The Loneliness of the Freelance Musician
by Robert Graham
Firstly, I want to also point out that I LOVE being a freelance musician. I recognize I am very lucky to have a career like this and it is a wonderful way to spend a life. I am very passionate about it and grateful for the life I have had in music so far.
That being said, this blog is an attempt on my part to write down the thoughts that are currently in my head, thoughts which are there because for the past few days I have been feeling lonely. Really they have been in my head on and off for a long time and I have never really explored them in the written form. Honestly, I am not even sure what I am going to say yet. I am not currently staring at a “essay outline” that’s for sure, this is pure stream-of-consciousness. I am writing this blog to finally put these thoughts down and also to see if other people feel the same way. I am hoping people will respond with further thoughts of their own. These are honest thoughts so please be gentle in your feedback.
I would also like to point out that this is just a personal blog, it is not a scholarly essay about the rates of loneliness in freelance musicians. It is certainly not peer reviewed. It is also not a novel or something that could be turned into a film like “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”, although I am definitely borrowing the title.
Okay, here goes:
First off, I think a lot of people are lonely. Maybe everyone? Not all the time perhaps (that is the case with me). But sometimes for long stretches (also me at times). I think people who work in a variety of fields experience loneliness. Unemployed people experience it, single people, people in long term partnerships, introverts, extroverts, old and young, I think most people are lonely sometimes and sometimes all the time. I don’t claim that being a freelance musician necessarily equates to being lonely. But there may be aspects of the lifestyle of freelance musicians that might, in my opinion, lend themselves to feelings of loneliness. This is what I am going to attempt to explore in this blog. That is my current plan anyway, here on paragraph 5 anyway….who knows where this will go?
As I said, speaking honestly, I think part of the reason why I am writing this is to find out whether there are any musicians out there who feel the same way as me, or whether I am the only one. Maybe I am just writing this BECAUSE I sometimes feel lonely. Maybe we, as musicians, are just part of the wider pandemic of loneliness, and there is nothing in particular about what we do that makes us more susceptible. Either way, whether you are a musician or not, I would love to know what you think about what I am about to write (any minute now)……..
Why would a freelance musician feel lonely? Well, there are not a lot of us for starters. It is becoming a very hard profession to survive in. Performing music is a notoriously underpaid profession and has been for decades. Throw in the model by which the general public now consumes music, i.e. streaming, in which songwriters and composers earn fractions of pennies per stream, and the ability to earn a reasonable living from original music creation has largely been taken away - apart from those creators at the very top, e.g. Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars and the like. I don’t think the general public fully understands what streaming has done to the already precarious incomes of composers, songwriters and musicians - but that’s another blog topic.
This reality can cause stress, financial insecurity, feelings of failure, and, in some cases, dissatisfaction, as musicians are compelled to do other things in order to survive financially. I have met many musicians, including ones considered “successful”, that have given up their careers because of these issues. Some decide to teach music primarily, while some decide to earn the bulk of their income from playing other people’s music, while some go into other completely different fields, Of course a lot of musicians never do create their own music and thus make these career decisions independently of these pressures. But from my experience, even those in the second group, i.e. those that perform other people’s music, numbers are becoming smaller and smaller. There are a variety of reasons. It is really tough to earn a living playing music (your own or otherwise). Again, another blog on this topic might be called for, although many already exist. The end result though is that less and less people are doing it. Not many can sustain it for a long time. Some talented musicians don’t even try.
I mentioned stress, financial insecurity, job dissatisfaction, and feelings of failure. But loneliness? Where does that factor into this reality for musicians? I can only speak for myself:
As a musician, I am a creator and also a “jobber”. My passion is creating, recording and performing original music I have written. I would dearly love to also earn my living from my passion but it has not worked out that way. I don’t think I am a bad writer or performer, but I recognize how hard it is to achieve that goal. I have not stopped writing, recording and performing of course, and I probably never will, as that is a compulsion for me. But what I decided to do a long time ago, rather than going into another profession, or re-entering music teaching, was to strive to perform music as much as I could. To be a working musician. I have been successful in that at least. I am not rich, but I am still above ground, having left teaching at the age of 25. In a sense while my passion is being a songwriter, my “day job” is being a musician.
As I said off the top, I DO enjoy my day job - a lot of the time. Often my day job provides me with as much joy as my passion does, which I am extremely grateful for. Some of my favourite musical memories, my career and personal highlights, have involved my “day job”. Still my day job provides the vast majority of my income, while my “passion” for creating provides a far smaller part of my income. Actually my passion probably costs me more of my income ultimately, due to the streaming model I mentioned earlier, which removes my ability to recoup recording costs. But I am not going to stop!
But back to loneliness. As I said there are not many of us still attempting to do this - to earn a living as a working/performing musician. As a result, I often find myself in work situations where I am the only musician in the room. I think this is common for pianists in particular. This scenario is different to a lot of other workplace environments (even musical ones) where everyone is doing the same job, or at least a sub-group of people are doing the same job. Unlike music teachers, or people who play in orchestras for example, as a freelancer there is no water cooler chat, no lunchroom, no after-work drinks, no “talking-shop”. I realize that having too much of those things can also be problematic for some workers, but I have to admit it is something I often wonder about when I am feeling lonely. What would it be like to work in an office, or orchestra, or similar work setting, with other people? I would probably feel kinship or camaraderie with some of the folks there. I might even go bowling with one or two of them every fortnight! I fully understand that I would probably loathe one or two of the people in that workplace too. Maybe the ones who are better bowlers than me.
But that is something I can only speculate about. All I know is that sometimes I walk into a staffroom or workplace and see a lot of people talking and having lunch together and I think “that would be nice”. I also am fully aware that some of them watch me leave after an hour or two and also think “that would be nice” as they eye the clock. Shout out to those workplaces that HAVE invited me to their social events. In fact there is one institution that was SO thoughtful, not only did they invite me to their end-of year-dinner, they also gave me my own pigeon hole (a pigeon hole!) in the staffroom, something I have not had since I was 24 years old. I was very touched by that gesture but sadly I have not yet made it back there to see if anything has been placed in it. I will get there soon I hope and I am looking forward to that moment!
I know what some of you might be thinking. All of this is my choice right? You made your bed - so lie in it. Absolutely true and fair. Let me say though, I am just exploring reasons why I quite often experience feelings of loneliness. Thinking out loud. Seeking to understand things.
I think another part of the reason a freelance musician could feel lonely is because of the odd hours we work. We work when most people don’t work. A lot of people catch up with their friends at night, after work or on the weekend. But when you are a musician you are often gigging or rehearsing at night or on the weekend. You might say, “well……at all those gigs and rehearsals…. aren’t you often surrounded by other people?’ Well yes, indeed I am, there are often many people there, often wonderful people. Some have become new friends. But they aren’t necessarily the people you feel strongly connected too, the people you have experience with, and/or long friendships with. Everyone knows who they would wish to spend time with when they feel lonely......if they had the choice. In my case they are friends that know me well and have known me for a long time. But due to my odd working hours, those people are more than likely at home with their own families, or recovering from working during the day, or having a drink or a meal with other friends they feel connected to, while I am working somewhere else. I guess what I am saying is that being a freelance musician can potentially really impact the quality time you have to spend with important people in your life. Maybe I am alone in thinking this? I don’t know.
Several times in my life I have moved back to places I used to live, after being away for many years away. I was excited and looking forward to catching up with old friends I have known for a long time, only to find that those reunions don’t happen with the frequency I had hoped for, or don’t happen at all. I realize there could be many reasons for this:
a) Everyone is always busy (this is a BIG reason).
b) I am not as memorable as I thought I was.
c) People got used to not having me in their life and have found other friends.
d) I have become a boring fart in my old age.
But I also know that my working hours, as a freelance musician, are a factor. I think that the times of the week when my old friends might be ready to catch up are also the times I am working. At least that’s what I tell myself. But I did not expect to find that, after so many years of missing “my people” on the other side of the world, I am still missing my people even when they are in the same city. Again, I don’t think I am alone in feeling this, it is a societal issue, but being a freelance musician probably does not help.
I used to feel intense loneliness at times when I lived in Toronto (2011 to late 2019), perhaps because of the fact everyone I knew there was “new to me”. None of the people I had around me were people who knew me - I mean REALLY knew me. I moved there in my early 40s and so most of my friends were other “artists” - musicians, actors, dancers, theatre workers etc. Many of them I became quite close to. But now, having left Toronto after being there for almost a decade, I feel like I made a lot of “acquaintances” there and not a lot of “friends. I was starting to feel that quite intensely in the last couple of years before I left. I have some theories on why that might be:
A lot of the relationships you make with other people in the arts industry are based on the skills you have, not so much on who you are as a person. I do recognize that this is the same in most industries. In my case, in Toronto I would be hired for the skills I had as a pianist, Music Director, or vocalist. The end result was that I often ended working with a group of people that were collaborating with the goal of creating “something”, e.g. putting on a show, a musical, a one-off concert, a cabaret, or a longer run of shows. Often it might be in a different province or city from the one I usually lived in, an out-of-town contract. As a freelance musician I often worked intensively with these collaborators for several weeks, or even months, and after the rehearsal or shows we would have some regular social time together. Depending on the people involved that was a time I got to know some of them quite well. I am quite a social person who is interested in other people. But then “BOOM”….the concert, or the run would be over, and so would the friendship, for all intents and purposes, save for periodic “hellos” on social media perhaps, which I have always felt is a poor substitute.
I guess what I am getting at is that being a freelance musician for hire, I have, over the years, had to battle the nagging suspicion that people like you because of what you DO - not because of who you ARE. This could be total paranoia on my part, and it could also be the case that I am not a particularly good candidate for becoming a good friend with someone for whatever reason. But I base this suspicion on years of experience. People hire you because they feel they can help their project and when the project is finished, that’s pretty much it. Oftentimes anyway. That makes me feel lonely when I think about it.
Part of my sadness when I think about this is that often these people are people I share very intense moments with. In my opinion, most musicians and artists in general are chasing the same thing, other than financial security of course. They are chasing transcendence. I really believe this. Let me explain. Most artists I believe want to be in a situation where, in the course of exerting their particular skill, they are taken out of the actual physical location and situation they are in and placed almost in another dimension, a space where they are participating in the music, but also both observing and feeling the music at the same time, like they are not actually involved in producing it. An “out of body” experience if you will.
This has happened to me a few times in my career. It can come in a live performance but also in an unexpected situation like a rehearsal. It has even happened in an audition situation where I was the audition pianist and a singer walked in, handed me the music and a kind of magic happened right then and there: transcendence happened. In that moment I feel that the connection between those involved is so intense that it is beyond description, especially as it is so unexpected. You can’t control when it happens.
When you feel that with another performer, particularly over many performances, it is hard, at the end, to just shake hands and say “thanks, hope to run into you again sometime”. And then you never do. Do you know what I mean? You crave that artistic intensity and it is very hard to find it again.
Another thought. I spend a lot of time by myself even though I live with three other people. This can get lonely. Often, after spending a day by myself, I head out for work just as the people I live with come home from school or work. Sometimes I miss them completely by a few minutes. On the weekends I am out a lot rehearsing or performing too. It is easy to feel like you are “on an island” sometimes, driving around everywhere. I am sad that I have missed a lot of time with my immediate family because of my profession, especially as my kids get older and are spending more time out of the home. I think having different schedules from your spouse can be hard on that relationship too. Again, the people who have the most ability to make you feel loved, and cared for, and thus less lonely, are the people you are not necessarily spending most of your time with.
Something else that just popped into my head: People in the general public, and even other people in the performing arts, don’t have a good understanding of the amount of ongoing practice it takes to be a good musician, especially if you play in multiple genres. I spend hours on the piano almost every day to be ready for the many rehearsals, concerts and shows I do. Most of them time no-one is there when I do this practice. This type of work is not really talked about in my experience - not even between musicians. It’s weird eh? Not talking about something that you spend hours doing every day. Every now and then I meet someone who IS interested in this and they ask me questions like : “How much do you practice?”, “HOW do you practice?”, “What is the procedure for practicing?” “What are you thinking about when you practice?”. I would say I have met maybe three people in my life who have been interested in this part of my life - a part of my life that I have spent hours and hours doing since the age of nine. One of those three people was someone I recently met. They asked me all of these questions and more and I can’t tell you how great it felt to talk about it, something I have never really put into words before. That gave me cause to think…….do I feel lonely sometimes because no-one actually knows, or is interested in what I DO on a daily basis?
Part of my job as a freelance musician is being a collaborative pianist (or accompanist). I have a ton of respect for collaborative pianists. There are some amazing ones in Perth. We all put in so much practice time to play well for the soloists we perform with. More often than not however, depending on the situation, it is NOT a glamorous occupation. Often the “performance” is in a small room with one or two panellists who are “marking’ the soloist at 2:45pm on a Thursday in a school gym. It is a poorly paid part of a freelancer’s career, because the music is often difficult and the practice time put in to learn it is unseen and therefore underpaid and undervalued.
Collaborative piano makes me feel lonely at times in a weird way. Having spent several weeks practicing for a performance, I sometimes find myself walking out of a school, church hall, or community centre by myself, at 3:15pm on a Thursday, with an underwhelming empty feeling. Was that worth it? It IS a lonely feeling in some respects. Especially when the soloist may not even bother letting you know what their ultimate grade was, or even discussing the performance with you. It can be a very transactional job, being an accompanist. At 3:15pm your job is done - until you are needed for next year. Not always but oftentimes.
Here is another scenario when I feel lonely: I often play piano and sing in bars, as a soloist. Mostly when I do this I am paying other people’s music - usually for three to four hours at a time. Sometimes it is raucous fun, with the crowd really listening, appreciating what I am doing, participating by requesting songs, applauding, cheering and singing along. That is great and I do not feel lonely, I feel useful. Sometimes they are drunk and being idiots. This is also kind of fun in a way - it’s an interesting challenge to deal with and so far I have succeeded in doing so without getting my face smashed in.
Far worse though is when you play for three hours and no-one really responds in any way. No applause, no acknowledgement that you are actually a human, not a jukebox someone has plugged in, or a human Spotify playlist. Now THAT is a lonely feeling. It feels like you are playing on an ice floe in Antarctica. Luckily this does not happen to me a lot. But the weird thing is, almost every time it does happen, right at the moment when I am packing up my gear, feeling very lonely and unhappy, thinking “was that experience worth it for the money I earned?”, or wondering what my family/friends were doing while I spending my evening singing for robots, someone will come up to me and say “Oh, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your music tonight!” And then someone else will come up and say, “you were great, can I get a couple of your CDs?” And I will be grateful to those people, but I have to admit, I will also think “where were you for the last three hours”? I am sure many musicians can relate to this.
I guess this proves you can feel lonely anywhere - even in a room full of people.
Or in a city of 6 million. Incidentally, I once wrote a song about that. It’s called “When I Feel Like This”. Click on “Songwriter” above and scroll down if you want to hear it.
Okay, well I guess that is the end of my blog. I hope you don’t think I was whining although I fear it might have descended into something like that. This blog was written in two sittings - like a blurt. I was just trying to write honestly. As I said I have had these thoughts in my head for a while and never really spoken them out loud or written them down. Except I just did - right now.
I should also repeat that I LOVE being a freelance musician. There is a lot of freedom in my career despite all the other things. I get a lot of joy out of it and it keeps me young. I sometimes work with amazing people that inspire me. You can’t have everything right? I also want to reiterate.....I don't feel lonely all the time.
I would love to hear other musician’s thoughts on what I wrote here. Or anyone else’s thoughts for that matter. Let me know.
Thank for reading this.
Robert