Progress?

To be in this industry requires a very thick skin, a lot of patience and discernment. The latter being the most important in today's game. The music industry, like other fields, exists at many different levels simultaneously. I mean you can be a gigging musician playing hundred dollar gigs, a touring musician making a thousand dollars a show, a producer, writer or arranger making tens of thousands of dollars and the list goes on and on, but we are all in the same industry. One would think that for as long as the industry has been around that there would be progress at ALL levels. PROGRESS!? The hard thing to stomach is that the gigging musician is basically at the bottom of this food chain and progress is not a part of this level. Musicians in 2012 are still making the same money, and in some cases less, as we were in 1970. The value of music as a commodity has progressed but not the value of the musicians that make it. It's been this system that for years has forced the greatest musicians to seek jobs in other fields. The more I do it I'm only inspired to use my skills of discernment to develop other ways of progressing my career in this industry. The reality is right in front of us and we can see it and make plans to change it or keep doing the same thing and expecting different results and you know that is the very definition of insanity. We have to be very shrewd about our decisions. We HAVE progressed in terms of knowledge so we must use this information to help guide our decisions. We can't take every hundred dollar gig that comes down the pipe. If we do, we leave no time to progress because all of our time is consumed with making these gigs. Don't get me wrong, playing clubs is cool and I understand that club owners pay this way most times as a result of just trying to stay in business. I'm just saying that we have to be able to spread our talents around this industry by wearing a few more hats and being able to separate business decisions from emotional ones. So we have made progress, you just have to have the proper perspective. Knowledge is key. Enjoy the journey.

The Truth

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