Ive been playing at this local blues club for zip zero nothing for the past 3 weekends.  I think maybe I just love playing for the love of playing.

It's been an extremely interesting thread, not least for the fact that most people have been so honest about what they are paid.

A principal player in Czech Republic would get the equivalent of about $34,000 a year, a "rank and file" player anything from $24-28,000 which, as I understand, is considerably less than major American symphony orchestras (don't know about the smaller provincial orchestras in America).  We have a minimum union rate of about $30 for three hour rehearsal and as a "staff" player you do not play/rehearse more than 44 hours a week.  However, staff appointments always include a modest pension as well.

Cost of living is much less than in America, of course, although constantly increasing.  However, for example you can get a good quality five room apartment for $200 a month and a really high quality restaurant meal for $6-7 a head..so I suppose it is all very relevant. (And PROPER Budweiser is still only about 50c a pint!)

English musicians don't get paid as well as America either.  The BBC, for example, pay about £45-50,000 for a principal and as little as £18-20,000 for someone at no 14 in the violins.  Pay in the provincial orchestras is a lot less.

As a result all these "staff" musicians have to do a lot of additional freelance work and I have friends in London orchestras regularly doing 80-90 hours a week.

However, in England if they do recording work they sometimes get repeat fees....which we don't.  In the Czech Republic we only get paid on a recording if we actually play on it: I believe some of the American symphony orchestras have a deal whereby everyone on the staff list gets paid even if, for example, they are doing Barber: Adagio for Strings.  Good luck to them for getting such a good deal but in recent years it has (I think) bounced back on them: a lot of American work now comes to the Czech Republic and Russia because we are so much cheaper.

In general musical terms, I feel guilty about this but it is out of my hands and there is nothing I can do about it.    We are now, in turn, losing work to Russia because they are so desperate that they are only charging an absolute minimum fee for rehearsal...like $100 for an 80-piece orchestra!  

Of course music is heavily subsidised in the Czech Republic (and seat prices give everyone the opportunity of symphony/opera/ballet)....for some concerts you can still get "last minute" seats at some performances for about $1.  

I think classical/opera/ballet is a cultural asset to every country and a very good "advertisement" for that country.  American/English orchestras always get a good reception in the Czech Republic as we always have when we have toured.

So far as I can tell the best conditions for symphonic musicians are in Scandinavia.  There they are limited to a maximum of 34 hours a week (rehearsing/performance) and as a result usually have three principals for every instrument, for example.  They are paid about the same as America top orchestras I believe although I think the cost of living is also very high.

They get a special State Pension if they are "staff" musicians (which I think is non-contributory) and the Scandinavian countries pour money into music because they believe it is a cultural advertisement.  In Norway, the Simax CD label is state owned......it's a government way of promoting Norway.  

Recently a Scandinavian orchestra came to Prague and included Nielsen 4 (the symphony with the famous "battle" between two sets of timpani in the last movement) and for the first time in my life I saw a performance in which both timpanists were girls.  They played brilliantly.....it was absolutely thrilling...and found time to laugh at each other across the stage during theirbattle.

It was what music should be about....musicians having FUN at what they do.  It was marvellous to watch!

In the classical field we need to let our hair down a lot more (I let my hair down metaphorically because most of it has gone) if we are to encourage people to take an interest in it.  I'm not an elitist person in any way at all and always thrill to good drumming in any genre but we certainly need to promote symphony/opera/ballet because I can say that in Czech Republic and England fewer and fewer players are interested in classical repertoire.  

Knowing my repertoire, I think we can set pulses racing but we need to attract lots more people to come and listen to it and show them what we can do.  Universally, I think it is so important that it needs proper government help.

The most "important" thing I do is working in schools.  They are there to be "hooked" I believe: most kids love percussion and my huge Victorian ladies (timpani) fascinate them.  To see a kid pick up a stick and hit one of them and then to see the smile that goes across the face of that child as what THEY have just created booms out to everyone is a hell of a kick to me and if I hook just "one" of them to some future rock band.....that's fine by me.  

I always give them a clap.....whatever we play, whatever we do, whether we do pub/church if we are honest...we like people to clap.

We also mostly die poor but what the hell as Americans say.

Sheesh (I know some of the words you see) but I regret I cannot stand either Root Beer or Peanut Butter but the best performance of Fanfare for the Common Man I have ever heard was by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra with Mr Cherry as the timpanist.  


Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins