Early in my senior year in high school my father and I had a brief but critically important conversation. With auditions at various conservatories scheduled and impending, he asked me straight up if a life in music was what I really and truly wanted, and if I thought I could make a success of it. Despite my own private misgivings about just how professional a caliber of a talent I actually had, I made the commitment. My answer was a firm yes to both questions. With that, my dad committed to my goal as well. I was lucky in having a dad with such vision and compassion. He knew perfectly well what an enormous risk I was taking, but he was willing to honor his part of the bargain. And he did.
As did I. Bumps and bruises happened, of course. I came very close to screwing the pooch altogether at one point. Fortunately it was early enough in the process that I was able to right myself and stagger onwards. I made it out of grad school and into the profession, however weakly and however tentatively. I never sought employment outside of music. Every penny I made, I made in music.
Early on I was acutely conscious of the professional musician’s vow of poverty. And yet I was never altogether ready to accept such a vow or live by it. A big part of that had to do with my intense need for privacy and domesticity. As early as my sophomore year in college I had my own cozy one-bedroom apartment that I had lovingly painted and furnished with all the necessary accoutrements: sofa, chairs, tables, bedroom set, bookcases, stereo, TV, kitchen appliances. Everything was hand-me-down and some of it was almost threadbare, but it was a homey little place nonetheless. I’m no Martha Stewart who creates visual masterpieces out of my living spaces; I tend to decorate with bookcases and let one halfway decent piece of furniture anchor a surrounding fleet of el-cheapo stuff. But my homes have always been inviting, clean and well-maintained, no matter how modest. And save one short period sharing living space with a housemate, I have lived alone. King-in-his-castle privacy is as necessary to me as air and water.
Then there’s my idiosyncratic approach to the word poverty, which I define as: a state of living in worry about having enough money.
Not having enough to make ends meet: that’s poverty, as far as I’m concerned. The actual amounts don’t matter. My definition could apply to even presumably well-off people, I suppose.
Wilkins Micawber’s farewell advice to David Copperfield became an early talisman for me and has remained in the back of my mind ever since. Annual income 20 pounds; annual expenditure 21 pounds. Result: misery. Annual income 20 pounds; annual expenditure 19 pounds. Result: happiness. Mr. Micawber was speaking from personal experience, since he was being transported to Australia for—guess what—excessive debts. His advice was as simple as it was priceless: don’t spend more than you make. Better, spend less than you make, no matter how much or little that is.
I knew damn well that I would not become rich at music. Even comfortable affluence was pretty remote. I figured the best I could do would be lower middle-class respectability, but given that I would be living a life of satisfaction and fulfillment, that would be more than sufficient. So instead of a Vow of Poverty, I took a Vow of Lower Middle Class: the basic necessities of life would never be in question, with enough left over for the occasional inexpensive treat, but all would be at an exceedingly modest level.
My vow turned out to be worth its weight in gold, or at least in dimes. I was fortunate in that I landed a solid, if extremely low-paying, teaching job early on. A deep conservatism about money and expenses took root and never left me. If I was bringing in only $400 take-home income in a month (distressingly low even in the 1970s), I ensured that my necessary expenses never rose above $300. I wasn’t very good about saving the remainder; generally speaking I spent it on my twin passions of recordings and books. I lived in a cramped but rent-controlled ultra-cheap apartment until I was in my early 30s. I lived without a car until I was about 35 or so. I took no vacations to speak of; I did not own a piano; I dressed and ate cheaply.
But I always had some disposable income—no matter how minuscule—and at least a few month’s expenses sitting in my bank account. I remember a person I was dating who made about four times my income, but who was always short of funds due to overspending, even to the point of being flat broke the week before payday. It was a given that I would not be a source of loans. No. I might have been largely devoid of any financial savvy, but I always had enough money for my oh-so-slender needs. Always.
That held even when I quadrupled my monthly rent after a short period with a housemate in a lovely Victorian flat. He left and I stayed, determined as never before to live in solo privacy and to sustain the peaceful, comfortable home life I so need in order to function. It was frightening to see my basic expenses flare up like that. I remembered a pompous twit in 1960s TV who would intone solemnly: the only way to be secure in these uncertain times is to have at least six months’ income in your insured savings account. I developed my own variation on his recommendation: have at least six months’ rent in my bank account. Before long I had a full year’s worth of rent. Along the way I had increased my income by various tactics, including negotiating a raise and taking on some extra responsibilities, all of them solidly in music. I relaxed into my higher standard of living, but I committed never to allow my necessary expenses to approach 50% of my take-home income. Cut expenses if necessary, increase income as needed, but that 50% became sacred.
And it still is, despite having some time ago renounced my Vow of Lower Middle Class for a life of that comfortable affluence I thought I would never achieve: beautiful spacious house of my own in the suburbs, high-quality new car, good clothes, good food, vacations, retirement funds. But I have never lost sight of those critical determinations that have sustained me throughout: keep expenses well below income, no matter what, and don’t ever sell out by working outside of music.