Whenever we see an artist that is sucessful we believe it is because he is extremely talented or that it is what he was born to do. We cannot imagine the struggle, sacrifices and hard work it took to be where he is. But what with the people that do not ‘make’ it? Are they less of an artist?
Studies have shown that over 3% of the population started an art-oriented education. Every 200000 of these ‘students’ only result in 64 artists making a living out of their art. And still this often means having no family life and sacrifices all the way through. Imagine an actor being on a diet for the rest of his life.
In the 80`s a lot of people had access to promoters and publishers helping them land gigs but today even getting those people to help is very rare, it became an even tougher business the last 20 years. And there is little to no information found on this. Talentshows are moneymakers only working again for a happy few simply because there is no budget to look for talent. But every ‘The Voice’ or ‘America`s Got Talent’ has thousands and thousands of people applying. As a trained musician, I want to underline the talent of these people that get discovered but it is remarkable that these shows get you noticed a lot faster sometimes than when you studied for all your life.
We have no problem paying a plumber when he comes and fixes the toilet, but hey we made our hobby into our job so why would we need to get paid? It is time for a new hashtag, the #metoostronger! Of course the #metoo brought to attention a lot of negative aspects of our jobs as artists, but what about the rest? Culture shows that society is doing good, is doing great, still budgets are cut everywhere. If for every opportunity out there we would get paid accordingly we might not care so much for the budgets being cut, or am I wrong?
So this is a call to all of you! Artists, Fans, Audiences, Bookers,… We need to get stronger! Let’s make the arts great again!
TamTam-Magazine 