Loreena McKennitt – HuffPost 4.4.14

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Loreena McKennitt: My advice is that music is an incredibly rich, power, unique medium that I encourage everyone at any age to become involved in, and they don’t need to do it professionally. In fact, right now I would not encourage many people to do it professionally, and if young people are setting out to be cultivating a very strong second career choice, as someone who’s managed and continues to run a small business in the bigger music industry I see how hard it is. I’m fine, but at the same time it’s much, much harder than it was ten or fifteen years ago. I don’t see any predictable, viable business model in place at this moment that would allow people to have this as a career path beyond the point at which they’re single, either from the lack of remuneration or just the lifestyle. I don’t actively encourage anyone to get into the music business as a primary career path at this time, or if they do, have a very strong second up their sleeve and give themself a timeline during which they will explore it and then they should make a decision of whether they think it’s sustainable or not. I’ve encountered many, many musicians, some who are extremely well-known, who are as poor as church mice.

MR: That’s really wonderful advice. You have a hand-in-hand relationship with music and other things which I’m imagining has led to a fuller life. You’ve given healthy advice in this way as far as how anybody should be treating their art. it’s almost like a fifty-fifty proposition.

LM: I wouldn’t even put the odds at that right now. I don’t know about other disciplines, but certainly in music. I certainly hate to be discouraging of being involved in music because in society and in life there’s so many ways to have music as an integral part. I would love to invite people to put their technology down for a little while and exchange it for a ukulele.