I have been gigging since I was in Junior High School.
There are fewer gigs around for live musicians than there used to be. Why? It isn't as profitable for a club owner to hire bands. But why is that?
- Live music isn't as important to young people as it used to be. DJs have the single bar and wedding market pretty much sewed up.
- DUI/DWI laws - when people go out to hear live music, they don't drink as much as they used to. Of course that saves lives, but it does hurt the profit margin.
- Higher taxes on drinks served over the bar - this was an attempt to get people to drink less but all it also resulted in less profit per drink as the bar owners ate much of the increase themselves
- Open mic and other people who are willing to play for free in for-profit establishments
- Karaoke Jocks who don't play an instrument but download K tracks and sing along, often undercutting the prices of live musicians as they have less investment and years of training
- Sports Bars - almost free entertainment for the club, and people like them
- And the biggie - HDTV with 7.1 surround sound, hundreds of channels, on-demand content, and a Cable/Satellite bill that can easily run over $300/month (there goes the entertainment budget right there)
What can we do?
Take a lesson from evolution. It's not the strongest that survive, it's the ones who can adapt to the changing environment.
When psychedelic music was the rage and nobody wanted to hear saxophones, I played bass.
In the 1980s when other musicians were saying, "You are going to put musicians out of work with those computers." I said, "I'm putting two musicians to work with these computers." We don't play in venues that ever hired large bands, we just had a leg up on other duos and got hired.
When we did cruise ships, we noticed the Disco next door didn't take breaks, so we skipped our breaks. We ended up breaking all-time revenue records for the lounge we were playing in, and our 3 week contract lasted 3 years and we could have stayed longer, but we missed land things and didn't renew. Plus we got a double sized crew cabin with a porthole - a valued perk on a ship.
When the MADD people and DJs started to erode the night club business, I moved into the yacht club, country club, retirement community and private party end of the business, because that's where the work was around here.
We don't do set lists, but instead call songs on the fly by feeling the pulse of the audience and calling what we think will be most appropriate.
When the dance floor is full we go from song to song with no dead time - just like a DJ.
If the particular audience needs mic banter, we provide that between songs.
We learn songs that are requested and I sequence them myself. Buying Karaoke tracks is not for me. Recorded music and live music need a different balance of instruments and different energy level - especially at moderate volume levels. Plus I can extend them to a nice 4 minutes for the dancers, play my own solos (I love improvising), put it in our best key if needed, put a real ending on it, re-arrange it so the hook comes quicker (for better audience recognition), change the tempo a bit, rush the B parts a bit if needed, and end up with something I think sounds better than a K track.
Plus I'm blessed to have a great singer for a partner (I'm good but not great - but I am a great sax player - took first sax in the all-state band each year I was in school). I also learned wind synth, flute, guitar, bass, drums, and key synth so that I can add variety to the gig. We practice hard and do the best job we are capable of, and we are capable. There are better musicians out there and there are worse, but we hold our own quite well. Plus we play to the audience, no Coltrane licks, we don't refuse to learn and play requested songs as long as we can cover them well, and we have a good time performing - and that's contagious.
So what to do? Assess your local situation. Who is listening to live music? What kind of music are they hiring? How can you be better than the people already playing that market?
Adaption to the changing market and working hard to do the best job you can is the key. We may belong to the union (or not) but in reality, most musicians are self-employed businesses and we are in friendly competition with our peers. Don't cheat them, out-compete them honestly.
Insights and incites by Notes
Norton Music
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