I have chosen to go to Oregon State University, and I know that I want to get a music career started. They have a fine recording engineering studio program there and also fine music courses. I really want to make a living doing something with music, performance would be ideal. The only thing that concerns me is that the city I am moving to is a small rural town with only 50,000 residents or so living there. I want to make myself known, but the music scene can't be that big, should I feel that this is going to hinder me goals? There are some bigger cities, but those are a decent amount of driving away. Should I even be worried about this? I don't know, whaty do you guys have to say?
Be more worried about making a living than where you live to do it.
I live about an hours drive from Chicago. Lots more gigs here than in a small town... but lots more musicians too.
Very few musicians anywhere make a full-time living off just performing. But if you can also teach, write, do some production for others, rent out spare gear, do setups, etc... maybe none of them would provide a full-time income, but all of them together could. And you'll end up with a bit more security that way too - it's not likely that all your mini-businesses will go south at the same time.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL