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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Especially given that post-tax you would be making only a little bit more as an entry level software engineer.
I doubt that very much. $100/day post-tax = $36500, pre-tax is't about $42000. If you're making anywhere close to $42000/year as an entry level software engineer in SF, you're doing it wrong. Even entry level folks should be able to start at double that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was a kid (early 90s) learning to play the violin those Strads cost under a million. Since then their price has rocketed just like every other tangible which has become a hotly contested investment asset. It's sad because it makes these things less and less likely to get played and more likely to end up in a vault. Good to see at least a handful of them in use out there.
There's a list of all known Stradivarius instruments on Wikipedia and it's actually nice to see that quite a good number of them are made available to musicians via loan programs or specific bequests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stradivarius_instrumen...
Here is a video of Joshua Bell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell ) playing a 3.5 million dollar violin in the subway for 45 minutes and making $32: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnOPu0_YWhw
Well, obviously it doesn't matter how expensive your violin is, or how good you are at your music genre -- it's about how popular the genre/tune is, and when busking, how likable you are (plus, putting on a good entertaining show, with emphasis on the "show" part, e.g. not subtle classical skills).
I find it saddening that so few people care for culture that he and his peers have even had to consider busking, instead of playing formally at a concert.
In my limited experience, places where there is more interest in erudite music also have more people busking, not less, since there are more players overall.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that very much. $100/day post-tax = $36500, pre-tax is't about $42000. If you're making anywhere close to $42000/year as an entry level software engineer in SF, you're doing it wrong. Even entry level folks should be able to start at double that.
Commenter therein did not specify the locale of the entry-level software engineer. Busking is much, much more reliant on locale than programming.
I find it saddening that so few people care for culture that he and his peers have even had to consider busking, instead of playing formally at a concert.
I don't understand why you think that even in a place where lots of people care about culture one can simply decide to play at a concert whenever they want, especially if they are still students. And he specifically says he's busking as an alternative to practicing at home, not as an alternative to playing at a concert. In my limited experience, places where there is more interest in erudite music also have more peop…
And yes, you're also correct that for some instruments, concerts are not easy to come by. Our orchestra has a wait list of 70 flutes! Our #1 organizational challenge is figuring out how to provide more performance opportunities to more people in a financially sustainable way.
(Incidentally, I have seen one solo flautist busking in Powell Station. He was a high school student.)
One of our favourites was the Mozart Organ Sonatas. We generally made enough money to buy beers at the end of the evening.
I guess my biggest memory was the time we started playing in front of Au Bon Pain when we just started out. I thought we were doing OK until some guy, with a grim fierce smile, took out a fistful of pennies and chucked them, one at a time, into the violin case. Apparently we had taken over the spot where a much-loved group regularly played. He made it more than obvious that we were not welcome there. We had no idea there was politics involved!
We moved on quickly, with our tails between our legs.
One of the nicest things we got was a sketch by a local artist. It's still got pride of place in my violin case.