Comment by encomiast | Hacker News Reader

Comment by encomiast | Hacker News Reader

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I understand your point. Music is one of those careers, like professional athlete, that make parents cringe when optimistic children announce an intention to pursue it. Your numbers are off (the base pay of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last time I checked was around $200k) and there ~30 violinists in that orchestra alone. But it's not an order of magnitude.

But just because the numbers are small doesn't mean society does not support them. There just isn't a need for a lot of them. It would be like saying society does not support professional athletes. Clearly it does, but only at the highest level. And at that level, it supports the very well.

> Snark noted, though I have no earthly idea why you felt it necessary

I apologize. I come from this world, have close friends in major orchestras and experience on the world's opera stages. This culture is full of shibboleths: referring to works as "songs", clapping in the wrong place, hell, even pronouncing 'Don Giovanni' the same way you pronounce "Don Draper" lets people know you are not from around here.

Oddly enough I'm one of those parents. Yes, I cringed, but at the same time I would also have cringed at watching them go into something they hate just for the money. I've seen that too.

An observation I made is that the tournament career system is supported by the entire cadre of players and families, of the kids who won't win one of the prize jobs. One reason is we just don't know which 18 year olds will rise to the level needed to win a symphonic audition a decade later. I've always been ambivalent about this, but don't have a good idea for how to reform it.

I majored in math and physics. My parents didn't cringe, at least quite so much. I became, quite honestly, a mediocre physicist at a time when you had to be a research superstar to apply for a tenure track job at a third rate college. The consolation for me was that a mediocre physicist could still earn a decent living doing something in industry, and I'm now at a late stage of a satisfying career.

I also work on the side as a jazz bassist.

>at a time when you had to be a research superstar to apply for a tenure track job at a third rate college.

Is it any less competitive now?

Possibly more competitive. I got my degree in the early 90s. Good point.

Conservatory kid parent reporting here too. At least I live in a country where there is likely a job for him, even if he shouldn't win out against all the other extremely determined classical piano students.

But society in general does not really support professional athletes in any directed “conservatory” sense, beyond the weird obsession with college sports in the USA.

Corporate sponsorship pays the bigger amounts: that is a side job with its own commitments. Prize money: by definition not available to most.

Directed pay is a tiny fraction of it (stipend level), even at the highest levels.

Athletes have other jobs.

Again: a bad model for mathematicians. None of them are going to be signing merch deals. Most aren’t winning prizes. I am afraid that mathematicians are just going to have to keep doing all the other jobs they already do.

> But society in general does not really support professional athletes in any directed “conservatory” sense, beyond the weird obsession with college sports in the USA.

At least some countries have programs where (candidate) Olympians get professional support and a stipend.

See for example https://www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/how-u..., https://www.dosb.de/en/themen/athletes/services-for-athletes

A country like Spain has a formal system of grants and awards for athletes designated as "elite" and supports them roughly at the same pay as it supports junior university professors.

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