The American Music Center has released a fascinating survey of the American composer population. You can read a summary as well as the entire report at NewMusicBox. Some patterns that emerge: 1) Composers don't make a mint from their work. They have a median total income of $45,000, and, on average, they derive 19% of that amount from composition. Yet they spend twenty-seven hours a week on composing-related activities. Eighty-five respondents — 6.4% of the total — make a living entirely from writing music. That figure is actually higher than I might have guessed. 2) Composers — at least those responding to this survey — are predominantly white and male: 85% and 79% respectively. But those figures will drop as new generations rise. 3) Composers are dabbling energetically in new technologies. Forty-three percent are on MySpace, 39% percent are on Facebook, and 63% either "do not mind" or "like the exposure" when people download their music for free.
