Hello everybody, it's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast and in this episode I have a special guest with me, Charlie Albright, who is a concert pianist. He has been hailed as among the most gifted musicians of his generation with a dazzling natural keyboard affinity who made quite an impression by the Washington Post.

American pianist, composer, improviser Charlie Albright has been praised for his "jaw-dropping technique and virtuosity" meshed with a distinctive musicality by the New York Times. So welcome to the podcast, Charlie. Thanks for having me on, Sam. You know, it's been a great, great time talking to you and getting to know you over the years.

I think you mentioned you first started listening or reading Financial Samurai how many years ago? I was trying to remember. It was near the beginning. So I was still living in Boston because I know that I've been reading you while I was even like I think doing, finishing up my college stuff.

So I'm thinking it was probably somewhere in like 2009 or 10 I started reading you regularly. I think that's not too long after you started Financial Samurai, right? Right, July 2009. And I don't even know how I stumbled on the blog or something but I've been, yeah, I've been reading pretty much every article since and so it's great to get to know you over the years.

Yeah, definitely. And thanks for your support. So Charlie, you went to Harvard and it says you were, you got a bachelor's degree in economics and you were a pre-med student and then you got a master of music degree in piano performance at NEC and you also went to Juilliard.

So to me, that's pretty impressive. Sounds like a parent's dream come true. How did you end up getting into Harvard and what is NEC exactly? And I know about Juilliard because Juilliard is probably the best music school in the country. Sure. I guess it's probably easiest to start from the beginning I guess because it kind of all connects.

So I started piano when I was really young. I was about three and a half years old and we had a clunky upright garage sale piano. It was missing a few keys I think and my parents had just bought it and it was just sitting in the living room in my childhood home.

I guess I climbed up when I was about three and a half when my mom was in the kitchen or so the story goes. I don't remember it. I guess I started picking out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star kind of by ear. So my mom came in and she asked, "Who taught you that?" And I guess I said something like, "Nobody" or something.

So she saw that I had a knack for music and so she taught me what little she knows. She was born and raised in Korea and she had learned a little tiny bit of piano when she was younger I think. So she taught me a little bit of what she knows and then I had several teachers that would teach me entirely by ear.

So I played and some of these teachers were like my first non-mom teacher was this old lady who played the accordion and like the organ a block away. There were several teachers that kind of just taught me by ear including like one who was a – she owned a piano and organ store like this flea market in our town.

And anyway, so I was starting to perform a little bit and I couldn't read music at all. So when I was about seven, I was taking from a jazz teacher and he told my parents, "Charlie really needs a year's worth of like classical music training to develop his technique." And so the plan was – so he recommended this lady, Nancy Adcet, who was like a – she was a private music teacher in Olympia, Washington and about a half an hour from where I grew up in Centralia.

And the plan was for me to go and take a year from her, develop technique and then go back to what I called the fun songs, right? And so fast forward, she became like family. Like her and her husband were like my grandparents. We traveled the world together for like competitions and all kinds of stuff with music and we went everywhere from Australia to I think Norway.

I mean we traveled the world. And eventually it came time to be that I needed to figure out what I wanted to do for a living, right? Like growing up and – so my dad retired from the military and my mom is – she works in the local community college in the library.

She's a student supervisor there. And so I didn't grow up in a wealthy family or anything. I knew that whatever I did, I had to be able to support myself, right? I had to be able to pay the bills and passion is great and all but you also like having electricity.

That's a nice thing. So – and a lot of music is something that's out of your control. Like you can practice – the joke is how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. No, no, no. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Know the manager. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

And there's some truth to that and a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time, having the right person hear you at the right time, God's blessing. A lot of things are outside of what's in your control. So I thought if I can't – if I couldn't do music, I love music, but if I couldn't do music, what else was I interested in?

And for me, like business and medicine were always interests. So I was attracted to these new joint programs that these various colleges had – were starting – back then it was kind of starting up between academic colleges and music schools. And they hadn't really existed much before then. And basically what it is is so that you can go to an academic school and you're – there's differences between each program, but the general one is you're there full time for four years.

You can major in whatever you want. But you're simultaneously doing a first – your first year of your master's degree in music at like the conservatory. So you're kind of going back and forth those four years, having lessons all four years. And then you graduate with your normal degree from whatever the academic school is.

And then you go one more year, your fifth year, full time at the conservatory. And that's really your second year master's. So instead of like six years, it only takes five to do both. And so those programs really kind of drew me. Okay. Well, let me talk about your childhood a little bit because I did see a clip, video of you playing piano on TV at three and a half.

So it clearly seemed like you had way more talents than the average three and a half four-year-old. I have a three and a half-year-old and six-year-old. There's no way – I can't see her playing piano right now. So how much – it seemed like it was like a God-given talent where you could pick up sound and just do it.

And then over the years, if you didn't hone your craft or practice, do you think you could still do it now? Like let's say you didn't have that jazz musician teacher, nothing. But you still listen to music and you still fiddle around with the piano. How good would you think you would be right now versus if you had not – if you went through all the training compared to going through all the training I guess?

That's a good question. If I didn't ever play the piano, like if I did that picking out Twinkle Little Star and my mom did kind of start me on having – encouraging me to keep playing and take me to teachers who taught me by ear, then I don't know if I would have developed much at all.

You might have had that natural inclination. But like if we didn't even have a piano in the house, we might not have ever known that I had an inkling for music until much later on if ever, right? And if we had just only gone to the teachers who taught me by ear, I'd probably still be able to play by ear and stuff like that because the classical side, the conservatory side, all that doesn't really teach any of that at all.

So I might not be able to read music or maybe much more poorly. Maybe I would have taught myself as I got older. But I doubt that my technique would be as good. But I'd still probably be able to do the play by ear part. But doing the classical training did develop technique probably far better than if I hadn't taken at least from like a private classical teacher growing up.

Yeah. So would you – let's say there are two variables, nature or nurture. So nature is just being gifted with it. What percentage out of 100% do you think your talents, your ability is nature? That's a tough one, Sam. That's the big question, right? That's the whole nature versus nurture debate.

That's a tough one. I want to figure out how much do we need to – how hard do we need to try to get to where we want to go? The percentage is probably – the ratio probably varies depending on the subject, right? Let's talk about piano. But for music – Is it over 50% nature you think?

That's a tough one. I don't know. I mean if – there are people who don't – I've met a lot of people and some people are – you can kind of tell – sometimes you can kind of tell if someone has what they call the X factor, the it factor.

And even among people who can play almost any piece written for the piano. There's people who you can listen to and they might be extremely good. They can play Rachmaninoff and they can play – but maybe they don't have that X factor. They're still very good but maybe they don't have that X factor.

I don't know if the X factor can be a learned thing. Maybe that's the whole nature part. Maybe you can't learn that. But then again, if you only have that and you don't nurture it at all, then you're just going to be kind of just raw talent with no honing or focus.

So it's – I don't know the answer. But there's definitely both that's needed to be really good at – like really spectacular at something I think. So OK. Well, I'm not going to ask you specifically then. But how about Yo-Yo Ma? You played with him it says five times and everybody has heard of Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist.

What do you think is his nature versus nurture? I mean there's no doubt he has that X factor or whatever you want to call it, that intangible thing. But he also is extremely disciplined and worked his butt off his whole life, right? Oh man, I wish I could give you an answer.

I don't know. Both have to be there. Sometimes you can go to a concert or see someone and maybe they're really proficient in what they do. But they don't – maybe you're not moved by the person's playing or their singing or whatever they're doing. And that might be – but you can't necessarily nail it on the head why, right?

Why is that – it was all the notes are right. The dynamics were good, all the stuff. But maybe you weren't really moved versus sometimes you go to a place and maybe someone has technical problems. They didn't play all the right notes or they didn't – but it's something that's like you're incredibly moved and touched.

Maybe you cry. I think that's one of the criticisms also of maybe competitions is that – competitions can – we can discuss this later if you want. But what is a competition when it comes to things like art, right? It's not the Olympics. It's not who can play something a tenth of a second faster.

It's a little subjective. Exactly. There's so much subjectivity and one person's incredible might be another person's eh, right? Yeah, right. I will say that you moved me twice and the first time you moved me was when you did a rendition of my song Cutie Baby which I came up with in 2017 to sing my son to sleep.

And I just thought, "Hey, maybe Charlie can do an improv of Cutie Baby." And you sent it to me the very next day. You recorded it. It was unbelievable. It brought me to tears because as a creator, you just want to be heard or listened to and for you to make it ten times better.

Wow. I couldn't believe it and I was truly moved. So thank you very much for that. Oh, thanks, Sam. It was unbelievable. And I play it in my car a lot and I play it to my kids. Let's listen to Charlie's rendition of Cutie Baby so maybe you can go to sleep better.

So that was amazing. So thank you. Oh, thank you. The second time you moved me was at a concert that I saw recently at Union City in California where you do have the showmanship. You draw the audience in. It was the most entertaining concert that I've seen because you stood up and interacted with the conductor.

You asked questions. You had a dialogue. And then you did the improv thing where you said, "Anybody in the audience, throw me out several random keys." And then you listened and you joked back with one of the members and said, "I'll see you later because he or she said F key when there was a G key." I don't know my music.

Sure. And then you put together this unbelievable improv that sounded just amazing and I was blown away. So you do have the it factor. I totally see it. I appreciate that. Thank you. And I would say, I'm going to answer my own question, I believe that nature has to be, I think, over 50% of it, 60, 70% because you were born being able to hear music and play.

You'd survey a thousand people, maybe only 10 people can do the same thing. And so you have to have that nature and that God-given ability to do something. But then even if it's only 30% nurture in terms of hard work and work ethic, that is still a huge percentage to get to the very top.

Because we talked about, I asked you, and I'd love for you to share on this podcast, what differentiates the number one Juilliard graduate pianist versus the number five Juilliard pianist? And what differentiates the person who's playing at Carnegie Hall, which you have done, and the person who's not playing at Carnegie Hall?

What are your thoughts on that? A lot of it's that what's out of your control thing, I think. And it really is. There's, I think, Willie Nelson, the country singer, I think he said sometime that he, it was something along the lines of, and I'm going to butcher his quote or whatever, but I'm paraphrasing.

It was something along the lines of he felt bad for all of the people who are far better than he was, who never got a chance to have the career or anything close to the career that he had. And I think there's so much truth there. There's a lot of people, just because a particular person is more notorious, more famous than someone else in the music world, and I'm sure this is the case with a lot of, especially subjective fields, like acting is, I'm sure, a big one.

Stand-up comedy might be a big one as well. I don't know, but there's a lot of people who are far better than I am, technically, musically, all kinds of things like that, that I'm sure don't have nearly the opportunities to perform that I do. And I feel very blessed by God to be able to do what I do and share music, because it's something that I really enjoy and stuff.

But yeah, there's definitely a big cutoff, especially in a small world that something like classical music, where there's really not that many opportunities to play, if you really consider it. And it seems to be shrinking a lot, especially in the United States, but I think it's kind of a worldwide trend.

For example, someone like me, I don't work for any company, I'm not associated with an orchestra or a presenter or anything, but I'm basically an independent contractor, is what it is. So orchestras or concert presenters that put on maybe so many shows a year in their city or whatever, recitals or whatever, they might say, "Okay, we have X number of concerts per year to present," and they might invite me to give a concert with their orchestra, where I'd go, kind of like what I did a couple weeks ago when I saw you.

I would go down there, rehearse with them a couple times, give a concert or two with the orchestra where I'm playing and they're accompanying, and then I go on my way. And that's kind of the end of that interaction until maybe a few years later when I come back, maybe.

For a recital, it's very similar. Maybe there's a presenter that has so many shows in this concert hall every year, and maybe they want one piano, and then they're all going to want one violinist and maybe a chamber group or something. Same with the orchestras. Sometimes if they have, especially smaller orchestras, which most of them are, not your LA Philz and your New York Philharmonics and stuff, which give tons of concerts, but they might have five, six sets of concerts per year over the course of nine months, every month or two, and they'll have maybe one pianist, one cellist, one violinist as their guest artist.

And so there's really not a lot of, if you're thinking in terms of economics, the supply of concerts is very low, whereas there's a whole lot of people who would love to perform. The demand for giving concerts is high. And so there's a big drop off, I think, in terms of, I think we were talking, if you're a tennis star or a golfing star or something like that on the PGA Tour or whatever, you could be number 90 or 100 and still make a ton of money and have a tremendous career and have sponsorships and whatnot.

But in the classical music world, that's much different. Maybe the first, the top few people might have, make a decent living. Still not going to be in the range of like golf or tennis, but after you get to the number, maybe it's five, maybe it's 10, then it's like feast or famine.

They might not have any concerts. In the world? Yeah, in the world. It's very, very small. And it's not that it's impossible, but it's not as glamorous as it sounds in general, the industry. I think you make a really good point that, and I know you're being modest, that there are a lot of talented people out there who can do what we do, but not everybody has the same opportunity.

And this is really something that we talk about and I think society needs to recognize the people who have that head start, who are wealthier, who are better connected, tend to stay wealthier and more connected because you just end up helping your friends or your cousins. And human nature is we take care of the people we know more than the people we don't.

So the people who don't have that opportunity, it's going to be very tough. And I think that's why we need to fight for people who don't have that opportunity because so many people I think can do more, but they just aren't given that chance. So that's something, a theme that I do talk about on Financial Samurai.

I love that everything is free on Financial Samurai, the podcast, the content. So anybody who wants to learn about personal finance can if they want to. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about the economics of being a musician because you are one of the top five pianists who can make… No, no, no, I don't think so.

I would say you're in the top 0.1% of pianists and you could, like if you talked about the concerts and everything, tell me more about that. And also in college you majored in economics and I think you mentioned to me in our lunch conversation that you were being drawn to "the dark side of maybe consulting finance." But you held strong and you decided to continue doing music.

So how did you push back against the draw, the allure of immediate financial rewards to focus on being a musician? Well, so when I was choosing colleges I ended up going with one of those joint programs we talked about. So I did the Harvard NEC one. NEC stands for New England Conservatory of Music.

It's one of the big music schools in the US and the world. And they're both in Boston. Harvard's just across the river in Cambridge. And so I got there and I thought, "Okay, if I couldn't do music," and I wasn't necessarily dead set on doing music, but music was something I loved.

And I was performing more and more. Kind of starting in high school I was starting to actually travel long distances for concerts and stuff. And I was thinking, "Well, if I can't do that, what would I do?" And I always thought medicine and business were interesting. My dad has a rare neurological disease called reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

It's one of those kind of freak of nature diseases that no one knows the cause of or the cure for, but it causes intense neurological pain. So he was bedridden most of my life. He's doing a little better now. He's walking around and stuff. So maybe that's what drew me to medicine a little bit.

So I thought maybe business or medicine. So I interned on Wall Street at NYSE Euro next one summer. I had a final round interview at Black Rock or something. And I remember calling the guy. So at the end of the four years I'd been traveling many weekends, I would be on the road giving a concert and emailing in homework and stuff, I think, and then coming back for lectures during the week.

And at the end I had to make a decision. Am I going to go down the finance route or something where I'd probably make a tremendously lot more money than I am now? Or am I going to do the music route? And I had applied to Juilliard for their AD programs, artist diploma.

It's kind of, I always joke around artist diploma. I joked before I got one too. It's like, why do you need a diploma to be an artist? That's kind of, what's the point of that? But it's a terminal degree. So it's basically, I kind of think of it as like, artist diploma is almost like a JD but for music.

It's very practical performance based. And then there's other options. There's also a DMA, which is a doctor of musical arts. That's like if you want to, it's more like musicology. So if you want to become a professor somewhere, it's kind of straddling between some performance and some teaching. And then there's like PhD in music, which is all like hypothetical for the most part.

And some people do multiple. But anyway, I thought, I remember giving, I was sitting at Prudential Center in the food court, I think, in Boston. And I remember calling up the guy who was my, or the guy interviewing me and I told him I was just going to cancel because I'm, I think, yeah.

And I don't think he was very pleased, but the bottom line was like, I chose to go down that route. And I'm very glad I did. I'm glad you did too. But the economics of it, you ask, a lot of people, it's definitely not as glamorous as it seems.

Like I can see from the outside how people would be like, oh, it's so, people probably may think I make a tremendous amount of money to these concerts. They probably thinking in their head, oh, look at these, you know, there's a 2000 people here or 1500 people here and we all paid, you know, so much money and Charlie probably gets most of that.

And that's like just not the way the economics of what I do works. Generally how it works is, I mean, you're a sole, you're a, you're self-employed. So you're a contractor. And generally speaking, you, it's not a per ticket thing. So if nobody comes to the concert, you make the same as if it's sold out.

Usually if it's sold out, it's better because that's probably means that people want to hear you and then, you know, if you can't, no one comes and they might not invite you back a second time. But there's no direct, like in the contracts, there's generally no stipulation for like percent of ticket sales, which I think might maybe the case in, you know, like pop stars and stuff like that, or maybe rock bands.

And you go and usually it's a fixed, you know, a fixed fee that they'll pay and it may or may not include things like hotel, rental car, airfare, depends on the place. And so depending on, you know, where you're playing, you might have to be arranging for your transportation, hotel, lodging, car, all that stuff.

And the other kind of funny part of it is that I've noticed firsthand, and no one explained this to me before, maybe they didn't know, I don't know, but like it seems to me that there's a correlation, an inverse correlation between like the size and prestige of where you're playing and the amount of money you get.

At least firsthand, that's kind of where. So oftentimes, like if you're playing at the, you know, huge venue, very famous or whatever in a big city, you might get paid less than if you played in a smaller town somewhere or with a smaller orchestra. I think there's a correlation there.

We were talking, I think doctors are very similar, at least here in the United States, where a doctor being any, basically any kind of doctor, they could be doing the same work and get paid a fraction in LA that they would be paid if they lived in, you know, maybe rural America somewhere.

And it's probably that whole supply and demand thing we keep coming back to where it's, you know, it might be harder to get people to come out to rural areas so they have to pay more versus, you know, everyone wants to go live in, you know, maybe a big city.

But it's similar with music too, I think. Right. Well, let me share some perspective from the outside looking in. I think you absolutely did the right choice by pursuing music, by pursuing what God-given talent you've been given and doing the most of it. Because you could always go to finance or consulting or whatever if you want.

But if you went, let's say, the finance route for 10 years, 13 years like I did, I would say it would be almost impossible for you to go and give concerts at venues around America. I mean, maybe you could do it, but I would say it'd be much more possible.

And also it might be impossible because you might be hooked on that, maybe that income or that lifestyle that it provides. And it's just like, you know, one more year, one more bonus, one more level to get to MD. And then after that is partner MD and all that stuff.

So it's an interesting cycle that I broke after 13 years that I don't think a lot of people can break because the money tends to be pretty good. It is very rare to break that. It's very impressive that you were able to because it's that lifestyle. Inflation is a big part of it.

You know, once you have the so high, there's always the next one to go to. And then you got the place in Greenwich, Connecticut. And then the mortgage is big. And then you can't. And there's not many jobs that will be able to support that. And yeah, it can – lifestyle creep can happen.

You definitely. So as a hopefully future father, would you recommend your child go the music route if you observed her and you notice, "Oh, she's pretty talented. It could be something." What are your thoughts on music as a career or as a passion? That's a good question. If she was – if she had musical inclination, I think learning a musical instrument as a child is very good.

Like I think there's probably benefits in the brain. I think there's probably also the whole teaching of discipline, you know, like you have to practice. You have something you have to do. You have a task that you need to accomplish. That's very good. My mom was fortunately not a tiger mom like at all.

She was kind of the opposite of what the stereotypical tiger mother is. I was never forced to practice. I knew that I was supposed to. When I was a little kid, it was like an hour a day. And then when I got older, it became like two hours a day, which is actually very low when you compare it to like a lot of people who in maybe middle high school will be practicing like the serious classical people who might be practicing four, three, four, five to eight hours a day, which I would go crazy.

I would hate it. I'd probably quit if I was forced to do that. I think I practiced eight hours a day including a piano lesson once ever, like one time, one day and I was like – it was at a piano festival too. So it probably didn't even count.

But no, I think music is good for kids to – I think it's great for brain development. I think it's good for discipline and learning to – you have a task that you need to do. You have a job to do. In terms of – if my daughter was really like passionate about music and really wanted to and that's what she had to do, I hope that I would be supportive.

I don't have a daughter yet. We're expecting – I mean we do have a daughter but she's not born yet. She's expecting in a few months. Thank you. But yeah, so we have a daughter now but she's not born quite yet. But if she really loved and was passionate about music, I hope that I'd be encouraging but I also consider myself to be one of the – like really pragmatic.

It's funny. My friends always say I'm like super risk-averse as a person but I chose one of the most risky careers that you possibly could have chosen. In general, music is not – I mean it doesn't make sense to go into music as a career for classical music. It just doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make financial sense. It doesn't make – practically, it doesn't make that much sense. But if like my daughter was super passionate and she just felt that she had to do it, I hope that I'd be supportive of that. But in general, like if you don't – it's almost as if – I can't speak today.

It's almost as if if you don't feel like you have to do it and there's nothing else that you could do aside from that music. If you don't feel like that, then you probably shouldn't go into music. Like it's so tough. I mean it's tough financially. It's tough mentally.

It's tough just in terms of the BS that you have to put up with a lot that if you don't absolutely feel like you have to do it, then it's probably good to not do it and choose something else. There are much easier ways to make money. There are much easier ways to have a comfortable life than a music career I think.

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer or anything like that. It's very practical. But yeah, it's not for the faint of heart I think. Well, give us listeners an example. Let's say you were able to get into Juilliard. I don't know what the acceptance rate is there, probably less than 3% or something.

What does the average Juilliard student do afterwards and what do you think he or she makes based on what they're doing? Piano is a little unique from other instruments because other instruments have basically two options in terms of if they want to perform. So if you go to a music conservatory, you have maybe two to four options of what you can realistically do if you want to actually use that degree to its fullest.

You can do what I'm doing and be a solo performer and that's basically the only option for a pianist because orchestras don't really have a pianist. They usually have a part-time or maybe one. But most orchestra pieces don't involve a piano unless you're doing a solo concerto like you do if you're a soloist.

So that's one option. And violinists, other instruments can do that too. Violin and cello are probably the most popular of the other. There's not many soloists who use some of the other instruments. Piano, violin, cello are kind of the main soloists, especially piano and violin. Another option you can do is if you're an instrumentalist that's not a piano, you can try to get a job performing with an orchestra.

And that's really, that's kind of a, that's like an example of a nine to five of classical musicians. So if you get a job as a violinist at the New York Philharmonic, that's like what everyone dreams of who wants to go down that road. But not anybody, it's very hard to get.

It's extremely hard to get because a lot of these jobs are you have them until you die type jobs. Right. Exactly. And so like how many people are in an orchestra? 80 to 100 maybe for a big one. How many violinists are there? Those are first and second violin.

Maybe you have a few dozen. And there's only a spot that opens up if someone retires. And when someone has a job, they aren't going to retire until practically they die. Right. It's very rare for even someone I think to retire even when they get older. Like there's a lot of older people that play in orchestras too because you can, you know, you can play your instrument your whole life.

And so only that only when someone, you know, leaves the orchestra, either retires or passes away, does that one spot open for the most part. And then you have thousands and thousands of people who want to try to get that spot. And you know, that's super competitive. So that's the second one.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. No, I was going to say I remember I think the San Francisco Philharmonic Orchestra, they won a strike several years ago. And so it was revealed how much they got paid. And if I recall correctly, I think the pay was something like $160,000 to $200,000. So that's really, really good money for a musician.

I mean, you aren't going to make that being a professor at, I mean, it'd be hard to make that as a professor at even some of the top music schools in the world. Like you, yeah. And a lot of the people working there. Yeah. So it's very competitive because there's like, as a musician, it's really, really, really hard to pull those kinds of numbers anywhere.

Right? Right. Right. So the third option would be like being a private teacher. Right. And then the fourth option would be maybe trying to get a professorship somewhere at a college or university. And those don't necessarily pay all that great either. So like the most lucrative, if you're thinking just financially, it would probably be the second option, trying to get a spot at a major orchestra.

But of course, there's very few of those. So there's far more smaller orchestras in the US. And a lot of those orchestras are pay per concert type things. And so a lot of times people, and there's not very many concerts, and they might, a lot of them give five, six sets of concerts a year, maybe over nine months or so.

And so people in those orchestras will often be a member of multiple orchestras within several hours of driving. And so they'll just go all over the place performing. Got it. So definitely sounds difficult. It sounds difficult to maybe even make 60 to 70,000 a year regularly. I think so.

I think so. Especially with, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it's definitely something that people need to consider. And maybe it sounds like what most people do is they get a normal higher paying job, and then maybe they can be a musician as their side gig on the side. I played with one orchestra in Boston once called the, I think it's called the Longwood Symphony.

And it's made up entirely of doctors. Wow. Doctors who practice, I think for the most part, but there's been a lot of talk about correlation between medicine and music and stuff. But a lot of doctors do play instruments, many of which at a very high level. And so they have this orchestra that people who are practicing doctors, I think, will come and they'll give a few concerts a year or something, which is really cool.

I mean, that sounds good because I'm assuming if you're a doctor, you're making 300 to a million dollars a year. And then if you are good at music, good enough, that sounds like a win-win. Yeah. Yeah. It could be. It's a good option for a lot of people. Of course, whether you should go into medicine now, that might be a changing industry as well.

That's another discussion. Yeah. It's been tough. I mean, I had a friend who, one of my good friends from college, became a doctor, cardiologist, did a post-fellow and all that. And then 10 years after graduating from William & Mary, he's like, "Man, the whole industry changed. The whole pay structure changed because insurance companies made it much more difficult for doctors and litigation and all that." So the compensation as a cardiologist, I think he said, declined by 30 to 40% based on his expectations.

Wow. And a lot of shifts in the industry are happening now. Private equity firms are acquiring more and more private practices. I think that's happening across the country quite a bit. And then that changes a whole bunch of everything as well because now it's less doctors who are working for themselves or for a hospital and shifting more toward doctors working for a financial group of some kind.

Yeah. Let me ask, in terms of, again, being a musician, if you don't have your fingers and hands, you can't play, right? And this is something that I've been thinking about myself because if I don't have my fingers and hands, I can't write. And one of the things I like to do is forecast my future.

And several years ago, I started getting carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrist. I was like, "Man, I don't want to write because I'm just writing too much." So I slowed down my writing. And also my vision during the pandemic started getting poor. My visual acuity and then the diopter was getting worse.

My myopia, my nearsightedness. And I was thinking to myself, "At this rate, I don't know if I can continue writing in 10 years." So I thought, "Well, I think as a hedge, let's just do more podcasts because hopefully my voice will last for a long period of time." Do you as a musician think, "There might be one day where my fingers and hands don't work or my fingers don't listen to my brain," because right now I'm assuming a lot of the notes you play is just automatic.

It's just like walking or talking or breathing. A lot is muscle memory. Yeah, muscle memory. Do you worry about in the future one day not being able to play? I hope that it doesn't ever happen that I can't play. I don't worry about it. I just try not to worry about it, that is.

Maybe I should. But I've been fortunate to have been able to play for so long. I'm in my 30s now and I've been playing for decades and decades. I love music and if there was a time that I physically or mentally couldn't do it, I probably would be very sad.

I hope I wouldn't be depressed or something. I'd probably be very sad. I guess the only thing you can do is hope that it doesn't happen and pray to God that it doesn't happen. No, I think you can do more though. The reason why I bring this up is because I'm 45 now and so I didn't really think about physical ailments as much in my 30s at your age.

But I listened to Izzac Perlman play before he retired. An amazing musician. My wife loves him. Incredible. I think for normal people who don't know music, they can't really tell when a musician messes up on stage. I'm definitely a normal to below normal person in terms of music. But I heard him mess up a little bit.

He has huge hands and I was like, "Oh man, this could be his swan song." It was a little bit sad. And what I'm saying is that it's tough to face our mortality but man, I think it's like around 40, 45. It seems like the things that we thought we could always do tend to fade.

And so for you, I feel like your talent is unbelievable but if you could record more of your music on CDs or just on YouTube and all that and then it would last forever. I think that's one of the best hedges I guess or to diversify your identity. Because what happens is the more we're invested in our careers or who we think we are, like for you as a musician or for me as a banker or whatever, if we lose that, oh man, it's very devastating and it could take a while to get out of that hole.

It kind of becomes part of your identity really, right? Oh, absolutely. People's occupations, they kind of become embedded with kind of who they are for better or for worse. I do try to record a lot. I have a few albums out and I've been doing more and more with YouTube.

So shameless plug for YouTube. Absolutely. But yeah, so I try to record more and more. And I do a little bit of teaching on the side and things like that remotely. But yeah, it would be – so as a musician, there are some things you can also do to try to prevent potential problems.

One of the most important things – I mean it doesn't guarantee it at all. But one of the most important things is staying very loose when you're playing. One thing that happens and it can kind of happen from a very young age is if you get into the habit of being tense while you're performing or practicing or anything like that, tightening up your hands, fingers, wrists, arms, all that stuff.

Those habits are hard to break. But also they can kind of exacerbate potential problems and lead to problems. But staying loose, even when you're playing crazy stuff, there's bajillions of microseconds where you can take a split second to rest and keep loosey-goosey for lack of a better term. That is extremely important I think to help prevent things like carpal tunnel and things like that.

I don't want to be a doctor or anything but staying loose I think is very important. Yeah. Have you ever had a point in doing a performance where your brain just froze up and you didn't know what to play? Oh yeah. Memory slips. Those are horrible. Luckily, that's when I can – that's when the improvisation portion comes in and I can just kind of make something up.

A lot of the time, a lot of the time, very few people will know. I remember when I was a kid, it happened to me once. I was playing – I think I was like 13 or 14 and my teacher was with me. I was playing with an orchestra in I think Port Angeles, Washington.

You're playing entirely by memory. So like I skipped a part and I'm playing with like an 80-piece orchestra and they are not skipping the part because they've got the music. I like skipped like a page or something or looped back or something because sometimes from going to one section to another, like one or two notes can mean whether you repeat a section or go on to the next section.

Somehow though, the conductor and I like connected during the performance and we figured it out and we got through it and it was smooth enough that my teacher didn't even realize. He was sitting there watching the performance. So that was good. But it happens and that's probably one of my bigger fears when it comes to performing is that sometimes no matter how much you practice, how much you prepare, sometimes it's – your mind can just go blank and you'd like look at your hands.

Just like when you think about how to walk, if you think about the physical movements of your toes and feet and ankles and stuff and your legs as you're walking, suddenly you forget how to walk, right? It becomes awkward. But yeah, it can be – that can be kind of scary.

You told me something that I found fascinating. You said that before you give a show, you practice for a whole year the piece. Is that – a whole year and when you say a whole year, how many hours do you practice a week for that whole year on that piece?

So yeah, I like to – if it's a new piece, depending on how weird sounding the piece is, if it's kind of a normal sounding piece, it's a little bit easier because you can intuitively know if something is right or wrong because it just sounds right or wrong. But then there are some pieces that it's not so clear.

Maybe everything sounds wrong and so you have to – you don't know if it's right or wrong. I like to – I'm a horrible sight reader. I'm very slow. But I'm pretty good at memorizing. But I like to have at least a year to like slowly do the piece.

But many pieces that I perform, you know, some of the pieces I perform even today are pieces that I've learned, you know, 20 years ago. That's one of the things also, as you get older as a performer, it's not – because it's not just about who can play fastest or who can play, you know, the loudest or anything like that because it's, you know, it's a lot of – it's art and entertainment.

It's subjective. As you get older, maybe, you know, even people who are 70 who are performing, you know, they're not in the youth of their life at that stage. But a lot of times, their performing can be just absolutely incredible in its depth and stuff and maybe they're technically not as proficient as they were when they were 25.

Yeah. But, you know, they have that – it's overcompensated by – it can be overcompensated by the level of maturity and insight into what and how they're playing it that can make it just, you know, incredibly moving. Right. Well, one of the things – one of the reasons why I thought it was incredible that you practice for a whole year before performing the piece is because in my mind, I think, well, you've had decades of experience.

You know the music. You can listen and pick up. I'm always thinking, ah, you know, I would say, yeah, two weeks of practice and you're good to go or a month of practice and you're good to go. And the point I'm trying to make to listeners is that getting to the top of whatever your craft, it just doesn't come by winging it.

You've got to work at it over and over and over again. And even if you've mastered it, things can still mess up and that's why you've got to continue to work at it. Absolutely. And it's – I think you've probably heard that saying or something or maybe it was a TikTok trend or something and it's like, oh, you pay someone, an expert craftsman or something and they can fix it in five minutes and then they charge a lot of money or something.

And then the person might be like, oh, why is it – you only work for five minutes. How come it costs $500 or whatever? And it's like, well, you're not paying for that five minutes. You're paying for the 50 years of dedication and experience and practice to be able to do it in five minutes.

Right. That's exactly right. And it's a lot – if I were to calculate like how much I make in terms of like per hour, it would probably be like single digit cents or less per hour when you factor in the practicing and the work over the years and stuff.

It's definitely not for the money. Now, I hear you. In conclusion, I actually want to learn or hear from you about your thoughts on delusion. And this is interesting because you say you do teaching and I'm sure teaching pays pretty well. I've taught myself high school tennis for three years.

It doesn't pay very well. But I've also had to manage expectations for the children, the high schoolers and also the parents who might think that their children are better than they are and deserve to play at a higher level on the depth charts, on the rankings. So as a teacher, I'm presuming that you can kind of identify within the first five minutes, maybe two minutes, whether the child is talented or maybe just not as talented as the parents think.

So how do you as a teacher make sure that the child is not crushed in terms of their hopes and dreams of being like an amazing musician? And how do you manage the expectations of the parents? Because you will find out eventually when you become a father that your child will be the most beautiful, amazing child in the world and you might have – fall under their spell in terms of thinking they're better than they really are in whatever they like to do.

That's a good question. I think you're probably right. You can – like in terms of teaching, you can tell if someone has the X factor or not within probably seconds of them playing. But I might even say a step further and say that most people – maybe not when they're super young but when they're a little older, if you see someone who is in middle school playing an instrument, you can tell if they have – even a normal person who is not in music at all can watch that person play, watch the kid play and be like, "That kid has it or doesn't?" I think it's – I think that at least for music, it's pretty clear.

You see some kids who are 8 years old who are just like – you're jaw dropping. It's like holy smokes. What is – like this is incredible. Then there's most kids who aren't. So I'm sure there are parents who are delusional about my kid is going to be the next yo-yo mom when they're clearly not, no matter how much they practice or work or whatever.

With my students, I try to be clear. If the parents ask about it, I can tell them, "Well, they're probably not going to do this as a career." I can tell. But I think at least I've been fortunate enough that the people I've worked with have not been delusional I think in terms of that.

But it's probably important to be – you can say it in a nice way but like at least to the parents, if they are delusional, it's probably best to at least be up front with them and be like, "I don't think." I might be wrong but – yeah. >> Right.

I mean it's a tough conversation. I truly believe being congruent with your thoughts and your actions and the reality is so important to manage happiness because the worst is if you think you deserve to go to Harvard and you don't get into Harvard or you deserve to be a concert pianist and you can't get any gigs, it's really soul crushing.

But if you can adjust your expectations more closely to reality, that will bring a greater level of happiness. >> There was this thing on the internet that I read a long time ago and they had like a bunch of diagrams and stuff and they were like, "Happiness is the difference between expectation and reality.

And if expectations exceed reality, then that's like – it makes you sad. But if reality exceeds your expectations, then that's like happy." There's probably some truth there. >> No, for sure. I've had pretty low expectations all my life. I mean since like trying to take the SATs, I was like, "How do you guys get high SATs?" I had to – I remember going to Barnes & Noble and just flipping through the SAT prep book.

I was thinking, "Oh, well if I flip through it, I must be learning." But clearly I was fooling myself because my SAT scores were quite poor and we couldn't afford like $2,500 Princeton review stuff. But by going to a public school, I was thinking, "Oh, if I get a $30,000 a year job, I'll be happy." And so yeah, please manage expectations, folks.

I know I talk to really successful people in their arts like yourself and others. But I'm just curious as to how people get to where they are right now. It's always amazing to hear from people like you directly. >> I think comparison also is something that can be – can cause you to be less happy.

If you compare occasionally with other people in your field or whatever, it can – and you can use that as motivation. Oh, like I can – that person did this. That's great. Great for them. I'm going to try to do something amazing too. If you can use it as motivation on occasion, that can be good.

But if you're always going through social media and it's like, "Oh, so-and-so is doing this and I'm not. How come I'm not as advanced in my career or in my whatever?" There's very little that can – good that can come from that kind of thing as well. Especially in careers where a lot of it is subjective and a lot of it isn't necessarily how many hours you put in, that can be especially kind of a difficult thing.

So not comparing yourself too much is a good thing I think. >> Yeah, it's tough because on Financial Samurai, I just write about my experiences and I'm in an expensive city. I live in New York City. Now I'm in San Francisco. So when I write these figures, sometimes people are like, "Are you kidding me?

Those are ridiculous figures, ridiculous income levels." And I'm saying, "Well, that's just the reality of the income in these areas and the cost of living is higher than obviously in the Midwest." So it's hard sometimes when I'm writing or talking. I don't want to be everything to all people, but I also want to be cognizant that people have different realities.

So hopefully listeners can realize that. We all are in our little bubbles, but it's really fun to learn about people doing different things. >> Absolutely. Yeah. So Charlie, if people want to subscribe to your YouTube channel and listen to your stuff, where can they find you? >> You can find me on most online stuff.

So my YouTube and Instagram and Facebook are all charliealbrightpianist. My albums and stuff are I think somewhere on there and then there's also Apple Music and Spotify, all that good stuff. And then my website's just my name, charliealbright.com. And then that's where all the upcoming concert touring info is and stuff.

So yeah, so you can check me out online or if I'm in their area, they can come see a show and say, "Hey, I heard you're on with Sam Dogan on Financial Samurai. That'd be awesome." Meeting you was so tremendous too. I've been a fan of yours for what, over a decade or something?

And finally getting to know you and meeting you and all that stuff has been just awesome. >> No, it's really great. And your concert, your performance was the most entertaining concert I've ever seen really because of you just stopping and showing to the audience that you're a real person with a personality and you're telling a story and interacting.

I've never seen a concert like that before. Maybe it's because I'm not an experienced concert goer, but I've seen enough to say that it was truly entertaining. I hope you do more of that. >> I try. I try. There's a thing called classical music is dying and that's the best thing for classical music.

It was a long time ago. It was on CNN and the first classical was in quotes. My point was the classical rules of classical music are dying. No talking at all. If someone coughs, you send them a laser eyes and shut the concert down. This kind of full of themselves, uppity kind of idea of classical music is dumb, I think.

Talking and interacting and just making it low key. It's not me playing and people listening. We're all sharing an experience together. We're all having fun. >> Interactive. >> I think that's important. >> Oh, it's so important. Just to learn about the piece and then hear it is huge. So keep it up.

I hope other musicians who are listening keep that interaction up as well because it's been wonderful. I'm going to link to all the stuff you said in the show notes. And Charlie, thanks again for your time. It's been great talking to you. >> All right. Thanks again, Sam. >> All right.

Bye-bye. >> Bye.