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I'm 29 years old with a solid career. I started playing guitar a couple of months ago, initially practicing for 30 minutes every day and now playing for 2 hours every day, along with weekly in-person lessons with a music teacher and an organized practice routine.

How old is too old to become a professional (I'm not saying famous) musician? Like a session musician? I'm only asking that because the vast majority of professional musicians that I know started when they're teens at most.

Please, I want honest, realistic answers here, not "feel good" answers like: "you can do whatever you set your mind to!".

  • This question has come up numerous times here. For a list, see [Am I too old? Is it too late? Starting, Resuming, or Mastering an instrument](https://music.stackexchange.com/q/105456/70803). – Aaron Mar 22 '22 at 21:21
  • FWIW, you need to much better define "professional". Do you mean make a full-time living? A paid gig a few times a year? As a soloist? As part of a band? As a music professional, the question itself suggests you're not far enough along to be considering playing professionally. – Aaron Mar 22 '22 at 21:22
  • Thank you, @Aaron. I mean a full-time living. A full-time job as as musician. –  Mar 22 '22 at 21:26
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    A session musician is a very rigorous position. They need years of experience with their instrument and be able to learn a song instantly on the fly and typically read and transcribe notation for what they are playing. This question has been closed as a duplicate of how to approach learning an instrument later in life. The requirements to becoming something like a session musician may be a good separate question so you can gauge typical requirements and training and chart a path. – Dom Mar 22 '22 at 22:30
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    Sessioning is also a catch 22. To get in it you have to be in it, or at least near it. It its own business, small worlds full of people who know each other. To even get started you need to be in the right place, or know someone who is. You get your first session through someone you know, the next from someone they then recommend you to - either because you're great; or cheap & good enough - & it expands by word of mouth. Unless you're in the classical/jazz world you also need to retain some 'flavour of the month' aspect & be able to constantly adapt to new trends. – Tetsujin Mar 23 '22 at 08:07
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    Whilst the question is a close dupe, its reference is to OP becoming a *pro* muso. Some of the other questions' answers are relevant, but don't address pro status. Even being a brilliant muso doesn't equal making it as a pro muso, though. But that answer will not be the same as the existing ones. – Tim Mar 23 '22 at 09:43
  • @Tim in my opinion dealing with both makes the question too broad since both learning an instrument and having a goal to become some kind of pro musician have different factors. Neither answer really provides enough detail as to what professional job they have in mind or how starting later affects that path. – Dom Mar 23 '22 at 13:59
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    @Dom - to an extent, I agree. Maybe the question ought to concern purely becoming a pro muso., which may already exist. If not - there's an opportunity! – Tim Mar 23 '22 at 17:41
  • Careful what you wish for. As a rule, I would never make a career out of a hobby. Hobbies are great b/c we can leave them and come back to them when we want. Making a career out of it spoils it. – Beginner Biker Mar 23 '22 at 19:04
  • It is easy go to Nashville and order a pizza. If you can play as well as the person who delivers the pizza your chance is realistic. If not pack it up and continue with your day job. – Neil Meyer Mar 24 '22 at 20:05

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Being a professional depends on people repeatedly choosing to pay you for your services. That is going to depend on a lot of people seeing your product as more valuable than the next guy's.

As you allude to in your question, there are lots of 'next guys' who have been learning obsessively since their early teens or younger, so there is a lot of competition out there. A career in music is something that eludes a lot of passionate and talented people - even those who started a lot younger.

29 is not necessarily crazy old to start if you find you have serious aptitude, and can continue to summon the passion and find the time. It's that last point where teenagers often have a big advantage over slightly older specimens with families and other commitments.

2 months might be a bit soon to make an honest assessment of how much aptitude you have. A year or two might give you a better idea of whether you have the well-above-average aptitude that you're going to need if you are going to consider taking things more seriously.

One thing I wonder is: why are you asking? If you're finding your current career unsatisfying, it's highly likely that there's something better for you that's easier to get into than music. If it's because you don't think music is worth the time investment unless turning professional is a realistic option, then it's probably not worth the time investment - the odds of professional success in music are low enough that putting the time in is only likely to be worthwhile if you find it rewarding in itself.

Нет войне
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Experience is one factor that is so relevant to being a pro - anything. Experience by definition takes time to accrue. At your age, that's nearly run out, sorry. There's the old 10,000hrs bandied about that it takes to learn an instrument. That's only one factor. That's going to take you way past 29 yrs old. So, in the interim, what happens? Learning and earning must continue, both taking their toll on your time - family, hobbies, along with work, will all eat into that.

Then there's the other aspects of being pro. Being available, travelling, working abroad, away from loved ones, making contacts, keeping contracts, the list goes on. That life is very different from most peoples' days at the office, factory, etc., and may (or may not) suit.

Summing up - as most here will say - 'don't give up the day job', but practise and enjoy the benefit that music will inevitably bring, on a more take-it-or-leave-it basis, which will be ultimately more affordable in the long run - and probably give you more control over your own life!

Tim
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In addition to the other good points made…

If you're going to be a pro session man, consider these your 'entry-level' qualifications

On a non-reading gig, 'listen then play'.
You must be able to grasp the rough structure of a song on first listen & have it nailed by the second. That's all the time you're going to get. You may not even have your amp set up or your guitar out of its case by this point, so you're not playing along & guessing, you're listening. By the third run, you're expected to play; either something someone has sung along for you, or you've been given some vague "Play it like Slash, turned up to eleven!!" type of [lack of] information.
You'll be expected to get it in three takes, max, after that.

If you are a reader & doing 'reading gigs' then you may not even get a second listen before the take. You may even be a part of a band [consisting of people you met five minutes ago] and have to get it sight reading, in a couple of takes. Make significant fluffs on first take and all eyes are on you for wasting everybody else's time.

A 'standard' session is three hours, 'long' is four. You may have to do many tracks in that time. A classical string section would have an entire album down in that time. A friend of mine, who has the luxury of Abbey Road to do his recordings, only books a day for a whole album, be it piano/harmonica or 60-piece orchestra + choir.

It is a cut-throat business. To get your first session is hard. To get your second is harder still.
I managed to work as a session singer for about two years, before I got out & managed to get into production… Payback time! I got the 'pleasure' of hiring & firing sessions if the project needed them ;)

Tetsujin
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    To practice play-then-listen, put on a radio station or playlist with music you don't know, then try to play along without pausing. Pick out the key and the chord structure and the kind of parts that would fit. Bonus points if you find yourself playing something that showed up on the recording. – Dave Jacoby Mar 23 '22 at 19:27
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    @DaveJacoby - it's what I did from about 13-20yrs old, still do sometimes. It's a great thing to be able to do. Played with many pros, but kept the day job(s) as well. Best move! – Tim Mar 25 '22 at 16:12
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NOTE: This post is focused on being a performing musician. However, teaching, while near equally competitive, can and does provide full or supplementary stability for many musicians.

Leaving age aside, becoming a full-time professional musician is not a realistic goal for almost anyone. All aspects of the field are hyper-competitive — even for low-paying jobs, which most are. Even among exceptionally talented musicians, very few "make it".

Of the musicians I've known or worked with, the vast majority struggle to make ends meet, and most of those that manage it live in group homes or very small, cheap apartments. Most of the musicians who live comfortably either have a second (or third) job, or they're married to someone who earns enough to support both of them.

For an electric guitar player, the options are particularly slim. There's studio work, and there's playing in a band. Very few musicians can be pro studio musicians, and the studios tend to call on the same musicians, so establishing oneself is difficult. Playing in a band is easier to find work, but not work that pays well.

Remember, too, that any costs you have that are borne by your current employer (in the US, for example, health insurance is a major expense) will become yours. There will be significant travel costs, even if you're only working relatively locally.

Adding classical guitar would give some additional options, because you could hire out for weddings or other sorts of quiet-background-music gigs.

My advice for becoming a professional:

  1. Be proficient in as many musical styles as possible (classical, jazz, pop, rock, punk, salsa, flamenco, polka, ...)
  2. Be proficient in reading music, playing by ear, and improvising (again, in various styles).
  3. Beyond performance skills, be a proficient arranger. Being a composer is great, too, but the greater demand is generally for arrangers.
  4. Have enough savings to live on for at least five years. This is not to say you need five years before becoming successful. But five years will be more than enough time to figure out what kind of living you can make and whether you want to do it. (Best case, you won't need [all of] it; worst case, you'll use it up well before those five years pass).
Aaron
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    Could also mention teaching - which a lot of pros use to supplement their earnings. But - a lot of pros just don't make good teachers... – Tim Mar 23 '22 at 17:01
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I'm thinking about a musician blogger I used to read a lot of. He made the point that, unless you're writing music, unless you're playing and selling the music you wrote, you're not in the music business.

He would play covers in clubs. He wasn't in the music business, he was in the hospitality business.

I used to play guitar in church. I wasn't in the music business, I was in the religion business.

Can you find a fun place in the (not-music) business? Probably. Can you get it to a place where it subsidizes your growing gear-acquisition problem? Probably. (I'm a guitarist; over time, you will develop Gear Acquisition Syndrome, or GAS, and purchase gear you don't need. It will happen.) Can you make a living off of it, to where it's your only source of income? Enjoy learning all the Top-40 and playing weddings and corporate gigs. This is thing people do.

As for the Music Industry, well...

The Golden Age of session players was the 1960s. Remember that the only Byrd playing on the first Byrds album was Roger McGuinn, because he had been a session player as a banjoist in the Folk era. There was a decade where Hal Blaine played on every Grammy-winning Top Song. If you were in demand, you were getting Beverly Hills money and working 10-hour days, but if you weren't considered ready for the studio, you weren't getting in. Many bandleaders recorded albums without any of their regular touring-band members.

Then came the 70s, and there were more opportunities for band members to show up on the albums, and the opportunities for session guys were drying up. I mean, they were still there; Toto is filled with the top of 70s LA session players. But it was harder to be the first-call player.

And then ProTools. It became easier for a creative person to set up a mic and a laptop in their bedroom and do it all there. There are still studios, and there are still players that get called in. What may have once been a bunch of people at FAME or the Record Plant could be sitting in someone's living room and plugging your board into their laptop. (Look for Buddy Miller's Rig Rundown on YouTube if you don't believe me.)

I think Tim Pierce has said he moved from being an occasional-session road player to being session-only with Goo Goo Doll's "Name", which was a few years in. But those road years were with Rick Springfield (and on his albums). It's knowing people, and having those people know what you can bring, is the key.

Take me, for example. At church, I met Greg, who is a singer, songwriter and guitar player in the Roots Rock style. He got some studio time and I went in to play on two of his songs. I loved it. It was a blast. I got no money from it. Because COVID, he hasn't played out much, and I haven't at all. There's have to be more recording here than I know about, I'd have to network with those people (and know where they are) and let them know what I can bring, and those people would have to get their music really big in order for me to reasonably switch from being a computer programmer.

And then there's the fact that many of the bigger genres don't use guitars.

But guitar's still a big part of Country, if that's your interest. It's key in Metal. There are definitely guitarists who have popped up later. Joe Satriani was pushing 40 when "Summer Song" came out. Greg Leisz was 40 when I started hearing his great playing on albums.

And, Rick Beato recently did a video about his time as a producer, showing a hard drive full of albums from a number of artists who spend years of their lives in practice rooms making tremendous music that nobody besides them ever heard and ever will hear.

I want to encourage you to learn music, to play music, to love music. But regardless of age, relying on music to make a living is a hard thing.

Dave Jacoby
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