One of my Teachers, Pietro Righini, author of fundamental books on acoustics for musicians and others, told me one day, from the height of his 90 years, while I was asking him for advice over the phone: "One piece of advice is worth little; it may be that after an hour it is no longer useful at all..." Each of us, for that matter, can offer a suggestion based on our own experiences.
In this case, in my opinion, tenacity and perseverance could lead to a result. A difficult result? A difficult goal?... But all results and all goals are difficult.
Current times are difficult in all fields. For Engineers, for Teachers, for Scientists etc... for Musicians they always have been!
The appropriate thing is to give oneself some time, after which we can draw a line... and analyze what did not go well... or what we have gathered (not only in monetary terms but also in terms of experience) (One can study a great deal and with great sacrifice, but merely acquire notions. It takes Experience. Notion + Experience = Knowledge).
Getting discouraged cancels out much of the energy to be employed for the journey.
We must ask ourselves some questions: "What do I know how to do"? "Is what I know how to do useful? And to whom?" This should be done before choosing, if necessary, another job.
In Music, and not only, Talent is the foundation.
Therefore, have yourself listened to by a good pianist, who can freely express their opinion regarding your preparation and, indeed, your talent.
It is also difficult even for international names to secure concerts, because there is no audience, or at least a scarcity of an audience, willing to leave the house to come and listen to live music. That is, the concert-going public. YouTube and social media are enemies. The pandemic and the war have further distorted the vision of Beauty. Today we can listen to a great pianist for free and we can watch them play, yet we do not evaluate how much the video and audio "filter" the Beauty of the performance. We are asking ourselves what will become of Music and Art in general. It has been a century and a half that we have been asking this question without finding a correct answer. So there is no precise answer even to your question. To follow or to leave.
I wish for you to be able to find it. Only you can answer... but it comes to mind that if there is passion and talent, something positive will happen. Not much will happen, however, by finding "any job," where you will be forced to "operate" but deprived of the "tools of the trade" that you know so well.
....I always talk too much and I do not know if my opinions, entirely personal, may have been useful to you and above all... appropriate.
Regards, Paolo
