If anything, being a firefighter with a history major is commendable. Segue into a joke about the Library of Alexandria if they ask you about it.

I grew up racing motorcycles. I do a lot of 2-wheel stuff; mountain bikes, recently dabbled in BMX, and if I could, I’d still race motocross. The financial requirements of that are wild though, so I’m using these non-engined outlets to cope lol. My job is fine; it’s not going to get me to a point where I can race again, but I’m not actively seeking it at this point, and the alternatives are pretty nice anyway.

I mean…yeah, this is kind of what it looks like. You find outlets eventually. It only being a “hobby” is not a positive or a negative. Get what you want from it; do you want it to be your every day thing? There are ways to work into some commercial music work; it’s not great pay or easy, but that’s the requirement. No bachelor’s needed. But I don’t think I’d want to monetize anything in the professional sense. I don’t think people get into their hobbies for the great pay, but for what it provides. If you get into music, it isn’t going to be glamorous unless you are lucky. It might not even bring financial stability. It’s also not going to just be sitting with your thoughts and writing music; lot of marketing and self-promotion, lot of putting yourself out there to hope that people resonate with it. Lot of very long days, weeks, months, with 0 guarantee of a pay-off.

A lot of people think being comfortable is settling, and in a sense, it may be that. But it’s also where a lot of people exist for a reason. I look at it as you could either raise your floor and have a lower ceiling for “true” happiness, or lower your floor and have a taller ceiling, so you have a wider range. There is no promise that you will be at the ceiling, or near it, or even above your current floor. May fluctuate wildly, you may have a very slow, steady climb. No one knows.

Firefighters also get a sweet pension to my understanding. Idk your age, but I assume late 30’s to 40’s, and you’re staring a decent retirement in the face in the next 10 years. Lot of life left to fit in there as well, and what would be a measurably comfortable one at that. Just a stranger on the internets opinion though!

Don’t monetize your passion. Nine times out of ten, you will either starve or grow to hate that passion, and then you’ll have no passion for anything. In the case of music, pick your genre. Think of how many artists you know in that genre. Think of how many of them are making a living at it. Now imagine the number of people making music in that genre you’ve never heard of. Do searches on YouTube or streaming services for your type of music and see how many of them you recognize or have even heard of.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to make it, assuming you have at least a modicum of talent and a lot of industry connections, but it’s not probable enough to bank your future on.

Bonus round: of the people in your genre who have made it big, how many went to a school specifically for music?

Enjoy your time making and learning music. If you want to get better to enjoy playing more, seek some instruction on form or technique. Just have fun with it. Do some open mic nights. Make a band with some friends. Magic some videos of you playing on the internet.

Find something else to make money with. Do a budget to see how much money you need to make to live and be healthy. Not rich, but happy. Start seeing what professions can make you that kind of money. Do work you can stand to fund the things you enjoy.

I’m not in your shoes, but I gotta be honest, of all the useless jobs out there, firefighter is not one of them. I’m not trying to tell you you should find it fulfilling, simply that in my eyes at least, it’s a worthy role.

I write and release music. It’s not spectacular music, but it’s mine and I give each track my best before I send it off into the world. It earns me dust; I do not expect to ever make any kind of meaningful pay from it, and that’s fine because I don’t do it to make money. I do it because it’s in me to do it, because I love the craft, and I love the challenges of learning audio engineering and production.

In a past life I was actually a professional musician. I made money playing, giving lessons, conducting, a tiny bit from writing but not much…and as fun as that was it’s really a grueling lifestyle with lots of time away from home and I don’t have it in me to do that anymore. And no one wants to see my squishy dad bod prancing around on stage.

Now I work a quiet job in a materials testing lab. I spend my day torturing little pieces of metal and my evenings in my studio at home. Only one or two people at work know about my former life as a musician and are aware of the music I record. Most people just see me as the little happy lab rat that I am and I’m completely okay with that.

I’m a photographer, at least I think I am. Others think of me anywhere from a photographer to a clueless bumbling monkey with a camera, recording visuals at random. It’s polarizing.

My work hangs in my house, the houses of others, and a few businesses, and I’m incredibly proud of it. Despite the warnings of career photographers telling me to have humility and to be quieter about my work, I’m not going to. I like my work and want to share it with people.

I work 9-5 and in the evenings and weekends I admin, rehearse and perform comedy, music, thestre

I have a bachelors of fine arts in painting, and I’m dang good at it. I even have two portraits I painted of Patrick Mahomes that he signed and resold at his charity galas, so somewhere on this planet two of my paintings bear the signature of the world’s premier athlete.

I’m a working artist and I get 15-20 commissions a year, but it’s not my main job, and I’m fortunate to have a primary job that I enjoy, pays really well, and has benefits.

I wouldn’t have that if I were primarily focused on being an artist.

I also like that, as an artist, I have no one to answer to and my vision is my own, because I hate the gallery system. Mainly, though, I hate how much harder its become for the art community in general, with people losing jobs to AI Slop, arts endowments being cut or eliminated, and tuition for art school skyrocketing. The reason I didn’t go for my masters was that my graduate TA’s in art school had come from big schools in NY, Chicago, and LA with six-figure debt and they were making $20,000 a year teaching college courses.

If I shill mine again so soon you guys are going to shoot me. But I make knives because I think it’s neat and I enjoy being able to create something both useful and tangible, especially in this era of trying to turn every fucking thing into “AI.”

It is staggeringly unlikely I’ll ever be able to find enough buyers in my particular niche to quit my day job, and even if I do I’d doubt I’d be able to crank out product fast enough. That’s still not stopping me from doing it, though. You couldn’t stop me, even with a brick wall.

Pursue music in your free time as a way to get out of it all and if you find yourself spending a lot of time on it, try finding other people who do too, join together and see where it takes you, but don’t quit the firefighting job. It’s a noble thing, and if it covers you financially I feel like its the perfect setup for slowly advancing your musical skills.

I think so, unfortunately. Please keep your financial stability. The music major route is either teaching or performance, and you’ll probably just end up with side gigs if you’re not doing either. That may be a fun outlet if you’re not committed to performance or academics, but if your regular job and domestic life are already taking all of your time, it doesn’t sound feasible. I had to make a similar decision regarding a performance major many years ago, and I regret not keeping up with playing for fun outside of the intense academic environment. My overall advice: Keep playing! Seek out private lessons in the meantime and see what happens (not the collegiate route quite yet, since that’s a separate career commitment and very intense). Keep on doing the thing that brings you joy.