Official Luthiers Forum!

Considering all the advances computers have made in the past 6 years, he might still need that rich girlfriend

I need that rich girlfriend!

Begin the day with a friendly voice on the radio...

To the OP, I would suggest the same thing to your nephew that I've sad many, many times to kids in their late teens/early 20's who I've mentored over the years, while they were looking hard at college majors and career paths.

The single most important thing (imho) when deciding what do do with your life, is to do something you believe in. There is nothing worse (again, my opinion) than looking back at 30 years of "success" and feeling like you wasted your life doing something you really don't care about... except the money you made along the way.

That said, I do believe that a man has a responsibility to provide for himself, and if he chooses to have one, a family. So, I would help him figure out what he truly believes in after taking a good look around the world and environment he has access to and pick that as something worthy of doing. That is, something that pays enough to live off of. Then, let the passion for music continue to grow, spending all his spare time and money to give himself every chance to see what he's got.

If I could roll back the clock a few decades, this is exactly what I would do. If I could trade my debt-free life and a shop full of every tool known to man, I would do it in a second to feel like that time had been spent doing something I truly believed in, instead sitting at a computer trying to help one business or another make money while trying to keep as much as I could for myself.

I say spending your life making a modest living doing something you think is important, is way better than spending it making a lot and doing something you don't really care about. Regret is the worst thing to live with :-/

Ok, enough soul-bearing. I'm going back to talking guitars for at least a few months before opening this trap door again!

Best of all life has to offer to your nephew.

Thanks for the update, I love a happy ending.

Good hearing a success story, thanks for feedback.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I'm actually wondering about doing luthiery in China. Seems they have bigger market there.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Be careful what you wish for Tai,
China may come to you!

They likely already have.

China opened work rights to Taiwanese not too long ago. You get the compatriots passport and travel to China with it you can just go get a job like a Chinese citizen can. Which is why I'm thinking about it. Because that's the only country I can immigrate to right now without jumping through serious hoops.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I'm with you there. That's what makes "the end of the story"--in this case, at least--a happy one. He doesn't much care what he does as long as he gets to do math. He's a pure math major, not engineering, so he can't be an engineer (as one poster suggested)--that would actually require another two years of classes. But there are a lot of jobs out there for mathematicians, especially in the statistical and logistical line, and he'll be more than happy doing that kind of thing, or, really, anything else where he's mostly doing math. So his future is not just bright but also satisfying.

I reiterate the advice I gave earlier in this thread. The best way to figure out how to make a living is to make three lists. Occupations that are on all three lists are good choices. Occupations that are on only one or two lists are bad choices. The three lists are:

1. What can you do for a living and be happy spending 40-50 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, doing without fail? It doesn’t have to be the thing you love most in the world; it just needs to be something you will not be unhappy doing for a good chunk of your waking hours each day.

2. What can you do for a living that you are either good at doing, or reasonably can expect to be good at doing with proper education and/or experience? It stinks to be bad at your job.

3. What can you do for a living where someone (an employer or clients) will pay you at least a living wage to do it? If there is no market for the thing you love and are good at, then there is not much point in trying to do it for a living. It should remain something you only do for fun. And the living wage threshold is significantly higher if you expect to support a spouse and have children. The world doesn’t need any more irresponsible spouses and parents who won’t do what it takes to financially support their families.

There was a book years ago that urged young people to “do what you love, and the money will follow.” Absolute horse****. What if I love to eat and watch movies? Is somebody going to pay me to do that? No, you can’t take that advice seriously. It is close to being right, which means it is wrong in a dangerously misleading way. The three lists are less poetic, but they constitute more sound advice.

I'm an engineer and have worked with a number of mathematicians over the years, especially in R&D where I spent most of my career. They were in high demand, especially in the areas of statistics and data analysis.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

"There was a book years ago that urged young people to “do what you love, and the money will follow.” Absolute horse****. What if I love to eat and watch movies? Is somebody going to pay me to do that? No, you can’t take that advice seriously. It is close to being right, which means it is wrong in a dangerously misleading way. The three lists are less poetic, but they constitute more sound advice."

Unless you are Harry Knowles....
But the three lists will work out better more often.

Those positions (like head ice cream taster, or rock star, or astronaut, or cowboy) don’t open up very often.