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If career as musician is really hard to make money, then why so many people still want to be a musician?

Asked by niki (714points) April 13th, 2009

I’ve just talked with a friend of mine, he had just started to pursue a Solo carer , because he loves music very much, just like me, but unfortunately, and rather sadly, just this afternoon, he poured all his heart that , as I quoted from him, “being musician in indonesia is just f*ckin hard & doesn’t make sense! it’s just so dirty often, and hard to get recognized, and with piracy running rampant, greedy labels, very low purchasing-power from still-poor people in the mainstream, etc etc” , and he’s even thinking of just concentrating in the business-aspect , not the artistic-side anymore in the music “industry”. He’s planning to just start a label & draw new artists,....instead of following his TRUE passion to become a full-time musician!

so then, i start asking myself this: if career as musician is really hard to make money, then why so many people still want to be a musician ??
why? what do you think?
do you think these people (musicians) are probably just ‘naive’ people who don’t know that it’s a cruel cruel world in a music, no, actually, music-business world. ‘cuz often there’re more to it than only making good & creative tunes. this i’ve unfortunately & pitifully learned at least in my corrupt country, Indonesia, where sadly, music is just another corrupt tool. and that’s why no wonder a lot of musicians/bands are just poor, & even some really great/talented ones is lacking so much appreciations from mainstream people, instead, many people generally only prefer for ‘stupid’ songs/music as long with good looks, and many other artificial/fake things!
and i’m sure the situation is no different even in advanced countries like U.S, Europe, Japan, etc. many people are just plain stupid, don’t understand ‘good music’ from ‘bad music’ , and most big-players in the so-called “music-business” are all crooked and greedy, all they think is only money, not enhancing/supporting their artists/bands!!

with all of these sad things above, i’ve recently often wondered & kept wondering, is there still any point for any person, no matter how talented or even multi-talented or passionate he/she is at music, to pursue career as a musician (and espcially, FULL-time musician) ?
are they just out of their mind?
but the Reality seems to speak differently: there are surprisingly an increasing amount of musicians (ie: bands, usually “indie” bands)!
why is this? what is the reasons for they kept wanting to be a musician?

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