Earning a living as a composer can be tricky business anywhere, especially in the Midwest. Very few composers are able to make their living strictly by writing music. So, how do composers go about making ends meet?  An informal survey revealed some interesting results. 

For many, making a living involves some combination of teaching, performing, conducting, and administration in the arts. For composers making their living this way, the notion of a day job is often stretched well into the evening, in order to accommodate younger students and evening rehearsals.

One composer reported working 14 hours as the orchestra director of a junior high school, conducting a Community String Orchestra, and teaching 32 private students.  She also acts as the executive director for a local music school and manages a publishing company as time allows.

Some composers lean a little more heavily on performing for providing income. An Illinois based composer earns a significant portion of her income from accompanying for high school choirs, student contests, church mass, and student recitals. She teaches quite a bit as well, including private lessons for vocal, piano and composition students, and some adjunct teaching of music theory. “I absolutely love what I am doing, because I get to spend a significant amount of time each week making music, rather than talking about music or doing administrative tasks to allow music to happen,” she related. “I control the schedule, fees, and am free to maintain high musical standards. I also love the variety of music encountered by teaching such a vast span of ages.”

Historically, churches have provided many a composer with steady work, and this holds true in the present day. A third composer derived the majority of his income from being the Director of Music for a local church. In this capacity, he directs the adult choir, the bell choir, plays piano in the praise band, and performs on the organ as needed. He supplements the church gig, with piano lessons, and freelance performing as a member of both a Klesmer ensemble and an ethnic folk trio. “I recall a youthful epiphany,” he noted, “which told me that a life in music would never be boring…[and that] there would always be new instruments, styles, performers, and ways of participating in [its] magic and mystery.”

Still other composers have developed a talent for working on the business side of arts. One composer relayed how in the early seventies, he came to Hawaii to teach music at the University of Hawaii Hilo Campus. Shortly thereafter, he became a freelance composer and subsidized his income by working as a Regional Coordinator for the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. He continued to work in arts administration for over two decades as the artistic director of a local opera company and later, as the CEO of a fine arts publishing firm.

While the majority of composers make their living through teaching, performing, conducting, and arts administration, a surprising number of survey respondents - roughly 10%- reported working primarily in the business world. A composer from Urbandale, IA got his start in business by selling radios over the phone for Bose. After developing some sales savvy, he was recruited to sell computers for a distributor, and is now working in Enterprise sales, selling technology from Sun Microsystems to schools and universities in Iowa. “I get to spend a lot of time with the faculty at Iowa State University. [The professors there] are doing fascinating work in such disparate areas as Computational Biology, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and microchip design,” he explained. “As someone who uses computers to aid my compositional efforts, I have a general understanding of the technology. This background helps me to relate to the needs of my customers.”

For those working outside of music, technology seems to be a common link, allowing composers a window of opportunity into a career in business. One composer parlayed his considerable experience using computers and software to create electronic music, into a job as a Branch Technical Trainer at Kinko’s in Cedar Rapids, IA. Because this position required extensive travel, the composer switched jobs in 2000, and began developing front end Graphic User Interface panels for financial software at Quintrex Data Systems. His current position is at NCS Pearson in Iowa City, where he designs and creates test booklets, answer sheets, and reference manuals for various state and nationwide assessments.

The composer likes his job because “It keeps me busy doing fairly creative activities, so my brain doesn’t completely shut down by the time I get home. The creativity required…is akin to the technique one employs when working out a rigorous exercise in counterpoint. There are very rigorous specifications for the documents, but within those specifications, one must make the document aesthetically pleasing as well as easy to navigate.” He feels that staying in a creative mode through out the day, helps him to create music in the evening in his basement studio, without having to switch gears.

So, as you can see, there’s not a “one-size-fits-all” method for making a living as a composer. We’re all doing what we can to support our families and our passion for creating music. Perhaps in some small way, the diversity of ways composers are making their living, contributes to the wonderful variety of new music that’s being created. To these composers and many others, I say ‘keep composing your little hearts out until you become rich and famous. Until then, don’t give up your day job!’