Military Musician
 

I want to be a musician when I get outta school, but I know how hard it is to make it as a musician. I know that the Military (well, I know the Navy does it, and I'm 99% sure the other branches do too) recruits (well, recruited... I've talked to a guy who was a navy musician back in the 70's/80's) musicians to play rock, like, at recruitment rallies and stuff. The musicians are paid hansomely, and also have military benifits (housing allowance, medical, etc). I have considered doing this once I get out of school, but...


I'm a pacifist, very vehemently anti-war, and Buddhist (well, the Buddhists here in Taiwan put me to shame, but I try). I don't know if I could let myself recruit people to kill or die.

...Well, I probably could, but I don't know if I should.
Your thoughts? Those of you in the military, do you know details about how this works nowadays? Has it changed?

If you sign up in the military, expect to be shot at. You may be pleasantly surprised to not go to war, but don't sign up unless you are willing to go to war.

Just ask all those National Guard guys who didn't pay attention to the fine print, and expected to only be in the Guard for a weekend or two a month. They are sitting in the sand in Iraq, getting blown up at random.

Getting shot at, fine, as long as I'm not forced to fire back. I'm good at the whole "Hide like a little bitch" thing.

But the job, as it was described to me, is staying in the states, playing for recruitment purposes or at military parties or whatever.

EDIT: Oh shit, I just realized I started this thread twice, somehow... er... I'll try to delete the other one, then?

EDIT 2: Damnit, I can't delete it... oops.

Maybe UT can merge them.

If you join the military be an officer? or a cook?

So you can be a military musician?? My son wants to be a musician or a computer geek. Can one be a musician and still have a job?

* mom crossing fingers*

I would tell him what every mother, as far as I know, tells their kids, and what I also council fellow future musicians:

That's all fine and dandy, but go to school, get good grades, go to college... get in bands afterschool and in school bands and stuff like that, but make school temorary priority. Then what I would do is get a job at a bar or restaurant or something that has live music, and see if I can convince the owner to let me play every so often, to get myself noticed.

But if the military music thing works the same as it did thirty years ago.. I may have to look into that...

Ok, my head is just spinning here with how confusing this idea is, so let me tackle it a piece at a time:

1) The military bands are by audition, and they are damn hard to get into. As a bonus, you sign up for a tour of duty first, and then you get to audition to see if you make it into a band. If you don't, it's four years of mud and blood.

2) The military bands don't "play rock and roll", or at least not in any sort of sense you're thinking. They play covers, they play standards and big-band swing. They play some polite classic rock. I'd really suggest going to some of the recruiting rallies in your area to see the kind of bands that play, and to see if that's really what you want to do.

3) You're familiar with the term "Aiding and Abetting"? I don't see how you can justify pacifism with volunteering to join the military, in any capacity, even just playing your instrument at rallies to help them recruit new young grunts.

4) I don't know that military bands are really a bridge to anything. In other words, I don't know many (any, really) guys who played in military bands who then went on to have careers as musicians, either in their own projects or as sidemen.

So, think this through. Consider the worst case scenrarios. And consider the other options that are out there.

I'd rather go to community college half time (there are some in LA with unbelievable music programs - I'll gladly list some if you need a direction), rent a room for $100 from somebody, and work at a Denny's to pay my bills than risk the chance that I might end up holding a rifle, patrolling dusty roads looking for IEDs.

My information is from the old days, but back in the time, a military musician was a soldier first, a musician second. I grew up near the US Air Force Academy and used to take lessons from a member of the Air Force Band there. It was very tough for a musician to make the cut for the band, and my teacher told me that he had served for a long time as a member of the regular Air Force before finally getting into the band. The Air Force Band played stuff pretty much like SM described. I went to hear my teacher perform in it once, and they were very, very good and he did a great solo of "Flight of the Bumblebee" on the flute. The band clowned around a little on that one, and his solo ended with another band member coming up and hitting him with a fly swatter! But the music was all very mainstream - mostly big band stuff, a bit of classical, and marches just like SM said.

You will win no favor with your fellow soldiers by refusing to return enemy fire, and you may well be endangering both their lives and your own by such a refusal. If you are a Buddhist and a pacifist, working for the military will go against your soul every day that you do it.

When you say "get out of school" do you mean high school or college? If I were you, I'd study to be a music teacher. There is an absolutely wonderful local rock band here made up entirely of music teachers. They are the top band in the area and draw huge turnouts at every venue they play. It seems to me that doing something like that would be more in line with your beleifs and also allow you to have a "day job" with your music.

If I'm not mistaken, postings in the big national military bands such as the Air Force Band or the President's Own are regarded as pretty good gigs and are nothing to sneeze at. They're also hellaciously difficult to get into--there's a lot of competition, and check out that Marine Band web page. Notice where it says 60% of the personnel stay for 20+ years; what does that tell you about the possibilities that they'll have an opening for the appropriate instrument at a given point in time?

If you're talking about one of the smaller local bands, that's an entirely different animal. You can bet they aren't pampered nearly as much.

The bottom line is what you said.
And it's no less hard if you're doing in the military instead of as a civilian. My advice, as a clarinet major turned music history major who dropped out of grad school and now works in IT for a living, is to get as good an education as you can (in both musical and non-musical areas) and count on supporting yourself at least partially with non-musical income, and go after whatever opportunities you can find. If a spot with the US Marine Band opens up at just the right time and you win the audition, more power to you. But don't count on it to the exclusion of making sensible career plans.

All of this ignores the whole pacifist issue. If you're really a pacifist, I'd suggest that you not voluntarily enlist in the military for any reason. No offense, but, duh.

A friend of mine's wife (a floutist with the Philadelphia Symphony) auditioned for the Marine Band (the ones that play Hail to the Chief for the pres all the time). They are musicians first ... if she passed the audition she would have been given an officer's commission, no boot camp. There are many lesser bands in the military in which you are a soldier first, a musician after.

Thanks, that's what I needed to know. I guess it has changed, some. Good, then I can write it off and never have to worry about that again.

I saw that Navy jazz band, The Commodores, last fall. They are very good. But I can't imagine working for the military in any capacity, if you are truly pacifist. What I'm hearing is "I'm strongly against killing for any reason... unless I can make a living supporting it."

Can I ask a different sort of question, Ibram? I'm just curious... where did you get this idea?

Because in the scenario I'm imagining, you said to your family, "I want to be a musician," and a well-meaning relative said, "Uh, well, HEY, you could be a MILITARY musician! How about THAT?"

The pay is steadier than that of a musician in the private sector.

That's because they're not paying you to be a musician, they're paying rent on your soul. :eek:

Making it as a musician is all about practice and networking. If you do enough of each you can make it. It's hard and I only know one making a living from it.

My Dad is in the air force, but that isn't where I got the idea. I actually got the idea off the ultimate-guitar.com forums.

How many thousands of other people got the same from same? That means the competition will be stiff. :smack:

Be a bugler.