The Work and Non-work of the Creative Worker: Professional Musicians

The creative industries are a vital economic sector attracting voluminous scholarship because of the precarity and inequalities embedded within them. Despite extensive scholarship examining inequalities in creative work, a fundamental aspect differentiating creative work - genre and its associated institutional factors and how genres can shape these dynamics has been overlooked. This study remedies the gap by offering a novel contribution: Genres can be a foundational structure for research in creative work. This is a new development in the sense that it provides a novel framework to understand the nature of creative work and the intricacies of musicians' working lives, including their work and non-work experiences, while also providing valuable insights into musicians’ labour markets. Consequently, it contributes to understanding the complexities and inequities inherent in the creative industries. Based on qualitative research involving forty-eight (48) informants, including women and men from various musical genres and employment statuses, using multiple data collection tools such as semi-structured interviews, diary studies, website, and social media research. Examined through the genre lens, the study found both commonalities between and variations in how creative workers perceive their work and what it entails. Musicians might perceive only paid music activities as work whereas work includes music performances, teaching, and other paid tasks. The study reveals the variations in the nature of creative work across different genres, demonstrating that different music genres entail distinct kinds of work. It uncovers varying contractual arrangements within artistic labour markets, where classical musicians may combine craftsmanship and entrepreneurialism, while non-classical genres may emphasise the latter. The study highlights that unpaid work is indispensable for creative work despite its unpredictability in securing paid opportunities. Furthermore, it reveals the unequal experiences for musicians across genres, particularly in non-work activities, and highlights gender disparities, notably within the classical genre.