"In The City Where Nobody Cares", 1908 Silver gelatin print, Print Archives, Museum of the City of New York (One of the many hit songs of Charles K. Harris)

Survival in New York City or How To Hang On Until You Have Arrived Some day jobs are better than others.

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A young orchestral player usually emerges from a conservatory with the goal of landing a job in a symphony orchestra. The more arrogant students plan to step immediately into the New York Philharmonic or the Philadelphia Orchestra. Once in a while someone actually succeeds! Since the Juilliard School of Music moved downtown to Lincoln Center, you could conceivably take your diploma, walk across the bridge to Philharmonic Hall and assume your new duties.

Most of us are not that fortunate. It used to be a reasonable plan to audition for a chair in a bush league symphony for a few years and then try to move up to a fine orchestra. Nowadays even this plan has become difficult. The bush league orchestras are becoming pretty good, and in any case, players tend to get a job and stay there until they die.

Frustrated but ambitious young players sometimes consider trying to break into the free lance field in New York City. Other cities, especially Los Angeles, are possibilities. We will concentrate on NYC simply because I am familiar with that place. Young people fresh from the provinces are often unprepared for the indifference they will encounter. The following was reported to me as a true telephone dialogue:

• (Sound of orchestra contractor's phone ringing)
• "Yeh?"
• "Mr. Gonzo?"
• "Yeh, who's this?"
• "Well sir, my name is Joe Blotzowitz, and"
• "Hold on, I'm on the other line"
• (ten minutes elapse)
• "OK, what did you say your name was?"
• "Joe Blotzowitz -you see, I'm new in town and -"
• "Yeh?   Well, who needs ya?"
• (Sound of phone being slammed down).

It is then that Joe Blotzowitz realizes he might have to actually spend some time in the city before he becomes known and hired. There have been exceptionally talented people who arrive with heavy references and are immediately hired for a Broadway show and record dates. But we are not concerned with them here. Joe Blotzowitz is the more typical newcomer. Fortunately, there is a solution.

You must get a job, but not just any job. Musicians need something that offers some flexibility for the times when they need to be off for a concert or rehearsal. My first summer in NY, I landed a job as typist/room clerk at an exclusive hotel on Central Park South. It was full time, but the hours were afternoon and evening, which left the mornings free for practice and lessons, my main goal at the time. It was fairly stress free and always entertaining, due to the celebrity guests. How could I forget the morning I signed in Anita Ekberg, or Liberace's mother getting stuck in the elevator? There was also the time an assistant manager made the mistake of turning down Jimmy Hoffa's reservation.

When I actually started to get musical jobs, I needed more flexibility, and finally discovered the temporary office agency. If you could type decently, they paid you better and you worked only when you wanted.

The ultimate survival tool was to get unemployment insurance. You could only do this by having enough weeks of credit for musical work. The answer here was to take a tour of 12 weeks or so, followed by another. This would give you enough credits to collect unemployment, with ample time to practice, cultivate contacts, and try to stay in town.

You have arrived when you can even kiss unemployment insurance goodbye, and be busy enough to survive brief lean periods.

You are now a bona fide free lancer, with all that implies. To understand what this means, read the article ("Sub System").

RR (revised 9/13/00)
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