Harmonic Dissonance: Coping with Employment Precarity among Professional Musicians in St John’s,Canada

Abstract

Precarious employment literature has addressed a myriad of occupations increasingly characterized by employment uncertainty and reduced commitment between workers and employers due to short-term contracts and self-employment, with particular attention given to creative industries and the gig economy in recent years. The authors argue that research on creative industries also requires consideration of the role of place in the experience of employment insecurity and career commitment. This article focuses on self-employed musicians in the mid-sized city of St John’s, Canada. Interviews with 54 musicians draw attention to coping strategies for long periods of low pay and employment insecurity. These strategies include downplaying competition and conflict, acquiring higher education and changing career. It is argued that population size and location of the community where work is based have implications on such coping strategies and on career longevity.

Keywords

artists creative work gig economy mid-sized cities musicians precarious employment

Introduction

Research on creative work has been rapidly developing in recent years, with keen interest in workers in media (Eikhof and York, 2016; Grugulis and Stoyanova, 2011; Siebert and Wilson, 2013) and gaming (Hodgson and Briand, 2013), artists (Lindemann, 2013; Lingo and Tepper, 2013; Wyszomirski and Chang, 2017) and musicians (Coulson, 2012; Thomson, 2013; Umney and Kretsos, 2014). This literature provides a rich description of precarious employment faced by creative workers despite their specialized skills, which resonates with the experiences of workers in the gig economy, or described as portfolio employment (Flanagan, 2017; Gold and Fraser, 2002). It also illustrates some unique characteristics of creative occupations whose workers often internalize and accept the precarious nature of their work and career as a legitimate and inevitable part of their professional autonomy (Lingo and Tepper, 2013). A limitation in the literature, however, is that the role of place of work tends to be neglected. Most research on creative work is place neutral, not focusing on geographic location, or based on evidence from large cities with extensive opportunities for artistic work. However, the experiences of creative workers in larger cities may not be comparable to that of workers situated in smaller and more geographically isolated cities, subject to different employment and work conditions, particularly after economic restructuring.

To address these gaps, this article explores the work of self-employed professional musicians in St John’s, the mid-sized capital city of the island province of Newfoundland, Canada. Interviews with 54 income-dependent musicians reveal complicated relationships among self-proclaimed professionals, as well as between professionals and amateurs. Amateurs may threaten the livelihood and pay of professionals yet collaboration with the former is essential for the professionals’ survival in a small labour market. This article addresses two research questions. First, how do professional musicians cope with the precarious nature of their work in this mid-sized, remote city? Second, how do the location and population size of St John’s impact the experience of professional musicians who choose to live and work there despite the precarity of their work?

This article contributes to the literature by offering a nuanced understanding of the ‘gig’ nature of professional musicianship in a mid-sized city where survival strategies are shaped by place, considering contextual factors such as regional economy, population size and geographic location. The lived experience of the subjects it describes is arguably different from that of workers in gig economies that are often transnational and not constrained by geographic location. Moreover, the authors call attention to the ‘open’ nature of musicians’ work, insofar as it does not place restrictions on who may enter, exit or re-enter the field based on age, education, years of experience or formal membership. This contrasts with the hallmarks of social closure restricting entry into professions such as accounting, education, engineering, law or medicine.

Precariousness of creative work

The following literature review highlights the precariousness of creative work, creative workers’ identity within the broad scope of creative industries, and artists and musicians in particular as practitioners of open work and forerunners of the gig economy. It especially focuses on research that portrays the precarity and ambiguity of art professions and introduces the role of place in better understanding the experience of creative workers.

While precarious employment is a multi-dimensional concept indicating employment uncertainty, low income, less control over the labour process and limited regulatory protection, the first two dimensions – employment uncertainty and low income – are extensively explored in research on creative workers (Vosko, 2006). Creative workers’ employment is described as ‘portfolio work’ as it typically spans many short-term assignments and a variety of clients, similar to artists’ work (Fraser and Gold, 2001). It is claimed that employment uncertainty is inherent in this type of work due to its freelancing nature and that sustaining long-term employment is difficult for many creative workers, with the exception of a handful of individuals in occupations such as television (Dex et al., 2000), journalism (Rosenkranz, 2019) and personal training (Harvey et al., 2017) who are sometimes able to establish lucrative enterprises.

Relatedly, the emerging gig economy denotes work characterized by short-term employer commitment to the employee (as in IT work and crowdwork), which resonates with gigs performed by musicians (Harvey et al., 2017; Howcroft and Bergvall-Kåreborn, 2019). In contrast to other high-skill professions whose practitioners enjoy relatively high pay through social closure and professionalization (limiting the number of practitioners and raising occupational status), the open nature of labour markets for artistic work is typically associated with lower incomes despite practitioners’ exceptional, creative skills, nurtured through years of practice from childhood (Abbing, 2002). Alper and Wassall (2006) show that while the number of artists is increasing, few are able to realize long-term careers in the arts. Their study reveals that artists experience greater income variability than other professions and that higher education does not result in higher earnings, though it may increase artists’ earnings potential in non-arts fields. Menger (2006) finds that reward systems for artists are supplied by subjective marketplaces over which artists have little control. Bauer et al. (2011) emphasize that artists’ commitment of time and resources is often incommensurate with remuneration, yielding uncertainty as to how the value of the work is to be calculated. Many suffer significant initial income penalties in the course of costly skills acquisition, formal education, training and time, only to face further years of perpetually low, inconsistent income (Popović and Ratković, 2013).

Research suggests two related causes of low income and employment uncertainty for artists and musicians. First, these conditions may be embedded in acquiring artistic skills in childhood and the extent to which activities first entered into as a calling, vocation or hobby are adequately prepared as a viable career by parents and educators (Coulson, 2010). Second, artists often reject or de-emphasize economic gain in favour of altruistic motives and stances (Abbing, 2002; Bauer et al., 2011; Eikhof and Haunschild, 2006; Fletcher and Lobato, 2013; Umney and Kretsos, 2015). A study of professional classical musicians by Scharff (2015) finds that although self-promotion is essential for securing economically profitable careers in music, many of her interviewees are reluctant to self-promote, feeling that such activity overshadows the virtuous qualities of modesty and determination to prioritize art over entrepreneurship.

Thus, some of the existing literature indicates that precarious employment of artists and musicians is not new. However, other studies suggest that the precarity of their work may be enhanced by some recent developments. For many musicians, digitization of music has enabled more rapid and affordable access to global markets, no matter where they live. While digitization has potential for opening additional revenue streams for lesser-known musicians, Schnell (2008) draws attention to other effects of globalization and digitization of artistic output, arguing that artists’ highly specific expertise is not enough to safeguard artistic labour markets from widened competition. Thomson (2013), too, finds that digitization and technological advancements in music production and dissemination result in more diverse tasks, higher risk and lower rates of pay.

Previous research on creative work also explores how artists have coped with precariousness to maintain their employment. Musicians often continue to prioritize passion for the work over earning a livable income well into their careers (Abbing, 2002; Umney and Kretsos, 2015; Vaag et al., 2014). As a means of offsetting costs and developing professional networks, musicians frequently work for free, borrow and lend instruments and equipment, take on additional work in areas outside of music, and engage in informal, short-term, verbal performance contracts (Abbing, 2002; Fletcher and Lobato, 2013; Throsby and Hollister, 2003).

Many artists seek to minimize fiscal precariousness and achieve greater labour market status by acquiring higher education (Adler, 1979). Advanced education in the arts, however, does not necessarily lead to higher earnings (Comunian et al., 2014; Menger, 2006; Popović and Ratković, 2013; Throsby and Zednik, 2011). Comunian et al. (2014) find that employment opportunities are not readily available for graduates of university music schools and conservatories, necessitating the development of a portfolio of multiple skills and occupations. Others find that the core skills of career management are largely absent from arts school curricula, leaving emerging professional artists poorly equipped for self-management (Bauer et al., 2011; Thom, 2015).

An essential coping strategy for many artists consists in the formation of strong social networks to cultivate mutual trust and joint competitive advantage (Brown, 2012; Lee, 2009; Menger, 2006). Coulson (2012) finds that individual competition among musicians is downplayed in favour of establishing mutually supportive networks and reinforcing the sense of a music ‘community’. Others, however, point out the presence of intraprofessional conflict. The open nature of artistic work may invite excess labour, holding down musicians’ income, and undermining solidarity and a sense of community (Zendel, 2014).

The literature reviewed above provides a rich description of the lived experience of creative workers, especially artists, striving to survive in their precarious work environments. However, a limitation in the literature is that it does not explicitly discuss the role of place in creative work. Many studies are based on the experience of creative workers in big cities, such as Toronto, Los Angeles and London, where job opportunities are abundant but competition among creative workers is fierce (Bain, 2005; Randle and Culkin, 2009; Umney and Kretsos, 2014, 2015). For example, Dex et al. (2000) find that the large job market and networking opportunities among creative workers in the television industry in London can reduce employment uncertainty but also exacerbate it if the supply of freelancers exceeds demand. Moreover, regional economic conditions in the place of work matter. Zawadzki (2016) finds that in Australia, the regional unemployment rate is correlated with the unemployment rate of musicians. Other studies indicate reciprocal relationships between creative workers and the place of their work. Markusen (2013) argues that the bohemian depiction of artists misrepresents the cultural and economic impact of artists on communities in which they settle. Nóvoa (2012) finds that musician identity is closely tied to mobility and that musicians who tour are better able to concentrate on their music while developing career-enhancing networks.

Although research on creative workers in smaller cities is limited, an exception is Finnegan’s (2007) ethnography of the lived experience of amateur musicians in Milton Keynes, a UK city of 122,000, about the same population as St John’s, the site of the present study. The musicians of Finnegan’s research share many characteristics described by the musicians of St John’s, including fluidly transitioning across musical styles, carefully navigating relationships with other musicians and balancing their musical lives with other jobs and lifestyles. This suggests that musicians in smaller cities may be performing their creative work differently from those in bigger cities due to the small tight-knit music community and limited availability of music work. The study thus suggests that the place of work has a strong influence on musicians’ work and that reciprocal influence between musicians and their surrounding community deserves attention.

Building on Finnegan (2007), this article focuses on professional musicians in the mid-sized, geographically remote Canadian city of St John’s and discusses how their precarious work and coping strategies are impacted by geographic location, labour market size, and relationships with professional and non-professional musicians. It identifies place as a significant factor in musicians’ coping strategies and sense of occupational identity, with implications for career commitment to this open work.

Methods

The data come from the research team’s qualitative interviews with 54 professional musicians whose careers are based in St John’s, the capital city of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. St John’s, with its core population of 108,860, is situated on the easternmost coast of the province and is accessible from outside the province only by an hours-long ferry crossing followed by a long drive, or by air (Statistics Canada, 2016). The city is well known for its vibrant, diverse, live-music scene and has the highest concentration of artists among Canadian municipalities (Hill, 2014). While this mid-size city is geographically distant from other major cities of North America, it is a chief hub of music performance and production in the province.

Two main sampling criteria were adopted for recruiting interview participants. They were selected if they self-identify as professional musicians and actively engage in self-promotion for the purpose of realizing remunerative performances either on a part- or full-time basis, even if they concurrently hold other music-related or non-music employment. Performance includes singing, playing instruments, conducting ensembles and recording commercially available albums. Musicians whose careers are based in St John’s were selected even if they tour frequently.

For the purposes of this research, the term ‘professional musicians’ refers to participants who are committed to employment in music, with at least some of that employment involving self-promoted, income-generating performance. However, musicians’ use of the word ‘profession’ varies depending on their own experiences. In this article, the word ‘profession’ is used as commonly expressed by the interviewees when describing their work, whether full- or part-time and whether work is formally contracted or informally (verbally) agreed. The authors believe some flexibility in the use of the term ‘profession’ is therefore necessary in musicians’ work, especially on a local scene where many musicians and other music industry professionals (e.g. producers, managers, promoters, venue operators) know each other and verbal contracts are common. Furthermore, not every performance is paid in money. Musicians commonly exchange favours, help friends or donate talents to non-paying causes.

To collect the sample, the convenience sampling method was used. Calls for participants went to the Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Arts Society, the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, Memorial University of Newfoundland’s School of Music, from posters placed in various public spaces throughout St John’s and on social media. In total, 54 participants were recruited: 23 rock musicians (18 men, five women); 10 traditional (folk) musicians (seven men, three women); and 21 classical musicians (seven men, 14 women). Their age ranges from 19 to 72 years old, with the average being 36 years old.

Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted from May to October 2014 consisting of a mix of open- and closed-ended questions pertaining to demographic and socioeconomic profiles (e.g. age, gender, marital status, other work, level of education, income from all sources of employment) and lived experience as professional musicians. Following interview transcription, responses were first open-coded and then streamlined into broad themes (e.g. ‘intraprofessional conflict’, ‘higher education as an exit strategy’) as common issues and major stories emerged. The responses were then organized by pseudonym, age, gender, music genre and years of experience. In cases where it was felt that a musician might be identifiable, other details (e.g. primary instrument) were altered or omitted in ways calculated to avoid compromising the analysis.

Each interview lasted from 30 to 120 minutes and was recorded with the consent of participants. The first author’s work in St John’s as a musician for 20 years enabled comfortable rapport with participants who shared their personal, emotional journey of becoming professional musicians and the challenges they faced in pursuing their music career. In this article, pseudonyms are used to ensure confidentiality.

The demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the sample are summarized in Table 1. Fifty-two interviewees (96%) attended university or college, over 85% of whom (N = 46) completed degrees in music. This is a highly educated group of musicians, given that 49% of musicians in Canada held a comparable level of postsecondary education in 2011 (Hill, 2015).

Table 1.

Sociodemographic characteristics of interview participants by music genre.

	Total	Rock	Traditional	Classical
	N (%)	N (%)	N (%)	N (%)
Gender
Male	32 (59.3)	19 (82.6)	7 (70.0)	6 (28.6)
Female	22 (40.7)	4 (17.4)	3 (30.0)	15 (71.4)
Age, mean, years	36.4	34.4	38.3	37.4
Age range, years	19.0–72.0	19.0–72.0	25.0–66.0	22.0–66.0
Ethnicity
Caucasian	54 (100.0)	23 (100.0)	10 (100.0)	21 (100.0)
Marital status
Married	16 (29.6)	5 (21.7)	2 (20.0)	9 (42.9)
Common law	8 (14.8)	4 (17.4)	3 (30.0)	1 (4.8)
Divorced	2 (3.7)	0 (0.0)	1 (10.0)	1 (4.8)
Widowed	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)
Single	28 (51.9)	14 (60.9)	4 (40.0)	10 (47.6)
Education
Not completed high school	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)
Completed high school	2 (3.7)	2 (8.7)	0 (0.0)	0 (0.0)
Some college/university	6 (11.1)	4 (17.4)	1 (10.0)	1 (4.8)
Degree college/university	46 (85.2)	17 (73.9)	9 (90.0)	20 (95.2)

All underlying research material can be accessed by contacting the research team.

Coping strategies of professional musicians

The recent rise of creative workers in St John’s, namely musicians, is a bi-product of economic restructuring and decline in the historically dominant local industry, as observed in other smaller cities in North America (Nevarez, 2018; Phillips, 2004). In St John’s and other communities across Newfoundland and Labrador, 1992 was a watershed year for all economic sectors. In response to drastic declines in codfish stocks, Canada’s federal government enforced a shutdown of the cod fishery, rendering approximately 40,000 fishers, fish plant workers and related workers unemployed.

While businesses throughout the province shut down or downsized and the general economy declined sharply, government steered its attention towards the development and promotion of culture and tourism, and invested heavily in retraining fisheries workers for new and creative industries (Bill, 2009). In 1992, the Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (MusicNL) was formed as the exclusive agency to provide funding and performance opportunities for its members. It aims to formalize and validate the work of musicians as a consistent and significant contributor to the provincial economy. Around this time, musicians began to speak of their work within the music ‘industry’, and of the music ‘profession’, in addition to continuing traditional references to the music ‘scene’ and ‘community’.

The following section discusses how professional musicians in St John’s cope with the precarious nature of their work in such socioeconomic contexts. The musicians of this research identify first and foremost as professional even though most are concurrently engaged in additional employment. What emerged from the interviews was that their coping strategies were often linked to the unique situation of being professional musicians in the mid-sized remote city of St John’s. Their coping strategies can be summarized as: downplaying competition; consenting to precariousness; pursuing higher education; and exit from professional music. As shown below, all these coping strategies are partly influenced by the fact that their professional work is pursued in St John’s.

Downplaying competition

One coping strategy emerging from a number of interviews was to downplay competition with fellow musicians, especially ‘amateur professionals’, even though their existence threatens professional musicians’ livelihood. Several participants said that community musicians have contributed to preserving and enhancing the province’s culture and tradition as much as professional musicians have done. This makes it difficult to categorize those artists as anything other than professional, as many aspiring artists strive to model themselves after these artists’ calibre and legacy. This further blurs the line between social and professional activity and music’s distinction from other occupations by way of its continuous interplay of work and leisure. Simon’s experience demonstrates how the lack of a standardized definition of the work of professional musicians and the co-existence of wage- and non-wage-dependent musicians may frustrate some professionals trying to earn a living:

It can get really hard to differentiate between professional and amateur. The fact that your buddy is willing to play down the street for five bucks is not the same thing as the hours I put in and the money I’ve invested and the creativity I’ve put in. (Simon, rock musician)

When asked to describe what it means to be a professional musician, 12 participants (22.2%) equated it only to being paid. Others emphasized additional characteristics, including calibre of musicianship, attending rehearsals and performances promptly and prepared, showing respect for fellow musicians, audiences and other colleagues, having a positive attitude and disguising conflict when on stage. As seen below, Scott distinguishes among professionals who derive their livelihood from music, amateurs who do not, professional amateurs who do not derive their livelihood from music but contribute to the music scene as much as professionals, and amateur professionals who derive a livelihood from music but are least desirable among musicians:

The amateur professional: those who call themselves professional, generally for remunerative purposes only, who are unreliable, dilettantish, self-serving, sloppy and unprepared, late to rehearsals. We all have met these ‘professionals’ (Scott’s emphasis) along the way. Yes, it is about money. But it is also about integrity to the art and one’s fellow artists. I think we’re lucky here because we rarely see the latter [amateur professional] type. Most musicians are here because they want to be. What’s more, there is a very strong interrelationship between the so-called amateurs and professionals. There’s a mutual dependency which does not happen in most communities. (Scott, classical musician)

The St John’s office of the Canadian Federation of Musicians (CFM) advises minimum rates for its members to charge for performances. However, some CFM members do not abide by the rates, sometimes requesting a higher fee, other times a lower one, depending on the hiring party and the event. It did not emerge from the interviews as to why this is the case, but it may simply be due to preference for quickly accepting non-standard, non-binding terms to secure a needed gig:

I know teachers in the city who are gonna play in a pit band. They’re great players. And they’ll play for whatever because they’re already a teacher. They don’t really need the money. Music in this city has a lot to compete with in that you have scads of people who do it for fun and don’t need the money. And then you have an entire industry built on feeding people a certain type of music. That’s a big, huge thing to contend with. (Harry, rock musician)

Harry’s experience demonstrates the interplay of place and intraprofessional conflict. This is one instance of a recurring practice in St John’s of professional musicians and amateur musicians of professional calibre frequently sharing performance venues and leaving them indistinguishable at times to consumers and hirers. St John’s, celebrated for its large and diverse music activity, is for musicians a complicated and delicate site of genuine friendships for mutual gain, but also of strategic relationships that are difficult to enter and leave and that cause those unable to break through cliques feeling alienated. The music community is tightly knit and mutually supportive indeed, but there are many signs of carefully guarded niches and intraprofessional conflict borne out of the city’s small population and abundance of musicians.

More than three-quarters of the sample said that they experience competition in music. The results are similar across genres, though with a slightly higher percentage among classical musicians. However, the respondents cautiously point out that competition is not normally outwardly expressed but manifests in various ways, including performance competitions, as well as competition for project funding, sponsorship and audience share. It is a paradoxical scene wherein musicians need each other to get by but do their best to stand out from the rest. Peers in music are not only potential competitors; they are also each other’s sources of referral for work and income, often lending and borrowing instruments and gear. When this longstanding tradition of generosity is broken, it proves to be a significant source of anxiety because exchange relationships are integral to advancing one’s career and significant to the ideal of a music ‘community’. Non-reciprocity in music, where relationships are as important as money, can be tantamount to non-endorsement of another’s work.

Three-quarters of interviewees said that they have experienced difficult music work relationships. The results were consistent across genres. Staying agreeable and managing undercurrents of conflict is particularly advisable in a mid-sized city where musicians frequently cross paths and share friends, colleagues and venues. Any overt conflict can become magnified in such close confines. Negative relationships were described by one participant as ‘creatively stifling’. Musicians may be self-employed, but the occupational rules, traditions and expectations of the public and sponsors demand that they keep some feelings and professional differences hidden from public view, conveying only mutual congeniality and devotion to their art.

Ways of responding to negative interactions are varied but fall into two types: avoidance and confrontation. Musicians understand one another’s difficulties in starting and maintaining a career, even when they do not get along. The following quote from Todd highlights such understanding:

I can think of a few who are constantly griping about certain aspects of the scene and then trying to make changes but in a belligerent kind of way. I don’t think you have to be complacent to enjoy yourself in the St John’s music scene. You have to strive for change, but you have to accept that it’s really complicated. It’s like a family. You can’t suddenly decide to just start kicking things around and getting things the way you want, because it’s just going to backfire. (Todd, classical musician)

Local musicians are so well known to one another that once established, their reputation, for better or for worse, can last a very long time. Establishing and maintaining friendships, some of them professionally strategic, is critical throughout a career and can serve as protection against employment instability and rejection. Relationship-building is complicated, however, when professional and amateur musicians in a mid-size city like St John’s frequently share the same stages.

Consent to precariousness

Musicians working in the condensed occupational setting of St John’s ostensibly consent to the precariousness of their work, while maintaining that in this place conflict is less hostile than in larger cities, and social and professional networking among musicians and music industry professionals more readily facilitated. Most professional musicians, self-employed and often holding multiple part-time jobs, are not protected by wage labour regulations. All participants recognize from the start of their careers that music performance pays little, with only very few musicians ever becoming able to rely exclusively on a steady flow of performance employment. Since managers specializing in music careers are scarce in St John’s, musicians are usually left to self-management and self-promotion when starting out in what they call the music industry.¹ Furthermore, less than 40% of interview participants are members of MusicNL. Some musicians said that although they repeatedly applied for funding, their applications were always denied. Others go further, suggesting the organization exhibits bias towards artists believed to be more lucrative or known to committee members.

The population size and geographic location of St John’s have at least two implications for occupational peer relationships. Friendships are highly valued for moral support but are also seen by some as a strategic form of networking to achieve career advantage. Many of the St John’s musicians interviewed are highly educated and specialized. They are conflicted between finding ways to gain and hold an economically viable place in an oversupplied market of self-employed like-minded musicians while striving for the intrinsic rewards of creativity, self-discovery and self-actualization. Interviewees who toured extensively or lived elsewhere commit more strongly to St John’s as their professional base because it is also their personal base. The narrative of the St John’s musician stresses the desirability of staying close to home because of emotional ties and the relative ease of gaining recognition by a smaller population. However, Ruth’s sentiment, shared by other participants, confirms the strong presence of competition on the local scene and offers a critique of its teaching traditions:

I don’t want to offend people, but I think we have this false idea that everything we do is fantastic. No, it’s not. Everything is a competition. The sooner kids learn that, I think the better it is for them. That’s the problem you have in university music schools today. ‘Oh, we’re all great.’ No, you’re not. (Ruth, classical musician)

Several participants, including Gary, temporarily worked as musicians in larger cities, such as Toronto, Vancouver and New York. While market access and travel were found to be easier there, competition was more overt and there was less of a sense of community than in St John’s:

You’re kind of lurching forward all the time but you don’t know what’s coming on the horizon. The advantage to being in St John’s was that the support system was so much greater. People who stayed here didn’t have the sense that there was a brass ring to go for. So, people were fairly cooperative with each other. I had a couple of experiences in Toronto where competition for rock bands was so stiff that we had microphones stolen off the stage so we couldn’t play, I had the tubes stolen out of my amps so they wouldn’t turn on, people sabotaging my stuff. But I found here that there was a support system. (Gary, rock and traditional musician)

Most St John’s-based musicians live and work close to their jobs, and performance venues are located within a few city blocks. The downside of that closeness emerges when musicians disagree, change membership of ensembles, and compete for funding and audiences. Music is often subsidized by government and other sponsors whose support implies a high valuation of the arts. Such highly publicized support represents an endorsement of artists’ aesthetic value, without which artists would suffer the low valuation of their work by market forces (Abbing, 2002). Abbing reasons that artists are ‘poor’ because of their prioritization of the love of the craft over commercial interests. Part of this passion is derived from working with peers, collaborations that are often stated as being more important to income-dependent musicians than the income itself (Umney, 2016). The present study’s data show that musicians’ careers demand a judicious mix of confidence, modesty and collegiality when requesting support from the industry. Musicians must show enough self-confidence to sell their products to promoters and buyers but also ensure they do not seem over-zealous or publicly criticize competitors.

In recent years, artistic industry professionals in Newfoundland have increasingly advocated greater emphasis on the craft as business. For example, rules for applicants to ArtsNL for project funding have been tightened for stricter adherence, resulting in consternation by rejected applicants accustomed to greater flexibility (Rollmann, 2018). Not all musicians are supportive of full professionalization. Many seem to prefer keeping their work options open and flexible. Rejection of MusicNL membership and the absence of essential commercial skills may speak to the varied career goals, experiences, personal circumstances and work balance of musicians, at least in part influenced by where they have chosen to live and work.

Pursuing higher education

The interviews reveal that the limited local artistic market, along with the availability of music and education degree programmes locally, drives musicians in St John’s to pursue higher education. Almost all participants (N = 52, 96%) attended university or college, with 46 having completed at least one degree, 30 of those in music. If a career in performance appears unlikely to succeed or is no longer desired, a university degree is seen as a safety net against career instability. Classroom music teaching requires a university degree, while having higher education is believed to increase employability in other fields and to facilitate self-employment. For example, Katherine decided to get a doctorate in music to secure a university teaching position after being discouraged by a career based solely on performance:

I got really kind of grossed out by the personalities. There’s lots of messing around going on. I can’t deal with people who have no loyalty. And I thought, well, if I go get my doctorate, at least I won’t have to be living out of a suitcase. (Katherine, classical musician)

More than one-third (N = 20) of participants pursued degrees or diplomas in disciplines other than music. Seven rely on a combination of music and non-music employment for their livelihood. The remaining 13 said they hold degrees in other fields as a potential exit strategy from music but say they wish to remain engaged in music casually. Higher education, whatever the discipline, is thus seen as a means of securing one’s place in the precarious music scene. Enhancing employment prospects and income in other fields may afford continuing music engagement somewhere along the spectrum of amateur to professional.

More or less professional: Transitions to non-music careers

The interviewees who best exemplify music as open work are those who have left the music profession for non-music careers. Nine respondents exited music as a career but returned to music as ‘professional amateurs’. They have also returned as non-wage-dependent competitors to their former professional peers. Moreover, two-thirds of participants stated that they think frequently of leaving music as a career. The following quote from Olivia represents their concern that the pursuit of a music career can hamper or delay several important life-course transitions (e.g. marriage, homeownership, parenting):

I don’t encourage anybody to pursue music as a career. I have a lot of musician friends that are 30 and their parents are still supplementing the bills. I’m the kind of person that wants to put down roots, have a job, be able to do real adult things. I don’t know how long I’m gonna be able to pursue this unsteady, hurry-up-and-wait, take-a-chance kind of career. Especially living here, because I’m already maxing out on the opportunities. (Olivia, classical musician)

Fifteen participants also said they feel they have maximized their local St John’s audience and try to tour frequently to grow their market. Six of them have careers in other part-time non-music jobs and/or are self-employed in other fields of music, mostly private teaching. Those additional jobs help to pay the costs of touring outside the province, but the geographic isolation of St John’s and costs of attempts to access larger markets also result in considerable time away from family and local professional networks.

Discussion and conclusion

The interviews with 54 professional musicians in St John’s reveal a strong connection between career commitment and place, thus providing insight into the two main research questions as to how musicians in a mid-sized city cope with their precarious work and how the city’s size and location impact their experiences. The authors find the remote geographic location and small population size of St John’s foster collaboration, with an undercurrent of intraprofessional conflict complicating a career already precarious in nature given its low income and employment uncertainty. The interviews, spanning these musicians’ lived experiences, testify to the importance of considering careers and coping strategies in the context of place as well as within the broad framework of creative work and the gig economy.

As unlicensed practitioners of open work, musicians have little or no protection from market forces that are constantly changing and that can have a considerable impact along the career path, from confirming to disconfirming musicians’ work. Hazy standards for fees can blur distinctions between who is amateur and professional, a contributing factor in keeping income low for those trying to earn a livelihood from music and in prodding many into early departure from the career. Music review writers point out the fleeting nature of many bands in St John’s, owing to short careers and the difficulty many musicians face in committing to only one ensemble or style (Herritt, 2018). It is essential in this place to acquire as much music performance activity as possible in order to remain visible and therefore employable. However, the required flexibility with respect to whom to play with, and what styles to willingly play, may result in a series of part-time, punctuated work experience that can compromise the prospect of a viable music career over a lifetime. Fully two-thirds of interview participants say they think regularly about quitting music, and musicians over the age of 45 are notably underrepresented among the interviewees and difficult to find.

Participants who changed careers from music exemplify a wide spectrum of performance experiences, but the reasons offered for their departure centre on two principal themes: there was not enough income to support a family and/or they grew weary of prolonged periods of low income that did not adequately recognize and reward their specialized training and prolonged years of education. The constant pondering by interviewees of career change is consistent with findings about musicians in Australia and Europe (Abbing, 2002; Throsby and Hollister, 2003; Umney, 2016; Umney and Kretsos, 2014, 2015; Vaag et al., 2014; Zwaan et al., 2010). The most comprehensive understanding of musicians’ work demands consideration of the entire lived experience in such a precarious labour market, contextualized according to place.

Recent local developments appear to signal an impulse to further the professionalization of music that began in earnest in the 1990s. In 2019, Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Schools of Music and Business will launch a new degree programme combining music and business skills, purportedly to enhance employment prospects for its graduates (Memorial University of Newfoundland Gazette, 2018). Future research might examine the ways in which interrelationships between educational institutions and local musician organizations will impact the lives of artists. It would also be interesting to compare the stated experiences the St John’s musicians presented in this article with those of musicians in other cities. Many other Canadian music communities enjoy far easier mobile access to larger cities in North America than Newfoundland musicians. This is not to suggest that the daily costs of living in other communities is crucially different from those of St John’s, but the ability to travel abroad and across Canada more easily enables access to potentially lucrative markets and other funding sources. However, one upside to Newfoundland’s location for its resident musicians is that touring musicians from outside the province can find it challenging to come to Newfoundland, potentially creating more opportunities for local residents.

Even though the cultural landscape of St John’s makes this place unique in many ways, it is hoped that this research will lay some foundation for future comparative studies into the work of musicians elsewhere. The experiences of amateur musicians in Finnegan’s (2007) study bear striking comparisons to the musicians of this article, not least of which is the ambiguity of the work, characterized by frequent crossover from one style or band to another, multiple job-holding and preoccupation with the need to manage competition and conflict among musicians in a mid-sized city. The relatively small population of St John’s, offset by a high concentration of musical activity and a large population of musicians practising a wide range of styles, made this an ideal location for a detailed study of music career development and decision-making.

Musicians’ work is a clear example of open work and artists generally have been the forerunners of gig employment. An integral component of music work is balancing time and effort between the musician’s chosen vocation, often inadequately remunerated, and other employment deemed necessary to make ends meet, all while attempting to uphold professional standards of musicianship. Thus, literature that concentrates on the implications of precarious employment and the expanding gig economy will be well-served by attention to artists’ work, especially in the context of place of practice. It is hoped the findings from this article will bring into sharper focus the precarity of the work of professional musicians in smaller communities where professional and amateur musicians co-exist in close proximity, and will thereby more deeply inform scholarly understanding of creative and gig employment.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented in the XIXth International Sociological Association World Congress in Toronto, 15–21 July 2018. The authors thank Ailsa Craig, Christiane Schnell, Mark Stoddart and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The authors are also grateful to Judith Adler for her insight and guidance in the underlying research for this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

David Chafe is a freelance pianist, private music educator and recording artist in St John’s, Newfoundland. His doctoral thesis, Price of a Gift: Lives and Work of Professional Musicians in St John’s, Newfoundland, is a comprehensive study of the lives and career paths of dozens of local professional musicians, inspired by interactions with fellow musicians along his own career journey. He also holds Master of Music, Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Commerce degrees, all from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Lisa Kaida is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McMaster University. Her research interests include precarious employment, immigrant integration and the sociology of sports. Her recent articles on the labour market integration of immigrants and refugees and the geography of ice hockey talent development in Canada have appeared in Demography, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and International Review for the Sociology of Sport.

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