BY LILY BRYANT
When studying a classical music degree, you’re inevitably met with the mythology surrounding the “struggling artist” — an image propagated during the Romantic era, a perfect intersection of beauty and tragedy; someone who has completely subordinated their own needs in the name of producing their sublime art.
Although hygiene and the internet have vastly altered the contexts of our lives since the 19th Century, the notion of the struggling artist endures in popular culture. Today, they prevail in our TV shows and movies, they’re usually chasing the dream in New York or Hollywood, and their electricity bills have “LATE” plastered all over them in big red letters.
The romance of the situation is palpable.
As an oblivious teenager making the seemingly straightforward decision to pursue professional flute playing, I didn’t let this possibility faze me. I moved confidently and naively through the world, secure in the knowledge, I wouldn’t be like that. I would be at a fancy school, or in a fancy fellowship, or in a principal position in an orchestra — the youngest they’d ever seen. My bills would be paid on time, and all would be well in the world.
During the pandemic, life for artists has been extremely inconsistent (aside from a consistent absence of regular income). The past two years have been extremely sporadic for me in terms of gaining any opportunities at all, let alone paid ones. So I decided to get a job outside of my reeling industry, just to tide things over.
It’s honestly a pretty sweet gig, at a restaurant by the beach. I felt relief and satisfaction set in until an unwelcome realisation dragged me unwillingly back to reality:
I’d turned into the fabled musician/waitress.
The one from all the punchlines.
A struggling artist.
The horror began to sink in. It didn’t feel remotely romantic, a la tick tick… BOOM! or Rent (I’m in a bit of a Jonathan Larson phase). Rather, it filled me with a complicated mix of feelings: stress at the time commitment, guilt at not spending every spare second practising, relief that I could start buying coconut yoghurt again.
To make sense of my experience, I’ve decided to write this blog, documenting my real-time experience as a walking, talking media trope. The excitement, the very dull minutiae, the reality of being both time-poor and cash-poor, and whether this narrative evolves into a Cinderella rags-to-riches story (or whether I just get really good at carrying stuff).
The first shift
My initial experience with my new job is a bit of a mixed bag.
I have a trial shift that goes well, and I am lucky enough to be given the job, but unlucky enough to immediately contract COVID and have to isolate for a week. This gives me enough time to rest, recuperate, and develop an unsustainable level of anxiety about whether a customer will yell at me when I go back.
My first roadblock is having no idea what to wear. The brief is neat-casual, and black is typically the favoured colour for waitstaff. But naturally, as a musician, all my blacks are way too formal. I panic and wear a t-shirt with my tailored black concert pants. Unsurprisingly, when I arrive, my colleagues are in jean shorts, and I am overdressed.
From there, things go smoothly. I have three awkward conversations as I try to explain that I study music at the Australian National Academy of Music, no it’s not a uni, actually I’m a classical flautist, no it’s not like jazz flute, yes I’ve seen Anchorman. I run food and clear tables and ask people how their meal was. The usual stuff.
At the end of my four-hour shift, I am physically and emotionally depleted to an embarrassing degree.
This is the first aspect of my experience that jumps out as vastly different to the media trope. One shift takes a lot longer than you think.
On screen, there’s usually a cute little montage, and the actor in question mops their brow with a wry smile, and their friends show up at their restaurant for breakfast, and it’s not ideal, but it’s generally a jolly time. I haven’t yet seen an on-screen waitress with barbecue sauce halfway up her arms and hair plastered across her face with sweat, but that depiction would be a lot closer to my reality.
I will admit, to add to the whole romance of the situation, when I’m walking up the stairs for the 359th time, I do try to picture myself studying overseas, or winning an audition, unencumbered by the costs of flights and application fees.
I had a little reminder last week, waiting for the tram to take me to my Friday night shift. I’d caught the tram from the Sturt Street stop, across from Melbourne Recital Centre, and when I looked up from my killer sudoku, I saw unmistakably cello-shaped cases being carried on backs. Naturally, as a musician, I have an increased sensitivity to people in black carrying big clunky stuff around, so it piqued my interest. Then I started to recognise some of the faces. I was watching the musicians of the Australian Chamber Orchestra arrive at Stage Door.
The experience landed somewhere between inspiring and ironic. I would much rather spend the ensuing four hours onstage with Piazzolla and Bach, as opposed to scraping half-eaten cheesy fries into a bin. But there couldn’t have been a clearer sign from the universe to just be patient. Focus on your goal, and keep moving towards it.
And next time, just wear jean shorts like everyone else.
