Inside The Life Of A Broadway Musician | Pay, Benefits, & How To Get The Gig

Ever wondered what life is like on Broadway for a musician? In this video blog I'll be discussing my experiences working on Broadway, from life in the pit to playing on stage, the income, benefits, and my personal take on the best way to get a gig on Broadway. Hope you enjoy the video, please like and subscribe, and feel free to drop a comment below, esp. if you have any questions!
0:00 - Intro
1:17 - The Band's Visit (on stage)
4:17 - Tootsie (the pit)
6:44 - The Nitty Gritty (pay*, benefits, rules, etc.)
10:00 - How to get on Broadway
12:30 - Outro
*Forgot about the pay raise negotiations in late 2019...oops. The actual weekly rate is $100 higher.
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[@jfluter]

As a classically trained musician, I was told in terms of gigs, it's not necessarily what you know, but WHO you know.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Yeah, I’d say for Broadway and the other high end gigs: what you know should be a given, and who you know is what makes the difference.

[@manifestgtr]

11:05 All of these points are the key to success in any musical career. There isn’t a set path and cold calling people is a bad idea…even if you think you’re being proactive. If you’re a professional caliber musician who can read, perform under any circumstance and *most importantly* work well with others (that last part can’t be overstated), you’ll eventually find the good jobs. Make people want to work with you, make their lives easier, be reliable and you’ll always be working. Getting there just takes a bit of patience.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Yup. All that plus a little luck and you can land some of the better gigs out there

[@theeverlyset]

Extremely informative and fascinating! Thanks, Mike!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

thanks for watching guys, glad you enjoyed it!

[@Jasminesvoice]

Thank you for being so informative and congrats on making it to broadway it must feel amazing!!!!!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed the video :)

[@aidanswartz9186]

Hey, I came across this video because of my aspiration to be in a Broadway pit orchestra. I am a highschool junior and I am starting to double with saxophone and clarinet hoping to learn flute soon this was such a nice video to see seeing as it really isn’t extremely competitive like an orchestra but extremely rewarding

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Glad you enjoyed the video! It can get competitive sometimes, but def not on the level of the classical audition process for orchestras, competitions etc. Wind players who have multiple doubles do very well on Broadway, best of luck to you!

[@aidanswartz9186]

@@HarmonyWithHunter thank you very much it means a lot

[@Theweeze100]

Just finished playing Elf in a small town community theater production. What a blast! Although I don’t plan to ever plan to audition on Broadway, I couldn’t help but be curious about what it’s like for the big guys! Thanks for doing such an informative post on the subject. Subscribed 😊

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Congrats on your run! Glad you enjoyed the video, yeah there's a lot of mystery around the Broadway gig but it's really not that different than local theatre; just everything's a bit bigger across the board. Some of my favorite theatre work has been in much smaller productions!

[@Kellsstringz]

That was so interesting - Thanks for sharing your experiences and hope Broadway picks up again so you can get back to gigging on Broadway.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Thanks Kells! and yeah, me too 🤞

[@cesarromero1209]

Thanks for the insight Hunter! I needed to hear things like this because I'm actually going on a national musical tour in about a month. Cheers bud, I hope things are well.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Thanks man, I’m so glad you got something out of this video! And congrats on the gig, that’s great!

[@keweldogpdx]

So interesting. It’s great to know that you can actually make a good living with good benefits as a Broadway musician! I admire your passion for what you do. Thanks for this. Very well done. Hopefully you can get back at it soon!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Glad you enjoyed the video! And yeah, me too...

[@aamirhb]

Even though we’ve chatted about some of this before, this was soooo interesting!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

yay, i’m so glad you still enjoyed it!

[@ignatiussun3325]

Dear Hunter, I can't thank you enough for sharing your experience as a broadway musician. After I fell out from pursuing performance after university due to family reasons (I did a music degree and postgrads in music therapy and education), approaching 30 soon and having spent the last 6 years being a studio piano teacher, I wish to have the courage to change and go back to the stage, especially in musicals. I'm unsure if I am capable of doing it, because I am classically trained with no improv background, but the dream is to do something related to theatre and composition. Your video has made it feel more in-reach and I may go to the US to try for a bit. Thanks!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

I'm so glad my video helped Broadway feel more possible to you! It's definitely a steep climb, but if performing music live is what you want to do, NYC is def the place to do it. And while improv can be helpful, I know plenty of MDs and keys players who are also purely classical trained and they still get plenty of work on Bway. Sightreading, overall musicianship, and getting along well with others are all more important attributes. Best of luck with your career, whatever you decide!

[@ThatsJustMyBabyDaddy]

Very cool commentary!!!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the video :-)

[@tenorhighc1]

Great!!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Thanks man!

[@sarahcummins6080]

I would love to be a broadway pit musician! I live in the middle of nowhere Midwest right now and cannot imagine how I could go about doing this though.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

It's definitely a steep hill to climb. I'd say start out by looking for regional productions in your area and get some serious experience doing pit work under your belt. If you really enjoy it, find yourself excelling at it and want to pursue it further, then the only real move is to actually move to NYC. Which tbh is super tough and getting harder all the time. But if it's what you really want then I'd start out with local theater and see how that goes first before taking the plunge. All the best!

[@sarahcummins6080]

@@HarmonyWithHunter I just finished doing Beauty and the Beast and am doing the Sound of Music in June! Another issue I have is figuring out if I’m good enough to be a professional. I’ve gotten compliments from my band director but I’m not sure what counts as being good enough to consider doing this as a career

[@aidanto2901]

thanks for all the information, i’m a bass player and would absolutely love to make it into a real pit orchestra one day

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Best of luck! Hope this video helps you along the way :)

[@aidanto2901]

@@HarmonyWithHunter thank you !!

[@teddybear5635]

same here, good luck to us both🎻!

[@tastesofttm1715]

YAS. We love Broadway.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

yes we DO

[@cryptonomics9925]

Do you know broadway drummer Feng? He is also on youtube.

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

I do not, but I’m relatively new to the Broadway world so I’m not surprised we haven’t crossed paths. I’ll check out his channel, thanks for the heads up!

[@swaingles]

Very interesting. Was there anyone who spoke Spanish only? How about foreign musicians?

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

There were some bilingual people, but no exclusively foreign language musicians in the pits I played in

[@mikedills132]

How did you receive that first email asking you if you wanted to audition?

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

Luck, honestly. The contractor remembered me from a recording session years earlier, we’d talked afterwards, and when they were looking for a sub that fit a specific skillset he remembered me.

[@mikedills132]

@@HarmonyWithHunter Very cool! Just goes to show that being a professional and cool person can go a long way. I hope your gig is going well!

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

@@mikedills132 thank you!

[@jesus-of-cheeses]

Cakewalk, eh?

[@HarmonyWithHunter]

There def is a lot of 🤞involved