Music isn't necessarily a rich man's game. Orchestra and band and concert piano certainly are, but music was born elsewhere. How rich must you be to play a harmonica in the evening?
My wife's studying for her PhD at UPenn in music composition, and she's not paying a dime. Scholarship pays for her tuition as well as a monthly stipend. She's actually being put through school on a fund that Ben Franklin started way back in the day.
She attended one of the best private schools in Australia - also paid 100% through scholarship.
The money is out there, some people are just more tenacious at looking for it.
Generally speaking, your parents need money for you to become a prodigy in music.
Edit: I should add, the music establishment doesn't acknowledge the music of the poor as "real music". Prodigies on, for example, turntables, are not considered "real musicians" even if they are as much of a genius as the 10 year old violist.
True, but such disciplines also have much less traditional content to learn. Much of what they need is on the internet, and once they get to a certain base level they get feedback from performer loops.
The "real musicians" have a longer history, and thus there is more to learn, which is why school is more necessary to be qualified.
I.e. the best violinists come out of conservatories, whereas the best d.j.s can easily be self taught.
I don't know, I think you need to check yourself. A great hip hop DJ is going to know music back to the 1950s at least.
What makes you think there's more to learn? Yes, the classical library spans more years, but the library of recorded music is growing at an exponential rate. I'm quite certain that there is more recorded hip hop music available today than there is recorded/transcribed classical music. Are you aware of the volume of LPs and tapes that are circulated amongst the DJ community? It's enormous, and spans all genres, including classical music. There's an insane amount of music to learn, and the great DJs do learn it.
And if that's true, then your reasoning that Conservatories exist because there is so much classical music to learn has no foundation.
Conservatories are just the white way of teaching kids how to make music. Hip hop has its own methods.
I can tell your intentions are in the right place, but have you ever considered the possibility that there might be something racist about the notion that classical music is somehow special?
Music is most definitely a man's game. The vast, vast majority of professional musicians are men.
And I don't have any stats, but I would guess that the vast majority of pros have a decent bit of class privilege to go along with their male privilege.
