> …how thousands of players are supporting themselves and their > families with their music…
Let's not get too optimistic here. How many players actually support themselves and the families with their music? There may be a lot of players, but for most of us it's a hobby that occasionally pays some dividends. But I would guess that the number of ones who actually support themselves and their families exclusively from playing HG can be counted on your fingers (or maybe your fingers and your toes). The number of semi-professionals who make decent supplementary income probably doesn't break 100. Most of the rest of us won't ever make enough to pay back our investment in the instrument, but that's not why we do it in the first place. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'd lay money on it that there are not "thousands of players" making a career out of it. So, while I'll agree about close-minded professors, etc., even as a pretty serious enthusiast* I'd be hard pressed to recommend "professional hurdy-gurdy player" as a career option to a young musician unless said young musician fully realized that there are vanishingly few regular jobs for HG and that the only reason to do it is for love -- because the money is certainly not a reason to choose it as a career. *I'm working on a doctoral degree about the revival of HGs in Hungary at the IU Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, so I think I can safely call myself serious. -Arle --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
