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i begin to think who am i ? who i want to be ? a flamenco player or working in multinational company as i do now in project mangment? is it reasnable what am doing to work to make money to buy a guitar with 4000 euro and i am nt a proffesional , and even i can t find a time more than 2 hours daily to practice and not always i do... is flamenco and guitar is adicetion or it is just a hobby ? i think it has something related to the spirit or what ? who we want to be ?and who we are ?please my friends i think we ve shared alot of experiances togther and happiness and good moments so if someone wants to share plz do, i am sure that there is thousands thinking like me ...plz share .. i want to be sure that i am fine.... do u belive that if i ve a date with good chica i can leave her date without hisitating to go and see a reyes guitarra or conde or....etc.... am i ok ?...
RE: earning money for flamenco (in reply to Guest)
Adiction, pure and simple. There's also a lot of romancing in the head and seeing things as you imagine them to be without seeing things as they are. But it's great fun and a fine distraction.
Posts: 243
Joined: Jul. 29 2003
From: San Diego, CA
RE: earning money for flamenco (in reply to Guest)
doublekk2,
The others are right, it is an addiction, music has become so developed, it takes a lot of time to learn to play well. And flamenco has moved into a class of its own, with the rhythms, palo types, learning to accompany dance, voice and/or solo. I have come to believe that one almost cannot play at the highest level and hold down a full time career aside. There is just simply too much to learn.
I went through the same ordeal with myself during the past say 4 or 5 years. I couldn't sleep at night, and would wake up and listen to music, all the time knowinig that what I was hearing others play was what I felt I was supposed to be doing. Like you, I worked in a highly technical field (brain research) and when the $hit hit the fan for me, I decided to give it a whirl doing music full time.
I have been very successful, especially for lining up so many gigs the first year, I think other musicians would have been REALLY blown away. I think I made slightly over $14 thousand USD last year, I expect to top $40 thousand this year. There are some things that make it work here, because San Diego has a large Mexican population who see flamenco not as their own, but as something highly regarded within their own culture, as many of them trace some ancestry through Spain, and they see flamenco on Mexican television and have concerts yearly in most evey major city, Paco de Lucia even has lived in Mexico for long stretches. Many homes here are built in semi Spanish style and as you'll see below, we host a lot of groups from around the county and around the world who do events here.
We have a large, and growing event industry which hosts hundreds of conventions, books hotels, organizes every kind of festival and party imaginable. I made it my job to get very well networked in with the profesionals who organize those events, from restaurants, to hotels, to destination management companies, to various organizations at several universities, to political party organizers, to small and large businesses, to a few great agents who represent many musicians, to wedding professionals like wedding coordinators, caterers, food and beverage directors at hotels, architects, legal associations, technology associations, building associations, interior designers, real estate agents who sell luxury homes, night clubs, golf clubs, singles clubs, art galleries, museums, photographers, sculptors and others who all know I am easy to work with and don't screw around. Once every few months I send email to about 900 people I have networked with or who have hired me directly to let them know where I am playing if it's a public event, and to wish them happy holidays, invite them to photographic showings, etc. I also go to different networking events, to just keep meeting more and more people, and I look for opportunities for them too, referring them to people they want to do business with. I almost got a tip to a luxury real estate agent for a ~$10 million estate that unfortunately was already up for sale when I told her it was going to market. That would have meant a lot of money for her.
It can be done, but you have to be relaxed but always looking for more opportunities, always on time, always look clean and professional, always be flexible, always make sure you have good equipment so you sound good, always be friendly, always try to look for opportunities for others, in short just be professional and people will hire you. Make a nice business card, a nice website with sound files and get networked with all the event organizers.
I don't know where you live, but one thing is that you must be near a big city so you have all these resources available. It won't work in a small town.
Read the Pathifinder to figure out if you have most of the personality traits you need to make it as a musician.
Read the Self Promoting Musician to get some very intelligent suggestions on how to get gigs.
Then work your @$$ off to make it happen - it works, I can tell you.
Another thing, I don't screw around taking other guitarists gigs. In fact, I went a lot of other places they probably never even thought to go. I keep a list of 10, flamenco and classical guitarists who are reliable and don't screw around on the job to recommend, so in fact most of them only benefit from me being friendly competition. I refer other guitarists all the time because I get asked to do 2 and 3 gigs on the same night sometimes.
I left a biotech company and am not looking back.
If you can pull it together to not screw around, have an hours worth of material to play without repeating, I bet you can do it.
Don't spend the rest of your life wondering, just do it.
Posts: 2277
Joined: Apr. 17 2007
From: South East England
RE: earning money for flamenco (in reply to Paleto)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Paleto
I couldn't sleep at night, and would wake up and listen to music,
You know hearing that's huge relief to me. Since I started learning flamenco guitar I've been completely wired. I'm sleeping really badly - keep waking up in the night with different rhythms and fingering going round and round in my head. Can't concentrate on anything for long without some falsetta or other popping into my mind. I may be going nuts, but at least I'm not the only one!
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i begin to think who am i ? who i want to be ? a flamenco player or working in multinational company as i do now in project mangment? is it reasnable what am doing to work to make money to buy a guitar with 4000 euro and i am nt a proffesional , and even i can t find a time more than 2 hours daily to practice and not always i do... is flamenco and guitar is adicetion or it is just a hobby ? i think it has something related to the spirit or what ? who we want to be ?and who we are ?please my friends i think we ve shared alot of experiances togther and happiness and good moments so if someone wants to share plz do, i am sure that there is thousands thinking like me ...plz share .. i want to be sure that i am fine.... do u belive that if i ve a date with good chica i can leave her date without hisitating to go and see a reyes guitarra or conde or....etc.... 
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