Before The Five were established as a group, Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyzhsky were trying to create a Russian kind of music. All the composers of The Five were amateur composers. This does not mean that they were bad, it means that they earned their living in other ways and composed when they had time. Rimsky-Korsakov was a naval officer, Borodin was a professor of chemistry, Cui was an expert in military armaments and Mussorgsky had been in the Guards and then in the civil service before he took up music full time. Balakirev, the leader of the group, worked for a time for the Warsaw Railways. He was the spiritual leader of the group: a kind of teacher and guide.