15 Comments

• Jaime Valle (2 May 2011 at 2:27pm)

  Play for free? no thanks!

  I've lived and worked in San Diego for 40 years,(no day gig) purchased two homes and put my kids through college, I did it working al type of gigs, studio gigs, show gigs, top forty gigs, jazz gigs, weddings etc, and NEVER DID IT FOR FREE, NOTHING JUSTIFIES WORKING FOR FREE.

  All the cats I collaborate with demand to GET PAID, Bob Magnusson, Peter & Tripp Sprague, Allan Phillips, John Reckevic, Rob Thorsen, Gilbert Castellanos & Rob Whitlock to name a few,
  (I could list 50 more) They will not work free nor food or drinks. why? because they are pros.

  Respect yourself and your music, think twice my friends, free is not always better.

  Musically yours,
  -Jaime Valle

• Joe (3 May 2011 at 6:04am)

  Hi Jaime,

  Thanks so much for your reply. I've seen you play at Dizzy's a few times, and it means a lot to me that you'd stop by and donate a bit of your time.

  I partially agree with you. Any professional is necessarily mindful of his/her money, otherwise he/she wouldn't last long in the business. Music is tricky; everyone must be his/her own private businessman. I think it's great advice for young musicians to be as shrewd as the pros are and to avoid getting excited over gigs that don't pay, but I wouldn't take it as far as a strict mantra of "never work for free."

  I'm moving to Seattle in a couple weeks, and I'll be looking for gigs cold turkey. I grew up in the area, and I've made some new Seattle friends since, but I'm not expecting any gig calls before I meet some more players. John Stowell gave a clinic at SDSU a few months ago, and this was his advice on networking: When you enjoy someone's playing at a show or jam session, tell them, and ask to informally jam sometime. Don't worry about whether they will hire you. If the musical connection is there, and you both behave professionally, then the paying gigs will come.

  With very few exceptions, I turn down free gigs myself as I'd rather just spend time with my wife. I make exceptions only when I'd rather play out than sit at home, when I don't have a paying gig at the same time, and when I expect to recieve some non-monetary compensation to make up for it. Extreme hypothetical example: if Jimmy Page himself walked into a Dazed and Confused rehearsal and asked us to play a free gig, those of us not having seizures would have fallen over each other to accept.

  We all do little bits of free work regularly. Every time we attend a jam session or audition, perform a few minutes later than the contract requires, teach a few minutes past the end of a lesson, we're effectively working for free. In the rare event that I accept a non-paying gig, I do it with the same respect for myself and the music as with any other gig. Whenever I'm in a position to demand payment, I do, but I work for my own reasons and on my own terms. There's no other way.

  Joe

• Ernesto Schnack (3 May 2011 at 11:13am)

  "In order to get paid for what you do, other people need to value it. You could be the greatest musician on the planet, but until someone else values your abilities more than their money, you won't get paid a dime."

  I think that's the key point. If you have an audience, and can guarantee the venue a certain amount of people will come and see you (and buy drink, food,etc..), then they'll be willing to pay because it's good business.

  My problem with these types of discussions, is that a 'gig' can mean different things to different people. Is it being hired to play in a band? Your own band? Solo gig? Covers? Original music? Are you the featured act? Background music in a restaurant? Wedding gig?

  Some of those I definitely woudln't do for free, others I might if it's part of a larger plan. It depends.

• Frankie R. (3 May 2011 at 4:32pm)

  I agree with the article to a point. Im originally from New Jersey, and i moved down to austin texas to study and music, jazz guitar specifically. first thing i did when i finally arrived was open my computer and i went on facebook, and found a gig playing with a band as a bassist. Im not trying to say give up your instrument when u do that, but i did it checking my ego at the door. Our vocalist has been working on getting us a following, but since the band has a severe line up change and moniker change, the band is back to zero. for us i suggested we play every and any gig we can and send out posters, flyers, invites, talk to people, invite, spread demos, self fund mini tours, you name it. Just simply do serious legwork to build a reputation so that we get a solid following, and ultimately expand our horizons. Think of it as a job, first job none the less. How can you apply to work as a manager, when you never had the proper training to do floor work. how can you demand money when you are starting from scratch. I do believe we should value our form of artwork and stand up for ourselves. but we need to start somewhere. Now if you have the reputation, that you have worked yourself up to, then you can put a price on your work and go from there. after you have enough experience, only then can you get promoted. its just how i personally feel. im not right nor am i wrong. and everybody is entitled to an oppinion.

  btw, joe, thank you for creating this website. it helps me alot as a musician with tips and theory, and you aswell as my old guitar teacher have me thriving to expand kno technical prowess and theoretical knowledge as a musician and im trying really hard to build myself up to play extended chords but thats still in its infancy haha

  - Frankie

• Mark Wein (5 May 2011 at 5:31am)

  I think that you've hit the nail 100% on the head with this...I posted a link to this blog entry on my forum and the response has pretty been the same as mine. Musicians need to be realistic about what they are doing....I play all kinds of gigs and some of them are fairly lucrative but they are usually the ones that a "serious" musician would turn their nose up at. The gigs that are most musically rewarding to me tend to be low dollar but afford me the luxury of playing with better musicians or music that I really want to play without the necessity of keeping a dance floor moving in a club. I think that if you average out my gig income between the two settings I'm probably doing OK every time I go out :)

• Joe (7 May 2011 at 3:18pm)

  When I was taking lessons with him, Bob Boss explained the "Three Ms": music, money, and mileage. Most gigs will provide ideal conditions in one or two, but rarely all three of these areas.

• Frankie (8 May 2011 at 4:50pm)

  Yea those three m's sound about right... Unfortunately unleas your a famour pop star... And even then some things just dont work out

• Robby (2 Jun 2011 at 12:14pm)

  Nice article, enjoyed how you touched on the subjective theory of value. And more importantly, how it is what determines prices, wages and a business' success and not necessarily the time or "labor" put into it.

• r.m. (17 Jun 2011 at 1:11pm)

  hi-
  you posted your response to adam niewood's blog post advocating a minimum wage for ALL musicians beneath an article on the union organizing drive for musicians at 2 particular specific major NYC Jazz festivals at NYTimes.com.

  while some of your points re: niewood are well taken, your extension of anti-union perspective to ALL areas of music is not.

  Many people play baseball for free. Its fun, and before major league baseball players were unionized, they were exploited in a way that would seem incredible to people today.
  No union will ever organize every hole in the wall jazz or rock club (sorry adam n.)- but the players at major New York Jazz Festivals are NOT the little league, and the value we produce is NOT 'subjective': we're selling drinks and paying rentals for the venues, selling well over 100,000 worth of tickets for the promoters. Last year these venues were packed to beyond capacity. we also create indirect profits: for the APAP trade show promoters whose members get in free to festival concerts- while paying $900 for APAP tickets not a penny of which goes to us- even though our concerts are part of their advertising!!!!
  We're sick of being ripped off. THe union is a tool to stop this- we've used it successfully before, and we're going to use it again..

  Places like LA with less history of union action on the rock/jazz scene have more pay-to-play, and more play-for-free, than nyc, where musicians have sometimes been active. so let's stop pretending that pay is simply a product of neutral factors like supply and demand: both can be manipulated, by human beings, and are every day. its our turn.

• Joe (22 Jun 2011 at 9:36am)

  Hi r.m.,

  (For anyone else reading, see the New York Times article Petition Seeks Better Pay for Musicans [sic] at Jazz Festivals and the petition Winter/Undead Jazz Festival Musicians Petition.)

  While this post doesn't directly address any festival situation, I thought it would be relevant for anyone interested in the Winter/Undead developments. The principles are the same, but on a different scale, whether one calls for a minimum wage for all musicians, US musicians, NY musicians, or a handful of festival musicians.

  I think the crucial difference between your view (and likely everyone signing those petitions) and mine is the subjective theory of value. In short, things do not have intrinsic value; people value things. Every human has different circumstances and motives that contribute to how he/she values things. (Prime example: I love Frank Zappa, while my wife can't stand him. His music provides nothing desirable to her.) This piece by Jim Cox is the most illuminating introduction, comparing it with the labor theory of value. Also see the Wikipedia entry and Artwork and the Subjective Theory of Value.

  Also, were I a promoter, the following statement would not get me excited about renegotiating pay rates:

  We're sick of being ripped off. THe union is a tool to stop this- we've used it successfully before, and we're going to use it again..

  I don't see how you're getting ripped off if you voluntarily agree to play the festival for the fee offered. If it's too low for you, don't play.

  Joe

• Joe (22 Jun 2011 at 9:47am)

  On another note, if "r.m." happens to stand for "Ribot, Marc", then you are one of my favorite guitarists alive.

• r.m. (22 Jun 2011 at 11:59pm)

  Joe writes "I don't see how you're getting ripped off if you voluntarily agree to play the festival for the fee offered. If it's too low for you, don't play."

  Joe's logic denies the philosophical basis of unionism: that workers have both a legal and moral right to bargain collectively.

  so- let's extend Joe's logic:

  "i don't see why you coal miners are getting ripped off if you voluntarily agree to work in mines without adequate safety standards. If its too dangerous for you, work somewhere else."
  "I don't see how you factory workers in the machiladoras are getting ripped off for working for 50 cents an hour while your employers sell what you make for 30 times that. No one forced you to work at this particular machiladora. If the 50 cents is too low for you, don't work here."
  "I don't see how you garment workers are getting ripped off working 16 hours a day 7 days a week for the fee offered. If it's too low for you, work somewhere else."

  I could post more sickening examples- let's recall that the "free market" joe's ideology posits as the solution to all problems only ceased hiring child labor as a direct of the type of labor action he philosophically opposes.

  and i will send another post commenting on other weaknesses of Joe's thinking.

  but let's cut to the chase:
  Joe writes: " I'm finishing a Master's in jazz studies..."
  Incredible to me that someone could reach the Master's level in Jazz studies without being aware of the basic facts of its economy, which has not been primarily market based since it ceased being a dance music over 60 years ago, but rather that of the 'art' world, highly dependent on subsidized festivals and cultural centers, in particular those of Western Europe, where "the european cultural exemption" specifically exempted certain areas of culture (along with medical care), from what were otherwise market economies.
  Unless your studies are exclusively in the moldy fig department, this exemption is responsible for the existence of much of the art form you are studying. The lives of most contemporary jazz musicians would not be economically viable without subsidized european touring. Are you willing to say, on purely ideological grounds, that their music (and opera, and symphonic music, and contemporary classical, etc etc) therefore shouldn't exist?

• Joe (25 Jun 2011 at 5:19pm)

  r.m.,

  I think you've misinterpreted my ideology. I do not deny workers' rights to bargain collectively. In fact, I'd defend those rights. (I'd just prefer not to be involved in collective bargaining myself.)

  My entire ideology, since you brought it up, boils down to the non-agression principle: I oppose "the initiation of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property."

  There's nothing in the abstract idea of a union that I oppose. It's a voluntary association of individuals working toward a common cause. I do oppose anyone who'd forcibly prevent a voluntary association. Unfortunately, some unions do just that, threatening non-union workers with violence in order to prevent them from entering a voluntary agreement with an employer. (See The Myth of Voluntary Unions, which argues that violence is an inherent part of unionism.)

  Regarding your examples of miners, factory workers, and garment workers, those are all crummy situations, and I would defend, not deny, the workers' rights to associate. But the question remains: why don't they work somewhere else? What's stopping each of them from quitting? I suspect the answer is in their situation, that they have no alternatives, they need to feed families, no one else is hiring, they lack the savings or ability to uproot and move away, etc. All of this adds to the crumminess of their plight, but if they have no other options individually, how can they have other options collectively? If there's nowhere for any single worker to work somewhere else, how can they collectively threaten to work somewhere else? What are their bargaining chips? If they strike, they're just as out-of-work as if they'd quit, and those who can least afford to lose wages (and those unemployed) will be the first to break the strike and return to work. That is, unless they're forcibly prevented from working.

  While I don't agree with the above article that all unions necessarily employ force, I just don't see how they can have any bargaining power without doing so.

  The tricky part is that the force often takes the form of "legal privileges and immunities that they get from government, both by statute and by nonenforcement of other laws." (See "Labor Unions" in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.) In this case, union members needn't resort to any threats or violence themselves, and their actions are entirely understandable within the landscape of the laws.

  Regarding the jazz economy, I was not aware of the "European cultural exemption." In fact, Googling the phrase yields nothing but the very page on which we're having this discussion. Other than discussing local gigs, we didn't study the means of funding jazz musicians in the program at SDSU. I'd expect the economic realities of one's own profession to be more effectively studied through experience than in academia. I haven't been pursuing jazz for very long, so my experience is miniscule, and I admit I'm frightfully ignorant about the global workings of the jazz world. If you can point me to any enlightening sources on the European subsidies (or on jazz not being market-based, of which I was also unaware), I promise to read them.

  To answer your final question, no. I wouldn't say that any type of music shouldn't exist. I oppose only coercion. So, strictly speaking, I don't even oppose those subsidies. I oppose what is most likely their source: taxes. It doesn't matter where the money goes, I oppose taking it from someone who doesn't consent to giving it. (Hypothetically, those subsidies could come from a private benefactor who earned the money through nonviolent means, which is fine by me.)

  In any case, I doubt that jazz would cease to exist without subsidies. I submit as evidence the plethora of unsubsidized contemporary creative music (jazz and so much more) available today, more than at any time in history.

  Joe

• r.m. (3 Jul 2011 at 7:51am)

  " I was not aware of the "European cultural exemption." In fact, Googling the phrase yields nothing "

  try 'european cultural exception'

• John (30 Aug 2011 at 2:32am)

  I read this and was instantly reminded of many of my own rants about the devaluing of music and the treatment of musicians over recent years.

  This is something that we as musicians and songwriters are, for the major part, responsible for. We draw the lines that define how we are treated. That is true when it comes to record deals, publishing deals or playing gigs. It's true when it comes to us putting pressure on professional bodies and collection agencies to insist on fully respected performance royalties for all artists. Earnings from on-line streaming sites are absolutely ridiculous.

  BTT

  Pay to play? It's a result of less scrupulous venue owners relying on the desperation of artists to get their music out there. We all know that. It doesn't happen in all genres, at least not to the same extent, but it does happen.

  The point is how do we collectively deal with it, while being realistic that there are desperate bands out there who know so little about the business of music that they are prepared to pay to play, or play for free.

  From observation this has been established by un-confident bands, ignorant of what is possible and / or too damn lazy to pursue the alternatives. I have posted several times on my own blog on related issues, but this post called "Why is my band not famous yet?" covers a good deal of the issues.

  We can't think that a stance by union musicians and the more idealistic artists alone can change this, precisely because of the reason above.

  Musicians need to be educated about alternatives, and it needs to be ongoing as more and more musicians and bands pour out of schools.

  For example, "Become Your Own Promoter - Earn Money And Play Better Gigs". It's not the only solution, but one that allows bands to take control of their earnings.

  Not only do current bands need educated on alternatives, it's about time that schools educated pupils about the music industry and how it works at all levels. There are already many music initiatives out there that could evolve to encompass this.

  Until we engage with tomorrow's bands this is a problem that will not go away, and probably even then not completely.

  Now I've cheered you up I'll get off my soap box. At least for a while!

  Good topic!

  John

Leave a Comment

www.fromthewoodshed.com
© 2023 Joe Walker. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy

Third-party advertising companies are used to serve ads when you visit this website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.