I think it’s difficult to even define what it means to succeed as a musician, especially in light of Covid. Is success measured by income? Popularity? Creative output? A sense of fulfillment? The changes the world has undergone during the pandemic have made musical success even more unreachable and unclear.
Covid creates financial barriers in so many ways, which extend beyond the loss of income from live concerts. Even when musicians do move to an online platform in some way, there is understandable pushback from people who don’t want to pay the same price for virtual services that used to be in-person. There are also less potential consumers no matter the cost, because people generally have less surplus money to spend on entertainment than they used to. For the most part, audiences view music as a luxury, which is exacerbated by the free (or almost free) nature of music on the internet. This is not at all the case for musicians, as their profit from music is a necessity and provides them with the means to live. There is a much larger disconnect here than there is for other professions, like plumbers, where the consumer and the service provider are often both operating out of necessity. I come across these two issues at the piano lesson studio where I work. We have around a quarter of the number of students we used to, because music lessons are not a necessity for most families, and I also sometimes get requests from parents for a lower cost to virtual lessons.
Another challenge is that Covid has diminished the sense of community in almost all musical scenes. For many people, playing music with others is one of the most gratifying parts of being a musician, and just being around other musicians is inspiring. Being a musician is certainly a lot more lonely nowadays, although not entirely. There are ways to work around it, and the only way to adapt is to be open minded to new ideas and practices. For a while in the spring, my bandmates and I would get together on a parking garage roof and sit in our separate cars and jam. It was a pretty good close second to regular rehearsal. But the ability to work and perform in person is rare, and most everything has moved online. What I think a lot of people have found is that everything is 10 times harder online if you’re just trying to make a virtual replica of the real world. You have to change the way you do things and use your skills in different ways if you want to find success. This might mean going from being a performer to being a teacher, focusing more on selling merch, or offering different services than you used to, like virtual meetups or more frequent concerts.
