Pit Stop

Today's New York Times has a great story about working Broadway musicals. While it's focus is on the trend of putting parts of the orchestra in remote locations, it touches on the whole notion of music-as-a-real-job, versus the idealized notion of, in this case, being a classical musician. But it's really the same for rock and roll or jazz. There's a huge difference between being a professional musician and being a rock star, and playing what the article describes as a pretty unflatteringly monotonous gig is a very big component of the former in a lot of cases.