Questions about Harmonica and Women Players

Ana from Atlanta writes:
Hi Annie, I was at your seminar in Atlanta for the AHE [Atlanta Harmonica Enthusiasts] and I would like to say thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences as well. We are all waiting anxiously for that instructional dvd that you mentioned as one of your projects for the future, and you are always more than welcome to come back and teach us at the AHE.
I am also writing to ask you as a woman and harmonica player and i have some questions that i wish you could share with me about your own experience:
1) Do you think it is possible to live as a musician only? what are your the projects you are involved with: playing with different bands, organizing projects involving harmonica, teaching, all that stuff?
2) have you experienced some sort of prejudice because you were a woman (like any other job)?
3) what are qualities that in your opinion define a good harmonica player?

Dear Ana,
Thank you for getting in touch. I'm glad you enjoyed the seminar.
1) I can tell you from my own experience that it is very difficult to make a living as a musician. First of all, there are only two kinds of financial transactions in the music business: Robbery and Charity. You generally need to have some "seed money" to get a career going and cover all sorts of promotional and travel costs. The pay can sometimes seem good for a 90-minute show or seminar, but it is very low for the total hours put in traveling and preparing for gigs, and if you don't want to live in the back of a van and eat at Burger King every day, it doesn't go very far. That being said, it's so important to follow your passion and your dreams. It takes a lot of hard work and no small amount of good luck as well. People have taken advantage of us from time to time. We have also had a lot of help over the years from family and friends, help that we needed badly even with income from gigs and selling CDs. We had to keep our family as the main focus while our daughter was in school, but now that focus is shifting back to us and our career. However, the club scene has been greatly diminished since we started out in the biz. We're shifting our focus now more to teaching, creating instructional products and a greater body of recorded work. We're trying to forget about fitting into some existing market and we're trying to focus more on enjoying what we're doing so we can make the music better. That's the plan anyway. It's a work in progress.

Thanks for the questions and keep 'em coming!