There’s a new grant to help musicians build sustainable careers. But there’s a catch

There comes an awkward point in a musician’s career when you are successful enough to call yourself a professional, but not quite successful enough to make a living from it. The glamour of professional musicianship often involves teaching all day, performing at the weekend, sending out three invoices on Sunday and spending Monday wondering whether any of them will ever be paid. 

Into this glamorous financial ecosystem comes some genuinely good news. Arts Council England’s new Music Creators Growth Fund offers grants of between £10,000 and £20,000 to help musicians build sustainable careers. There is just one small problem: to receive the money that could help make your career sustainable, you first need to demonstrate that quite a lot of that career already exists.

Applicants must have at least three years of active music creation behind them and have earned at least £5,000 from music creation in one full financial year within the past three. Teaching does not count towards that figure. They are also expected to have professional support – perhaps a manager, publisher, record label, agent or lawyer – or explain how they access equivalent advice and networks without a formal team. Projects also require at least 25% of the total budget to come in cash from somewhere other than Arts Council England.  

Taken individually, these requirements are perfectly understandable. Public money is limited, and a growth fund needs evidence that there is something capable of growing. But you can probably see the circle forming. You need money to prove that your career is ready for money. And increasingly, you need another skill too: the ability to sell yourself. 

When I was training professionally as a violinist, practising for six hours a day was nothing out of the ordinary. That was the deal. If you wanted to become very good at something extraordinarily difficult, you devoted an extraordinary amount of time to it.

What nobody managed to add to the day were the extra hours required to become your own publicist. A young musician today might practise, rehearse, attend lessons, teach to pay the bills and take gigs to finance their own concerts or recordings. On top of that, they somehow need a website, a network of contacts, a recognisable online presence and an instinct for what people might actually click on. 

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Conservatoires increasingly teach students about entrepreneurship, self-promotion and building a professional profile. This is sensible preparation for the industry they are entering. It is also telling that these skills have become such an integral part of the job. A phenomenally talented violinist will not necessarily be a phenomenally talented salesperson. A brilliant composer might be hopeless at Instagram. The modern musician is increasingly expected to play like Mozart, network like a publicist and market themselves like a small business. Preferably before lunchtime. 

Social media has undoubtedly broken down some old barriers. Musicians no longer necessarily have to wait for an agent, record label or promoter to decide that they deserve an audience. Someone overlooked by the traditional music establishment can reach thousands of listeners from their bedroom. But removing one gatekeeper is not quite the same thing as removing the gate. Visibility can itself become a barrier. 

The old system was hardly a golden age. Classical music has always depended on patronage, connections and people willing to open doors. But we have not abolished the need for connections. Increasingly, we have transferred responsibility for making them onto the musicians themselves. There is nothing new about musicians piecing together a living. Mozart taught. Beethoven taught. John Field – the 19th century pianist to whom I have devoted a frankly disproportionate amount of my life – taught. The portfolio career is practically a musical tradition. 

What has changed is the amount of entrepreneurial work that now sits alongside the music. Once, the dream was to be discovered. Increasingly, being discoverable is part of the job. That is precisely why the Growth Fund should be welcomed. It recognises something romantic ideas about artistic careers often overlook: talent does not pay for recording sessions, instruments, rehearsal rooms, travel or promotion. Careers need capital. But the musicians just below its threshold matter too. We hear about the young artist who finds an audience online, secures management and makes their breakthrough. The years spent teaching, gigging and financing the work that eventually got them noticed are considerably less glamorous. 

Perhaps the question is not whether musicians should learn to promote themselves. In today’s industry, of course they should. The question is how much entrepreneurial ability we are prepared to mistake for artistic potential. The next extraordinary musician may be practising while everybody else is posting. We should make sure we can still hear them. 

Stacy Jarvis is a musicologist, professional violinist, writer and broadcaster

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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