Reality TV talent shows have had a big stick threatening to swipe them out any minute and theres always talk of the end of days for such programmes. I’d take this, if you don’t mind me saying with a big dose of salts. As long as viewers are watching and ordinary people are talking in clubs, pubs, living rooms and the internet forums it will survive. Occassionally a programme may be revamped to keep us glued to the one eyed monster in the corner of every living room in Britain.

Reality TV does have in its power the ability to make and break careers. It will also provide the full package to wanabe talent show winners. Music management, music promotions, music industry solicitors and accountants plus a whole host of other people who are already employed within the industry whose livelihoods are dependent upon new blood. Some of this new blood is aware of the ins and outs within the industry the majority are not. But nevertheless the drive for fame and fortune and all that it entails is an attractive package. It is also one you have not had to create for yourself.

Talent shows such as we have seen over the last few years have really been given a serious boot in the old preverbial and sometimes this is seen as unfair. Why should this be so, don’t we wish anyone well and all the best in a career choice if they are successful in getting into a heat? The biggest critics coming from those who have signed the largest of pay deals or contracts immaginable, why should these stars of the present and the past object. I know they may have had a difficult time making it entirely on there own, or maybe they were lucky blessed by being in the right place at the right time, making the right contacts, and finding that there was a niche in the music industry market for what they had to offer.

So ok the Real business of Music making was different for those who have become established household names, they very often weren’t manufactured in the same way, technology has moved and changed all that old fashioned audio tape to computerised recording systems from Vinyl to compact disc, mini disc and computer file. The music industry has not stood still and neither has the technology that has enabled greater speed of mass production and communication.

My only criticism here is that the speed at which mass production takes place allows for no time to be taken for those who are lucky enough to have gained contracts to experience a learning curve. The programmes are over to quickly and so another year has most definitely ended with the next batch of wanabes pushed in at the deep end and because they have not had time to develop within the art, some will have even shorter careers. ????

So what of the real business of making music.
Throughout Britain every night of the week there will be concert, a pub show, a club act, yes even a karoake night. Some of these people will be freelance workers in the industry and others will come through music agents or small management concerns whose sole task is to ensure the artists on there books have work. The majority of these people will have second jobs, very rarely will it be possible for someone to make there entire living from performance. This is what is called regional level.

Even if we rise to the next strata up, in the social scale of eminence as members of Professional Orchestras and Opera Companies, here to - these people may well have second jobs normally in teaching. The catergories here will class themselves as professional whether they pick up twenty pounds for singing a song or two in a club or seventyfive pounds for a full session in a club or a regular salary from the orchestra or one of Britains few professional opera companies or production theatre companies static or touring.Professional here means paid and does not refer to standard of musicianship or ability in any way.

People who are performers below this are classed as amateurs because they will simply have to fund whatever they do via subscriptions to choirs, drama groups and musical societies.

There is a feeling of indifference sometimes on professional grounds between an act from the social arena to that of the classical arena. The latter will have trained and have gained many qualifications of professional standing and will see themselves as the true professionals.

When all is said and done these people are still working at regional level, but they are not household names and the likelihood of them becoming such is nil.

Yet, and its a big yet or question of doubt over whatever the regional level is, whether these musicians and performers would say they were successful. For some success and fulfillment is one and the same, jolly hard work with no dressing up, no versace clothes, no paparrazzi, no recognition. But one thing is sure, they all have a love of music and they are consumers and service providers of it.

This article has been written by Maureen, one of our contributors on Unreality TV. Thanks Maureen!