PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic What's your take on "giving away free professional advice or services" ?

In a previous post, the idea of receiving free professional advice vs. when to hire a music teacher was touched upon. Also - I have heard a number of musician-friends that often complain "restaurants won't pay musicians to play because "so many people are willing to do it for free", or "they only want to pay you based on how many customers you bring to the restaurant, I can't really control or depend on that."

This question also relates to the very popularly discussed and viewed PG post "Could you live from making music".

Now...I'd like to make some additional income to support my music habit (equipment toys and lessons are pretty expensive if you do both regularly, which is something I like to do . But I never plan or hope to make enough $$$ to 'give up the day job' working in a school as an Occupational Therapist. Call it thinking small...or call it being realistic. Odds are low given small business startup statistics.

I've often discussed the common "American Dream" fantasy of "Let's discover and Make a Product - and make some money together". PG has done this, I think (the man, that is - not the company per se). I would think he's the genius that had the first idea and pulled it all together - would love to hear his personal account. PG is one of my idols - wish I could have discovered and created such a successful company around music accompaniment generation - where people actually voluntarily spend money on a product and most (even the grumblers about certain issues) find it money well-spent. How many people pay money for things that they resent having had to pay (like accountants to help you do your taxes, or lawyers to help you defend against an unfair attack).

I have some big ideas - but those are a dime a dozen. I have some small ideas that I think are attainable to make some $$$ to support the 'music addiction' - giving lessons, small performances, etc - maybe you have some other small ideas in addition to those mentioned on the "Can you live making music" post. I'd love to hear.

ALl that said - I still haven't lost the pipe dream of inventing and marketing a new product. Many of my thoughts have already been shared on the site. If you'd like to partner and collaborate with me on any that have sparked your interest or imagination - shoot me a PM.

And do weigh in on the 'giving away' topic, share your "small time goals", and whether you still have any "pipe dream, long-shot" goals (but don't give away your secret ideas - lest someone steel and do them first. And remember, most successful people agree it was the struggle to the top that they enjoyed as much as getting there.

Some here give free professional advice daily.
Guess that tells you how they feel.

Also, I know people who became quite wealthy not by 'making music', but by helping others to do so. Performing is not the only aspect of music.

Here's some free advice to get you started.

1) Don't teach or perform unless you can do it to a professional standard. If people are paying money for your services, it's what they expect and deserve.

2) Don't buy any new "toys" until you've mastered the one's you've got. It'll keep down your costs and speed up the learning process.

ROG.

I agree with ROG on his points.
I do strongly believe, even though it can have negative results, that it's my business to decide if I want to play for free or not. Most musicians though will look down on me and even try to black ball me for not banding together. It's an us against them thinking. I do not go along with that.

Thanks for sharing - I agree with both of you, though the conversation can get more interesting when particular scenarios are posted. Gonna avoid these for now, but I'm sure you can even imagine such scenarios.

I guess it is time for me to go into my own personal reasons for deciding to freely share whatever it is that I've learned.

Long ago, I had a private Trumpet teacher who had a rather long list of students and his own office in an office building where the sign read, "Trumpet Lessons". He taught all levels from beginner through grad school students and even beyond, the only caveats being that he reserved the right to tell some student to stop coming to see him and, of course that the majority of students could afford the price of his lessons. Even so, he also would sometimes arrange other payment methods with parents and guardians and even the students themselves as he saw fit. A good man who, over the years, earned a well-desered reputation for being a great man.

Well, one day I showed up for my Saturday lesson and he informed me that, "Teaching is Learning" -- and proceeded to assign me with the duty by placing two younger guys who were just still starting out, still learning the basics, still working on things like being able to play the notes within the staff, learning to read music, embouchure, approach, all the stuff we have to learn. This was to take place on the same Saturdays that I would report for my own lesson. He moved my lesson time to earlier in the morning (ouch) and "my" two students were scheduled typically within a reasonable time after that. Of course, all this was done under the watchful eye and strict supervision of the boss.

I soon discovered that his initial statement, that teaching is learning, had implications to it that I could not have imagined. Sometimes it is necessary to be able to put something into words that we may have been able to do intuitively or without a lot of thinking into the whys, hows and wherefores, but that student needs this information. Merely having to think like that and then elocute in a way to get the point across is usually a new exercise for the teacher and can do a lot to help that teacher improve their own music agenda.

Flash Forward to now.

More than twenty years ago, was involved in that conversation which goes around quite a bit among Jazz Musicians, you know, the lament that Jazz is suppposed to be dying out, that there are far fewer places to play and the audiences are dwindling, life sucks, yada, yada, yada.

This is true, of course, but I began thinking about what could be the possible causes for such and, more importantly, whether or not the accepted and popular explanations had any merit. I immediately ruled out all of the "personal attack" or "demonization" rationales as being highly unlikely, blaming others for our own failures is commonplace and most often wrong assumption way of thinking.

And then it hit me.

There was a time in this great nation when the music arts were taught in the public schools, starting in the kindergartens and grade schools and continuing through to the high school level. This included every student being subjected to at least a singing or chorus class. There were even singing "textbooks" designed for that purpose. Once a week, the second grade (or any grade) class had to attend that choral class and participate in group singing, typically accompanied on a piano by a teacher.

And then there was the Band, Orchestra, "Stage" Band situation, complete with school provided instruments, lessons, rehearsals, all leading up to performance.

"An EDUCATED audience!" I said to myself.

When a lot more people knew a lot more about musics, when many of them had at least been exposed to the participation in what it takes to prepare and perform, regardless of whether or not that person kept with it at a pro level or not, their musical tastes were surely different than the tastes would be of someone who was never exposed to such.

So then I began an informal survey of sorts, began talking more with people who were in the audiences of the little venues and such I was performing in with various acts, and found out that the ones who were truly aficionados of jazz musics consisted of a vast majority of people who had both been exposed to such music education in their youth, many still played an instrument to some extent or another, and -- a rather amazing amount of them who were not pro players turned out to be members of other professions such as Doctors, University Professors, Lawyers, Small Business Owners, etc. -- people who were movers and shakers.

So, I have found, over the years, that an EDUCATED AUDIENCE, not necessarily "degreed," mind you, but an audience that knows a bit more than nothing much at all about music, is my target audience.

Don't become one of those musicians who sees a young guitar player, for example, watching you intently while onstage in an effort to see and learn -- and does something puerile like turn your back so they can't see what you're doing. (Yes, I've actually witnessed that example...)

Clark Terry's splendid autobiography really drives that point home.

"Teaching is Learning"

I think that far too many in this profession are singing lyrics like "Reach Out and Touch, Somebody's Hand, Make this World a Better Place, if You Can," while doing nothing at all other than singing that stoopid song.


--Mac

I am also an AFofM member, since 1973. If it weren't for grant funding, I could not make a profit playing music in my region. This is a reasonably affluent area north of New York City, and yet clubs and restaurants pay the same for music that they did in the 1970s.

I am very glad I brought the topic up; it is an important one with very real ramifications. I respect everyone's opinion - and very glad everyone is sharing and calmly discussing. Please let's keep this a discussion, let's not get personal, and certainly let's not attack each other in any way

Mac..

thanks for that story and for your perspective on this topic.. FWIW, you are still teaching anybody who is willing to listen.

Spinning off Mac's observation about performing for an informed audience.. (and this may take the discussion in a different direction... if so, sorry)

I want to start by saying that my loose definition of "talent" is the ability to do something that everybody else can't easily duplicate. (People who scribble on a canvas and call it art don't meet that definition of talent, but I digress.)

The problem with using backing tracks in a performance is that the audience is not informed enough to differentiate between somebody who bought karaoke tracks and sang along with them (requires marginal talent and almost anybody could do that... although the quality of the singing would be affected by talent or lack of it)

In most of our cases, though, there's more talent involved than the audience can see.

We've spent years learning how to use software, how to mix audio, how to play multiple instruments, how to sing, how to use MIDI to control gear, how to use the gear (vocal processors, effects, harmonizers etc) to work together seamlessly in a real time performance , so that no "gotchas" ruin the show, etc etc.

The thought occurred to me that through banter with the audience, we could educate them about why our act is different from a karaoke act, and why we made the decisions to lay the act out as we did. I think most audiences would find the explanations interesting, and by the end of the show they would be enlightened about how much work and talent it takes to bring such an act to their stage. With knowledge comes appreciation.

I guess what I'm saying is that if the audience in attendance is not already informed about music and about your presentation of it, it is in our power to educate them as part of the act.

And, getting back to the threads original question: as perceived value of your act increases, you should be able to charge more for it, and get it.

the classic success story about giving product away is MS-DOS.

In the early days of the PC, MS-DOS was clearly inferior to most of the other options, notably Apple's OS. So they made arrangements with PC manufacturers and practically gave it away to get it into the hands and lives of almost everybody who had a PC.

Once people got used to it, they didn't want to endure another learning curve, and it became the de-facto standard OS. And that's when they started charging for updates. We now know how rich that tactic made Bill Gates.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Back in the 60's, you could keep a 4-piece working for scale and make enough to make a meager living. People actually went out to hear live music. There were clubs everywhere. Bands flourished. Clubs flourished. A lot of great bands came out of those clubs.
Those days are gone forever.
Today, people simply don't value music, or musicians. Any guy who can scratch a needle across a record is considered a performer , and if he can string a bunch of loops together he's considered a producer.
Mac is right. Today's Gen-Xers didn't grow up playing an instrument in the school band. They grew up "playing" music with Guitar Hero. They are, for the most part, self-absorbed, vacuous, soulless lemmings devoid of any musical appreciation. It's a shame, but it is what it is.
Want to play for free? Fine. There are plenty of open mics to get your stage rush on and be a star. But when you play a normally paying gig for free, you are taking food out of the mouth of someone who has actually paid their dues.

You guys forgot the part of the story where Bill Gates bailed his good friend Steve Jobs over at Apple out?

They might not even be here today had he not done that.


--Mac