Right place at the right time

I'm thinking this has got to be the thing that decides whether a musician scratches a living, makes a living, does quite well or makes it really big.

There are so many talented people on the fringes of the professional music scene.

I bet only a handful make a living.

10 years ago I knew a guy who was an amateur drummer. He went to London to try and forge a career as a professional pop/rock drummer. I remember thinking at the time that I wished him well, but didn't rate his chances very highly. I would imagine the market is flooded with young guys who want to be pro drummers. I recently found out that he had to give up on that after a couple of years and now works in a coffee shop.

I don't know much about Oasis, but I read somewhere that the original bass player could only play the E string and just moved up and down the fret board rather than use the other strings.

So you can practice all you want, do your gradings etc etc but if you are not in the right place at the right time you are probably better off going to work at Starbucks.