Rosanne Cash - I Will Miss What I Wanted to Lose

[Mandolin Cafe]

Wonderful article worth your time:

I Will Miss What I Wanted to Lose - I didn’t fully appreciate what life on the road gave me until suddenly it was gone, by Rosanne Cash.

Everyone will have their own take on the life of touring musicians, but this was a timely bit of information for me personally. I spend countless time communicating with people from all walks of the music industry and while we are all surely miss a lot of activities that range from performances to workshops, festivals and more, one thing has been especially jarring I was not anticipating: that's the number of musicians that privately conceded they're enjoyed being in one spot more than they ever could have dreamed and are happy riding it while it lasts, in spite of the lost income.

There is one story that never got told in the feature from several weeks back where we asked a lot of musicians to weigh in on how they were handing it all. It was almost sad. It was a very well known, dare say legendary mandolin player (older), who confided this was the first time he'd ever spent any extended time with his family, didn't know if a chance like this would ever come again, and for that reason wasn't willing to spend the time to write down his feelings for the article. Said he hoped I'd understand. "I'm going to spend time with my now adult children and nothing else, its been priceless," he said.

I was never naive enough to think being a touring musician was a walk in the park. What I wasn't anticipating was the reactions I received and continue to receive. For a lot of touring musicians this has turned into a respite that was needed.

[John Soper]

Wonderful article, Scott. This is a perspective form someone close to the top rung (at least upper quartile) or music performers. And it is a real experience that expresses the need to get out there and be in front of an audience.

On the other hand, I have a sister. who is a classical violinist. - never made first chair in an orchestra, but hardscrabble first violinist for the opera and ballet, community orchestra, subs in the main orchestra and leads multiple quartets. Driving over the northern reaches in a circuit of Colorado, teaching at UNC and Colorado State U, teaching Suzuki violin out of. her front room where the piano is located. All gone except on-line lessons. A brother who is a jazz guitarist in the Bay Area - good thing he tunes pianos - 'cause at least he's tuned two this past week. Plenty of good friends wh have seen their revenue streams just evaporate despite a long career based on living on the road playing house concerts and gigs with < 1,000 in the audience, because the gigs aren't there, and the PayPal tips aren't coming in for the streaming performances that they put up online. The occasional CD & march sales aren't happening. Streaming their music at $0.000025/stream doesn't help them, unless you continuously stream their music, and even then it doesn't pay dirt.

I cry for my friends and these people because the life that they knew and sustained them will be a long time 'coming, if there is a true recovery in our lifetime. As a physician, I'm cautiously optimistic that we will figure out how to really mitigate this virus, but until then those gigs and lessons and performances that add up aren't going to happen... We as the audience will be so much more poor.