So what do you guys do for a living?

Musician, multi instrumentalist, studio player, teacher, part time repairer, mpc refacer, sometimes labourer, painter, etc.........If you play music full time, have cd's out or play on others cd's you still need to find a regualr income whilst you wait for the cheques to come in. Teaching is the bread and butter income for any pro musician with a family. Gone are the days when you could live on gigs alone.

You may still be able to do this if your wife works but the grief that this brings to the relationship is immense. I have seen far too many of these types of relationships break down usually due to pressure being applied to the party who isn't doing their full share of bringing home enough cash.

The glory days of being able to live as a musician only are long since gone. Fame and glory are but there for a short time but bills, kids, mortgages last for a long time. (at the moment it feels like it will go on forever).

Bootman said:

Gone are the days when you could live on gigs alone.

You may still be able to do this if your wife works but the grief that this brings to the relationship is immense. I have seen far too many of these types of relationships break down usually due to pressure being applied to the party who isn't doing their full share of bringing home enough cash.

The glory days of being able to live as a musician only are long since gone. Fame and glory are but there for a short time but bills, kids, mortgages last for a long time. (at the moment it feels like it will go on forever).

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Jazzitup you'd be wise to take Bootman's advise to heart. There's a mountain of wisdom and real world experience in his post.

The other side of the coin would be to live like myself. Never have any kids, never marry or even think of doing that, no car payments, small house payment and no responsibilities to speak of. I still make a good living running a hospital lab by myself at night as a med tech, so I don't have to do without, but still I prefer to keep my life as simple as possible to make time for practicing and sitting in on jams and really enjoying music as opposed to turning it into a daily scuffle to pay the bills.

The only thing that matters is if you really want to play music bad enough. Even if you have a full time job you can find a profession where you have really good hours that are compatible with playing music. There's no reason that someone with a regular job couldn't live a simple life like I mentioned earlier in my post with minimal responsibilities and really do a great job of being a musician as well. As far as getting signed that all depends on what you have to offer. If you want to be signed as a straight jazzman you'd better get used to practicing 10 hours a day. Some of the other more popular styles could be more attractive to a music company, but even then you're going to have to show something pretty unique as an instrumentalist.