Five freelance musicians on making a living during the pandemic

There are many examples of freelancers making common cause as a community during what is, effectively, nearly a year of shutdown, from setting up fundraising initiatives to lobbying for government action.

This collective voice, however, is the product of many individual perspectives. We all, to echo the words of one freelancer interviewed for this article, have our distinct, individual struggles. It is vital that we don’t ignore these as the industry re-opens.

So what are the fears and wishes of freelance musicians for the future? What pitfalls (and opportunities) lie ahead? Can we learn anything from the temporary, tentative relaxation of restrictions between lockdowns in the autumn? How can the industry support musicians as individuals? We asked five freelance musicians to think ahead.

The Orchestra Extra is a regular extra player with several major UK orchestras.

I feel almost like I did when I finished college and I’ve been doing this job for so many years. I feel like there’s going to be a lot of competition between extras which is never nice, especially when you’re someone like me who’s a bit more quiet. Orchestras have got so used to using smaller bands that they might be thinking: do we need many extra players?

One or two were quite good at sending emails out to extras, saying that they hoped we were alright. But to be honest, that’s the only thing I’ve heard. Even just to hear from places would make you think: at least I’m in their thoughts, they are considering still using extras.

The last few years I have been probably 85% playing and 15% teaching. Now I’m 100% teaching, basically, and I don’t feel I can mess that school around. If orchestras are expecting just to phone up a player on the day, it’s going to be very difficult. People might start feeling: am I going to have to quit my teaching to do this gig?

The one thing I’ve never thought is training to do something else and not be a musician any more, and I know a lot of people have felt that they’ve had to. But I’ve really struggled to practise this year because every time I play I want to cry. I’m really trying to get back into that now: maybe putting a symphony on and finding the part on IMSLP and playing along, rather than playing Bach or some concerto. That’s not what I do in real life. I’m an orchestral player.

The Singer appears with various vocal groups, performing internationally and in the UK.

There was already a real problem of accessibility in a lot of the industry: people who can afford to take the risk of becoming freelance musicians or spend years studying and not earning. There were already and there will be more people who are pushed out of the industry, and it won’t necessarily be the most talented or the people who have worked hardest who make it through.

When the industry re-opens, all the things that are familiar stress factors in freelance lifestyle at the best of times are going to be hugely amplified by the financial pressure that people are under. Even though there was a flurry of work in the autumn, it was a very deceptive flurry and there was a lot less work than there normally is around. The trouble comes when you have a much reduced amount of work available, especially with everything being so visible online: that terrible thing of zooming in to photographs to see who is in your place. That will be the case again starting up. The first concert I did after lockdown, I put a post about it because from my point of view that was a really hopeful thing for the whole industry. But after that I deliberately have not posted anything. I’m fully aware that there will be colleagues sitting at home, going: my phone’s not ringing, I’m not working…

The scene will be different, some things will survive and other things won’t. Even though the process of those disappearing is extremely uncomfortable, it potentially opens up the way actually to look at the landscape and think: what do we want to build up now?

The Chamber Musician is a member of an award-winning ensemble and is involved with various other collaborative projects.

My chamber music partners all have their own individual struggles and we can’t really get together to play in the last two months. Everyone in my group wants to make a recording now because that’s about the only productive thing we can do during lockdown. In terms of performing again, we are taking a wait-and-see approach. A lot of concerts got postponed so it doesn’t make sense now to try to plan new concerts – do the ones that got cancelled first. Maybe we are a bit stoic about it and we know we just have to wait.

We got into the rhythm of getting concerts for every season, talking to the promoters and concert halls. But we can’t rely on that as much now. We have to be proactive in creating our own opportunities, always thinking about partnerships and collaborations – and not only those within music. Within classical music there’s a lot of status quo and ideas about how one is supposed to develop a career, but this pandemic has revealed the weakness.

Something I’ve been thinking about is the need for community. If you’re travelling, you’re less connected with one place and its community. But music can happen anywhere. We should celebrate local musicians and give them the respect they deserve, because they contribute to that area. The idea of the local will become more important. For the first time maybe in London or in big cities we are realising if we truly have a community and nice neighbours!

The Conductor is a choral music specialist working with various ensembles and as a project director.

You ask about thinking ahead and not reflecting too much on the situation as it is: I’m quite happy not to reflect on the situation as it is, as it happens!

I know a lot of people who are keeping some kind of practice ticking over, but for professional musicians it’s very difficult to find the motivation to engage with the process in a really meaningful way when there’s no outlet or recompense for the time spent. As for the amateur singers that I work with, I’m having to help them maintain some kind of vocal fitness – a huge amount of groundwork will need to be put back in when activities resume. Expecting rehearsal skills to be switched on and finely tuned immediately… that’s another big ask. Hopefully people can at least be kind – to themselves and each other – because the last thing we need is musicians fighting over scraps of work and inadvertently pushing fees down.

Before the pandemic, I was not alone in enjoying presenting one-hour concerts without an interval. I also quite like getting two for one: integrating the music and the social aspect, mixing the musicians and the audience on a more personal level – social distancing notwithstanding! I think that’s the way things will need to go when things start to open up.

For now, I feel the momentum of my career has been interrupted; I don’t know if it’ll be able to restart at this juncture. But I feel lucky at least to have done the things I have done. For young performers coming out of music college at this point, with another cohort close behind, it must be incredibly difficult.

The Postgraduate Student is on an instrumental performance course at a conservatoire in London while freelancing as a performer and teacher.

Even though there are many pathways in music, especially for the performance element, they have become even less certain as a result of the ongoing pandemic. It has encouraged me to focus on the other parts of music-making that are a little bit easier to keep building in these circumstances. Teaching has proved to be a bit more consistent and worth investing in.

It also has revealed a lot of problems within the music industry. What worries me is the industry is heading towards this subscription model. We see it in Spotify, we see it in Netflix and other platforms like that. But this change is not led by the artists, it’s led by the organisations in charge and that is a bit of a dangerous game. There’s a lot of emphasis on sponsorship and making donations, but how about we make a culture where it’s another trade that’s respected?

Initially I wasn’t too fazed by the future; I think we all felt that it was not going to last such a long time. As time has gone on, the uncertainty can be quite overwhelming. I guess the only way to carry on hoping is to be proactive in bringing a change. I love supporting others; I always repost their content. From my experience, other people could consider doing more of that. It can make a difference and let the artist know that somebody cares. And I love being part of a conversation. It makes you feel that you are at least doing something, especially in this idle time.