A hard day’s night: building sustainable careers for musicians

Abstract

Traditional career theories are largely situated in organisations, where career trajectory is mostly an upward movement, usually associated with greater managerial responsibility and corresponding salary and benefits increase. With increasing growth in the creative economy and creative class, this article examines the complexity of creative work patterns and the associated skills required for sustainable musical careers. A longitudinal qualitative case-study approach documents the careers of eight professional musicians. Interviewees narrated their last decade through semi-structured interviews, which were analysed using thematic analysis.Findings suggest that musical careers are multifaceted and tend to have a lifespan effect. To remain sustainable, a base-line of well-maintained technical skills and musical expertise was a given, but a myriad of soft organisational skills was key.

Sustainability of Artists in Precarious Times; How Arts Producers and Individual Artists Have Adapted during a Pandemic

“…When the term 'sustainable' (see Merriam-Webster definition) is used here, it is referring to an approach that allows a practice to continue, without necessarily undermining the integrity of the work or causing harm in the longer term [6]. Thus, in the case of an artist, how can an artist continue their arts practice despite challenging external pressures?…”

“…Thus, in the case of an artist, how can an artist continue their arts practice despite challenging external pressures? An issue for artists, however, is whether 'sustainability' means that artists need to embrace aspects of the marketplace to survive [6,7]. The relationship between art and commerce is always somewhat fraught [8,9].…”

“…The relationship between art and commerce is always somewhat fraught [8,9]. However, being 'sustainable' may require being more commercially orientated, rather than, say, artistically orientated [6]. Achieving high artistic standards is usually a priority in an artist's career [10].…”

“…Where the balance lies between the need to adapt and pivot an arts practice to make it commercially viable, without losing the integrity of the work, is an important and often unresolvable issue [9][10][11] When we talk about the lives of artists (the term 'artist' is used here to describe anyone who has a professional artistic practice, whether it be as a musician, singer, actor, dancer, visual artist, craftsperson, film-maker, writer, video artist, and/or someone who works in a combination of artistic disciplines) during a time of great upheaval, it is important to remember too that most artists struggle to make a living under normal circumstances [7,[12][13][14][15]. Artists within a market-driven environment are always needing to adapt to survive, as the nature of their work and their circumstances, are usually in opposition to the expectations of a capitalist society [6,12,13,15]. Furthermore, artists from different disciplines have distinctive requirements to work successfully within their professions [6,7,10,11,16].…”

“…Artists within a market-driven environment are always needing to adapt to survive, as the nature of their work and their circumstances, are usually in opposition to the expectations of a capitalist society [6,12,13,15]. Furthermore, artists from different disciplines have distinctive requirements to work successfully within their professions [6,7,10,11,16]. Thus, the impact of a pandemic is likely to effect artists in different ways, depending on their artistic discipline.…”