definitely where it's at for any sort of media production. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Problem is one has to have built a track record for which the publishing rights will pay off. That track record can take years/decades to establish.
AS much as it is plastic and completely wrong IMO, much of the "creativity" going forward is and will be given over to canned algorithms to grind out jingles and jangles. Unless the music industry that has already been fuckin rubbed into the ground comes to its senses, which is unlikely in the near term, more of everything will be the result of computer algorithms, and true creativity will become an orphan.

 

Jobs that require thinking are changing rapidly. Jobs that don't use your feet are at risk. Using your feet is the guarantee of your job security. Hands don't provide as much guarantee as feet.

 

While I was walking my dog I met a musician who is making a living with his music. A saxophonist in Rome. Absolutely killer. he has great speakers for the base tracks and plays the classic repertoire of US pop jazz standards. He has his own group of more traditional Italian music and will be recording some originals and covers at the end of the year. He plays for tourists in some of the most suggestive places in Rome.

for example Giardino degli Aranci


And when I was in Nashville there was the phenomena of BR-549.
Old style country group playing for tips in a Broadway dump.
I drove a taxi and the old lady that i picked up every night to take her to the bar told me about this singer and the group, so I went. and I kept going... I saw people walk up like zombies to put cash in their jar!


I guess to make a living in music you gotta be and you gotta do.

 

Last edited: Aug 22, 2026

Machines are replacing humans. They're taking over their brains. They took the arms too. Only the feet remained. Until machines replace human feet, work is available for humans. The feet are the last unconquered fortress of humans. Then humans will become unemployed in general. After unemployment, the human population on Earth will decrease and a balance will be established between the human and machine populations. Machine owners won't need more humans. Jobs will gradually decrease, and the balance will tip in favor of machines.

 

Being able to make a living with any art has become nowadays more and more difficult. It's for very few (lucky) people that successfully can join a very strict circle where they can keep working and being paid steadly.

 

I asked AI:
Which jobs have more security and are not affected by technology?

Spoiler

If by job security you mean jobs that are less likely to be replaced or heavily reduced by AI, automation, and robotics, the safest jobs usually have one or more of these characteristics:

• They require physical work in unpredictable environments.
• They require human trust, empathy, or personal interaction.
• They involve responsibility, judgment, or legal accountability.
• They require working with complex physical systems that are difficult to automate.
• They depend on human creativity and negotiation.

Jobs that tend to be relatively resistant to technology


One important point
I wouldn't say any job is completely safe from technology. Technology will probably change almost every occupation.

For example, a doctor may use AI for diagnosis, a mechanic may use computerized diagnostic equipment, and an electrician may use smart tools. But the technology becomes a tool that makes the worker more productive, rather than necessarily replacing the worker (Lying here).

In fact, one of the strongest strategies is:

Choose a profession where technology makes you more valuable rather than a profession where technology can perform the entire job.

For example, electrician + knowledge of smart homes/solar systems/EV charging may be considerably more future-resistant than a job consisting primarily of routine data entry.

Spoiler: Don't open this!

As you can see, art and artistry are not on the list.

 

It's true even with the saxophonist. he uses prerecorded bases, but what he adds live is great. Rich tourists pay him. My dog and I have relaxed and listened to him many mornings this august.
My dog even went very close to the sax, while he was breaking, to sniff it...he was so curious.

 

What we really need to do is foster an understanding between man and n̶o̶t̶e̶ - err, machine.

 

Of course, an economic recession may prevail and prevent the construction of machines, because building human-replacing machines is very expensive and maintaining them requires a lot of money. The economic recession here works in favor of ordinary people and prevents technology owners from thinking about replacing labor with machines.
Human costs are much lower than complex machinery.

 

Money is just a number on a ledger that can be arbitrarily added to or subtracted in the macro aspect. Utmost wealth is highly concentrated and can pointedly be used with almost unending supply to create the means of control necessary to achieve whatever is the ultimate goal of those concerned.

 

Probably easier to find a talented engineer/programmer with no self confidence, get yourself charlied up, call your yourself a Producer and milk him for all he's worth.

 

These are good sentences. But let me say one more. In this world, the more illiterate and ignorant you are, the more money you make. The economy of the earth has not been designed for knowledgeable people. Either the economy needs to change or wise and knowledgeable people.