Why

I got to go back to brass band rehearsal tonight, and I got to hang out afterward.  I haven't hung out for a while, because my depressing job had me getting up early, or staying up late, or just generally not cheery enough to want to hang out and drive home afterward.  Tonight I went out.

I really like my band.  Have I said how much I like my band?  I like my band.

They asked about my depressing job, so I told them a little about it.  I think, in the last twenty-four hours, I've tried to explain about five times why I'm doing the depressing job.  I guess it's not clear to everyone why someone with my career path and experience would take this depressing job.  I thought it was obvious--need money, get job--but so many people are asking me why that I'm going to try to explain.

My career--the music teaching one--is not really flexible in its hiring seasons.  Band directors are looking for teachers at certain times of the year; colleges are hiring adjunct faculty at certain times.  While they may be looking in July/August, they don't exactly put ads on Craigslist.  They hire, at that time of year, by word of mouth.  Often, some teacher has moved or gotten a full-time job somewhere, so his/her previous employers hire someone else they know away from another school, and that school hires someone else and so on until the very last school is suddenly in a desperate place, with band camp starting in two days and nobody to call.  They will ask other teachers in the area for names, and usually something will come up.  I have gotten all of my college gigs and most of my other teaching gigs in that way: someone asked someone else and got my name.

(There *are* jobs that require applications and curriculum vitae and auditions and interviews.  Those jobs are usually announced in the fall/winter and involve a search process, and usually result in someone getting a job and leaving some other school in the lurch.  Then the shifting process starts, some school down the line gets screwed in mid-July and I get a last-minute call for the gig.  I never get the jobs that involve applying.  Most require a doctoral degree, and even if they don't require it, many of the applicants will have one.  It's why I want to go back to grad school.  I will never get a full-time job, let alone a tenure track job, without a doctorate.)

I moved to Texas in July.  The perfect time for getting students and teaching gigs, maybe, but I didn't know anyone.  I still don't know many people.  It took four years for me to really get started in Georgia, and while I'm better at networking and promoting myself now, it's still going to take time.  I know that my name got out there at least once, in August, but the band director who got my name never called me.  I think he probably didn't recognize my name, so he tossed it in favor of someone familiar.  That is going to happen for at least a year.

As for professional playing gigs, they are few and far between for euphonium and trombone.  When people get playing gigs, they sit on 'em as long as possible.  I've been volunteering for lots of free gigs, which would get me into trouble with other pro musicians (some believe it devalues what we do--but you know what?  I can't think of a playing gig that I've ever had that didn't stem from some free gig, like my brass band).  I've already done more in two months than I did in a year when I moved to Georgia.  Still, I need a depressing job.

In a week or so, I might have two.  Depressing job number 1 has cut my hours drastically--you know I'm heartbroken over that--and I had an interview at a chain bookstore the other day.  I got a decent feeling about it.  The two jobs together would likely not add up to a forty-hour week, but would create double the stress when it comes to scheduling.  After so many years of my nightmarish teaching schedule, I'm freaking out about two part-time jobs?!  It's because, when I teach, my time is my own.  I set the lessons, I pick the days, I say (usually) when I start and finish for the day.  I can cancel if I have to.  Chain stores and corporate hotels?  They don't care about my schedule.

Depressing jobs.  All jobs are depressing jobs.