[Harp-L] making money

[Michael Rubin <rubinmichael@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Will asked how to make it as a pro.  First off, I didn't go pro until I was 29 and then I kept my foot in the door of the public school substitute system.  In order to do that I sub 10 days a year, their minimum.  It allows me backup money if needed, but more importantly, if someplace that would not understand music as a career asks me if I have a job, I tell them yes and they can call this phone number to verify it.  Half of the time the teachers leave no work and we talk about harp all day anyway.
   
  Before I went pro I spent around 3 years at a 20 hour a week job, getting used to finding supplemental money with music.  
   
  As for health insurance I have been on and off forever.  Recently married, I now get to be on my wife's insurance (for a lot more money but it is far superior to my old one).  What I have done for the last few years is Unicare, around $100 per month for catastrophic.
   
  My main method has been to follow two main ideas.
   
  #1 Make SOME money at music EVERY day.  If I make a dollar everyday, that's $365 a year which will pay around 4 bills.  If I make $60 a day, that's $22,000.   I would be flat broke all the time, but the bills would be paid.  If I make $100 a day, it's the same as a beginning schoolteacher.  And it goes on from there.
   
  #2 Set and make goals.  When I started, my first goal was $50 a month.  WHen I made that, the next month was $100.  Incrementally I got to a living.  Now I set a year long goal.  I divide it by twelve.  If I make $110 more than the first month's increment, I take $10 off each of the eleven remaining month's increment.  If I make less,  I add the divided amount and start busting my behind to find new ways to make more money because the plan is not working!  Every year I raise my goal.
   
  How do I make money?  Gigs, teach at UT,  teach at Jam camps, teach privately, sell CD's by hand and by website, write and sell books, (I intend to upgrade my book and create a new DVD soon) studio work, I don't busk anymore but I have done it plenty. I am not a machinist, but if you can create a better harp, I would say that is making money by musical means.  I have played on Broadway and in movies(small documentaries), TV but that is pretty flukey stuff since I live in Texas.  If you live in New York or LA, those are viable options.
   
  Go on, get a career!
  Michael Rubin
  Michaelrubinharmonica.com