How many musicians are there

Organizational affiliation can give us a rough sense of the population size s , but limited access to membership information, the difficulty in estimating organizational overlap, and non-universal enrollment each weaken the value of this strategy as a proxy for population size.

If organizational affiliation is too vague, then perhaps the best source for these numbers is the US government. According to the BLS May report, there were 25, music directors and composers and 42, musicians and singers in the US.

These numbers also seem low, especially when compared to the ballpark number of composers listed above, or to the number of AFM and AFTRA recording artist members in the US, which is over 90, Why the enormous discrepancy? It might be because BLS OES data — by definition — does not include self-employed workers see footnote 1 on any recent report , which we know many musicians and composers are. Indeed, outside of salaried player work or faculty teaching positions, almost all musicians and composers are self-employed.

The US Census and publishes updates every five years. Government statistics have some value because they are reliably collected over time.

Chart generated based on series report from BLS. The chart below shows BLS employment estimates for two more specific categories: music directors and composers red line and musicians and singers orange line over the past fourteen years. Why the unexplained jump in music directors and composers around ? This could be explained by: a the tiny sample sizes that the BLS uses to extrapolate these kinds of counts for the whole population, which makes the estimates of the number of people in just one particular profession somewhat volatile; b some kind of change in methodology — the fact that BLS is reporting a three-year moving average suggests a huge jump from the number to the number; c some combination of the two; or d something else.

As with the other strategies, examining government data can give you a sense of the size and changes over time, but the fact that BLS OES data does not included self-employed musicians makes it likely that the published number is far lower than reality. Nielsen reported that, in , there were 76, albums that sold at least one copy.

The Pollstar website currently lists over 14, acts. These is a helpful indicator of the number of active touring bands and artists, but it would take a significant manual labor to account for the number of musician members in each band in the directory.

Then there are the music aggregators and data sites. There are many thousands of artists using TuneCore client numbers not published. But the bigger issue with using these sites as a measurement of the musician population is that they tend to leave out: 1 the composers and songwriters who do not play live or tour; 2 salaried orchestra players who have no need for a booking agent, manager or aggregator; and 3 session players and freelancers. Commercial directories and databases can be helpful in measuring certain aspects of the music ecosystem, but none is designed to count musicians.

As with the other data sources, they help us understand the approximate size, but are insufficient serving as a reliable population number. When we were building out the protocol for the Artist Revenue Streams project, we confronted and wrestled with each of these problems. Should it be based on hours worked, income, recording or composing credits, memberships, professional training, label affiliations?

In the end, we decided that our survey would only be limited by two criteria: 1 survey takers needed to be US citizens or residents, and 2 they needed to be 18 years of age or older. Those who did not meet both of those criteria exited the survey after the second question.

The remainder of the survey asked questions that helped us to build specific population strata. So, how many musicians are there in the US? Even after months of work, we do not know the true size of this population beyond rough estimates because of the very issues outlined in this article. We suspect that it will always be difficult to know the actual size of this dynamic population. This session defines unconscious bias, investigates why it is inherent in us all and how we can recognise and deal with it at work.

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Explore the benefits Join now. Let's make it happen. Quick links. News and features. Published: 09 November Published: 08 November Beethoven, like many living in the s, had many illnesses and poor medical treatment, and there is limited consensus surrounding the exact cause of his hearing loss.

Some speculate it was due to illness or lesion of the inner ear, others suggest lead poisoning. Beethoven still tried to perform and conduct long after many thought he should. In fact, when his Ninth Symphony premiered, Beethoven insisted on conducting. However, the orchestra knew he was not in the condition to conduct and hired another conductor to stand next to Beethoven.

By , she could no longer hear out of her left ear. Harvey has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome , a genetic disorder, and hearing loss as a result of the syndrome. Harvey went to Colorado State University to pursue a degree in vocal music education.

It was during this time that she lost the rest of her hearing. She left school for some time and reported suffering from depression. In , another famed Canadian singer-songwriter, Neil Young, and the band Crazy Horse released a live concert album titled Weld. However, while mixing the live album, Young said it affected his hearing. At one point, Young decided to stop recording for a few years. His hearing loss also changed his creative path. Young cites his hearing loss as the reason for a creative shift towards the more ambient sound seen in his seminal album Harvest Moon.

Pete now wears hearing aids and uses a special hearing monitor while performing. Pete has suffered from hearing loss since the 80s — opting to perform using an acoustic guitar behind a glass partition for the majority off the set during a reunion tour. In , Townshend was forced to leave the stage as the onstage volume was too loud. Hailing from Detroit, Sean Forbes is a deaf American rapper, activist, and speaker, who uses music to champion deaf awareness and Deaf culture.

I like to tell people that I became deaf because I was playing music too loud.