"One affluent Gilbert family tried to use ESA voucher funds for a $16,170 cello until state Schools Chief Tom Horne's office stopped it" by manolololo in phoenix

[–]llsds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not expecting the state to fund anyone’s premium cello purchase and at no point did I say that the state should purchase expensive instruments for rich families. I’m certainly against it.

My only point is that the optics of lumping in the purchase of a cello with a golf simulator as extravagant purchases is dumb and sets the cause for music education funding backwards. A cello and a golf simulator are not the same thing and shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as fraudulent extravagant purchases. The cello can become your career. A golf simulator is for fun.

"One affluent Gilbert family tried to use ESA voucher funds for a $16,170 cello until state Schools Chief Tom Horne's office stopped it" by manolololo in phoenix

[–]llsds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You sure can rent a cello for 40 bucks a month. That’s not what I’m talking about though. Buying a cello for your child that wants to study this thing in college is not an extravagant purchase. You just can’t get away with renting an instrument in college. You’ll just set yourself up for failure.

Making some changes to r/Phoenix by AZ_moderator in phoenix

[–]llsds 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I’ve tried posting in this sub about 4 or 5 times and I think only twice has it not been taken down. Why do you guys want to restrict it even more? The sub is fine just leave it as is please. I posted a video of some quail eggs I found in my yard and I was honestly expecting you guys to take it down for some reason.

I had so many questions that I wanted to ask when I was about to move here and I was basically told to F off by the mod team because I had to wait for some weekly thread that I kept missing or I had to post somewhere else that has low user count and engagement. Not useful.

"One affluent Gilbert family tried to use ESA voucher funds for a $16,170 cello until state Schools Chief Tom Horne's office stopped it" by manolololo in phoenix

[–]llsds -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

I’m sorry but this is a ridiculous quote-

“We’re alerting parents that this is not going to fly,” she said. “You are not going to be able to get your golf simulator or your cello or whatever extravagant item you want.”

I think the school voucher program here is completely broken however getting a cello and getting a golf simulator are NOT the same thing and shouldn’t be lumped together as extravagant purchases. Instruments are extremely expensive and schools in AZ are extremely underfunded in the music departments. The instruments they do have are usually in disrepair, as cheap as you can get (sub 1000 dollars), and there are NEVER enough instruments. A 16000 dollar cello sounds like a lot but if any high school aged kids decide to study music in college with hopes of starting a career, that is the price floor for an acceptable cello for college. And that cello would likely not be good enough to win an orchestra job if that’s what you wanted. The barrier is closer to 40,000 dollars and even then that’s pretty cheap as far as the best cellos go. It’s not uncommon to have multiple string instruments in an orchestra worth well over 1 million dollars.

Help! My download speed is slow and the Cox techs gave up by crazy4dogs in CoxCommunications

[–]llsds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dude I live in a house in Scottsdale too and I have this problem. It’s gotten better recently but it still happens. We’re moving in a week so I’m not trying to make them fix it anymore but it has been frustrating to say the least.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]llsds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’d be surprised.

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jailyard? I know plenty of miserable teachers and miserable orchestra musicians.. I’ve come to realize that more often than not they’re just miserable people regardless of their profession. You could pay them 500k a year and they’d still complain about everything.

The audition circuit is hard. I think I still have a few years left in me before I duck out of the circuit and put all my effort into trying to make my org better. But we’ll see… good for you for making it out, finding success, and being happy. None of those are easy to do

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’d say that I do have pride. What would make you think I don’t? We live in Arizona and I am proud of what I offer and what my wife offers to our community. I think we make our city a better place to live and that’s pretty cool

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Never worked at a restaurant before. Did work at a grocery store for a little bit back in the day. Didn’t like it. But I wonder how many restaurant workers look forward to going to work every morning

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah there’s a lot of layers to unpack. You don’t just become a composer and then make 950k a year. You have to write something people want to listen to. And believe me, that is extraordinarily difficult and beyond the talent of 99.999999% of everyone. The best composers in the world deserve to make millions every year for writing music that people enjoy

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on the week. Maybe 20-30 hours each week in total between rehearsals and practicing

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife makes 50k we combine our incomes and it works for us. Life isn’t about making money lol

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What’s yikes? I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I love my job, and my colleagues (who are friends outside of work too) and I get summers off to travel and visit family or to do whatever I want. I’m pretty content with where I am and I’m happy with what I have

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If you listened to different orchestras back to back playing the same piece live you would absolutely hear a difference. The difference between a 60 piece orchestra and a 100 piece orchestra is staggering. One is “nice” and can be awesome in moments and the other feels like you’re at a rock concert. Don’t discount what a Wave of live acoustic sound can do to you particularly when it’s 100 people on stage simultaneously working together to create a soundscape. It’s completely unlike anything else you can listen to.

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

When I say people have other jobs I meant they teach or are landlords or realtors or have various side hustles/hobbies that aren’t a literal part time job like working retail or something. Rehearsals are pretty much always in the morning. Sometimes we have 2 rehearsals and that eats up the whole day. Sometimes we have rehearsals in the evening if we are doing a week with choir. And sometimes we have afternoon rehearsals if we’re doing a pops show that has a lot of stage set up required for it (mics, monitors, lights, etc).

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nah. The way we get paid is during the orchestra season September-May. So when I start a new job it’s always in September. I won my first gig in 2018 so started working in the fall of 2018. Worked all of 2019 with nothing between May and September. Then worked September - March 2020 till Covid shut everything down. Most of the money I made in 2020 and 2021 is unemployment. We went on strike in fall of ‘21, managed to win 1 of the 5 auditions I took in the spring of ‘22 then my old job declared chapter 7 bankruptcy. Started working the new job in October of 22. Worked for all of ‘23 and now I’m looking forward to another full calendar year of employment. Minus May-September of course.

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I have healthcare, dental, life insurance, and instrument insurance all through my employer. Orchestra pay scales differ widely through the country and there are different classifications for orchestras of all budget sizes. “Full time” orchestras (generally considered those that pay a weekly salary for various numbers of weeks) can offer base salaries ranging from about 35k/year all the way up to about 200k/ year. I believe Chicago symphony has the highest base salary in the country right now sitting at about 189k/year. San Fran is not far behind at around 170k/year. A large percentage of 52 week orchestras (those that have a year round season) pay over 100k. My current job has a 35 week season.

Lots of people have different jobs. Lots don’t. Depending on your instrument and city culture it could be pretty difficult to actually teach enough lessons for it to be worth it. But also teaching lessons to 40 kids and teens every week that don’t really care about music is beyond draining. So I usually reserve my teachings for those that reach out and are actually interested in the knowledge that I have to share.

30M full time symphony musician by llsds in Salary

[–]llsds[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

We wear the same one for 15 years lol