About once a month, we get an email from a researcher,
journalist, policymaker, or student asking us a simple question:
how many musicians are there in the United States? Given FMC’s
work with musicians, it makes sense that they ask us, but our
answer is the same for everyone: there is no reliable way to
measure the real size of the US musician population. In a on the
Artist Revenue Streams site, we outlined the particular
challanges associated with estimating the size of the musician
population in the United States. First, what do we mean when we
use the word “musician”? Are we just talking about performers
and recording artists, or does the definition also include
composers and songwriters? How about music teachers? Many
musicians play multiple roles simultaneously (songwriter +
recording artist + performer), but there are also creators who
specialize in one role (composers who do not perform, or
performers who do not compose, for example) so the parameters
are important. Second, there’s an issue with how m