the blues......

November 15, 2009 5:25 AM

Help! I need creative ideas on how a professional Jazz musician can pay the bills in Brooklyn, NYC.

Recent Jazz guitarist (with masters) transplant, trying to survive in the Big Apple. Do not have many 'biz' connections here as yet. Pretty open to any kind of work as running dangerously low in funds. I have used all the "usual" resources. Such as: advertising as a guitar teacher on CL, posting guitar lesson posters allover the city (even 1st lesson free!).....applying for every teaching job with no success. Even Starbucks does not seem to be hiring. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

posted by anonymous to work & money (5 comments total)

Contact temp firms and look to work in an office.

Obviously you've moved to one of the world's most expensive cities in one of the worst labor markets in recent memory, so it shouldn't be at all surprising that (1) you are running low on funds and (2) you are having trouble finding work.
posted by dfriedman at 6:44 AM on November 15, 2009

The census is coming up. Look for p/t work with them (I think you can sign up on the website).

Christmas is heavy delivery season in the wine business. Go to the better wine shops, perhaps in Manhattan rather than Brooklyn (this is corporate business) and see if they need seasonal labor. Ditto the big electronics and furniture stores. Careful, because some of this crosses into union territory, but some of it is also substantially under the table (why I mentioned wine first).

Music: Christmas party season is upon us. Learn a passel of Xmas music fast (real mellow, the ES175 through a Roland chorus kind of sound) and advertise yourself as inexpensive party music (sorry, my AFM brethren). Let all your friends in corporateland know you're available for a hundred bucks and dinner. Take that act to the streets if your axe can stand the abuse.

Offer to play xmas music for tips in decently trafficked restaurants, stores, etc. Dress well when you do it, be mellow, soft, play songs everyone knows. Smile at kids. (Busking can be brutal, but done right and thoughtfully can yield some quick bucks. Don't take the good guitar.)

Can you transcribe music well and quickly? Are you good with Finale/Sibelius platforms? Advertise those services both by poster in university neighborhoods (around NYU, Juilliard, MSM, New School, Columbia especially) and by Craigslist, but ideally find a friend who is a student get it out by word of mouth to friends. Don't randomly email potential clients yourself though, unless you have to. Try to flyer in the music department buildings if you can (NYU has three separate relevant departments, so this will take research). A good thing is that this can lead to making other kinds of connections.

As far as playing for a living, long term, in New York, take it from someone who's done it (in another city), and who knows people who do it now (in NYC) and who has an unusual reason to know a lot about the economic ins and outs of many of New York's musical subcultures:

The jobbing/wedding/Top40/Latin scenes in NYC -- where the paying work is at all, other than Broadway or the top end of the trade -- is very, very competitive. This city is full of smoking musicians capable of playing in many styles. Original and club work pay for shit, so even top players need to do weddings and corporate gigs. Have to. The union is, relatively, strong in New York (still weak as hell, though, but you have to join if you're going to do this seriously for a living). There is a lot of studio work here, but that is a super-closed network across all genres, but most especially the commercial side. Remember, the New York Philharmonic's players and Jazz at Lincoln Center guys are taking some of that work. You have real competition. The networks are tight and the money, as everywhere, drying up over time, so you need a long-term horizon of contact-making, developing your own serious project, sideman work, teaching, and supporting your fellow players -- *especially* on the jazz scene(s) here. Evaluate very seriously whether you want to compete in this market or not -- or in any market -- as a live performing musician. Unless you're both lucky, really talented, and able to endure a great deal of risk and frustration, making your living as a musician is a beast anywhere, as I am sure you know well already. The number of amazing young jazz players in New York right now is stunning. Of course, that's also why you'd want to find a way to make it work in New York.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:05 AM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Evaluate very seriously whether you want to compete in this market or not -- or in any market -- as a live performing musician. Unless you're both lucky, really talented, and able to endure a great deal of risk and frustration, making your living as a musician is a beast anywhere, as I am sure you know well already. The number of amazing young jazz players in New York right now is stunning. Of course, that's also why you'd want to find a way to make it work in New York.

This this this. But that said -

I've got a lot of music school friends in Brooklyn right now trying to make it on the jazz scene, with varying success. A lot of them with their own groups tour pretty exhaustively. The others do everything from playing subway gigs to subbing in pits for off off broadway. The best thing you can do is advertise yourself, network like a crazy person, and keep your chops up. Go to shows and meet musicians. Go to the less conventional jazz clubs, places like The Stone, Tonic, 55 bar, Fat Cat. Don't let any gig, no matter how ridiculous, be below you.

In the meantime, New York is full of weird, off-kilter sort of jobs that are good for musicians with weird schedules. A good jazz musician friend of mine used to work as one of those 'actors' who calls-in to radio shows early in the morning claiming to be so-and-so who's boyfriend is cheating on them, etc. It was a silly gig, but I think he made $50 a phone call. New York is always looking for test subjects for psych grad students at Columbia and NYU and people to participate in focus groups for weird products (i used to do this - check Craigslist...you can make some pretty decent cash for listening to someone blab about a new flavor of soda and telling them their idea sucks). Retail, food service - yeah they suck, but there's usually something available. I spent some quality time as a cupcake icer...YMMV.
posted by Lutoslawski at 10:50 AM on November 15, 2009

Tonic be long gone, alas.
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:17 PM on November 15, 2009

Contact temp firms and look to work in an office.

Seconding this. I have been supporting my theater career with temp work for ten years now. And I'm far from the only one -- I know of at least three other people who are actors with long-term temp jobs at the office where I'm sitting right now. One guy has been at it so long that he was able to negotiate his own hours with the agency and the office (granted, he'd been there 6 years and was very, very good, but if you get a good track record you may be able to negotiate some extra flexibility for yourself).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:59 AM on November 16, 2009