How to Make a Living in Jazz

I'm just a fan. What about you mattjc?

My younger daughter's partner is a professional musician and I am often astonished at how hard he has to work in order to earn a living playing music (not jazz) -- and how much he has to spend. At the moment he is "investing" in his career -- spending money on a voice coach, a producer, studio time and completing his first album. He also has to pay an agent and once the album is complete he'll have to pay the agent even more to get it promoted to labels.

I can't remember the figures but I do recall him saying that in order to build a career in music and stand a chance of moving up a level from simply being a local gigging musician you need to put tens of thousands of pounds into it.

And then, of course, you also have to be digital media savvy and milk social media platforms for everything they can deliver by way of audiences. I know everyone says that in the digital age you can have a music career without a major label or a record deal or whatever and be truly independent but I do sometimes think that this doesn't acknowledge the range of skills musicians need today. You need to be able to record to a high standard, run publicity, book gigs, manage all the travel and bookings, create and maintain your own social media and video channels...

This isn't my kind of music but I recently came across these people -- Pomplamoose -- and was astonished to find the audience they have built up through their YouTube channel and other means. In addition to gigging they also seem capable of recording and producing videos to a very high standard. I've no idea how much they earn. They could be living in the lap of luxury or merely scraping by, but they seem to be working extremely hard.

No -- apologies for any confusion I may have caused. Pomplamoose is nothing to do with my daughter's partner -- I just happened to come across them online and what they are doing seemed relevant to the question....