My wife is a profesional musician who has received a number of accolades. Just from her connections, I have been stunned at how many “internationally known” musicians (within the field, not necessarily known to the layperson), with impressive histories, mostly get by doing tons of small scale gig work. Or who have to keep a completely separate day job to pay the bills (as my wife does).

People think they understand how much of a moonshot “making it big” in music is, but most truly don’t. It’s like winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning twice, plus a lot of sacrificing normal stuff from your life, and a whole lot of it depends on luck and things completely unrelated to your technical skill at musical performance.