PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Gig Prices

Some music teachers today are like that. But around here there are a some still like myself that teach music, i.e. old school. I teach reading music first, single notes to start with then chords. Then I teach the pentatonic scale and how to play the blues. Along with that I teach how to form a major scale from a chromatic scale followed by how to learn the notes of a chord from those major scales. Then scales and advanced fingering techniques.

I have had great success using that formula. But I tell the student right up front if you think you are going to be playing like the guys you see or hear on TV or radio in a couple of months you might as well quit now.

Ed I agree totally with you on those shredders. Why play as fast as you can if you ain't saying nothing?

I knew in my heart though that they got exactly what they paid for!!!

In my mind one of the best players ever was/is Joe Walsh. His solos always said something relevant to the song.

And what is the ONE thing Joe isn't?

A speed burner.

Music has to come from your heart. This always reminds me of the night my sax playing friend and I went to see Kenny G(orelick). We used to have a venue in Cleveland called The Front Row. It was 30 rows deep and in the round with a rotating stage. We bought early to get good seats, and we were in the 3rd row. A local jazz group opened for him and were very good. He started about 9:15, and by 9:45 we were out of there. Now, Kenny G is maybe the BEST technical sax player I have ever seen. Everything he does is straight out of Berklee. But by the 4th song he was already repeating licks. I leaned over to my friend and said "We heard these licks in the 2nd song", and he replied "In the first one too." And we got up and left. Again, FINE technician, but man, playing maybe THE most expressive instrument on the tree and he plays like the whitest dude in America. Back in his Jeff Lorber days, when he played tenor, THEN he played with some soul. But on soprano, with those long, fluid scales and circular breathing that he manages to work into EVERY song.... my god he is boring. It's like Mariah Carey and her 7 octave range. It is impressive, but don't show us everything you have in every song.

And that's what the new breed of musician is, eager to hit every club in the bag on every hole. Well, some holes don't require the 3 wood and the 4 iron. Hit those clubs only when you need them. (I hope everybody golfs to get that metaphor.)

I am like you, Mario. I learned from a taskmaster who would not let me touch an instrument until I could show him on a little plastic fake keyboard which note represented the dot he pointed to on his blackboard. 6 weeks of theory before I was allowed to play. But now, 61 years later as of next month, I am so grateful for that approach.

Ed you got that right! Joe is one of the best around today. He can play with anybody and fit right in with the perfect leads.

I think all the low prices for gigs is the fault of Larry Wayne Fischer. It's all his fault...lol

Here is a quote from Wikipedia.

" Following his escape from a mental hospital (he said no one ever bothered to take him back there), Fischer wandered Los Angeles singing his songs a cappella for 10¢ US each to passers-by. Discovered on the street by Frank Zappa, Fischer became an underground concert favorite."


While 10 cents a song may not be much, perhaps it is better than the current Los Angeles "pay to play" situation....lol

On a more serious note, every once in awhile my old band Super Blue would play for free. There was no real reason except we wanted to play.

I approached a club owner in Bisbee Arizona one day dressed in overalls and pretty dirty from moving some cows around. I am sure I did not smell all that great...lol

I told her that we would come over on Saturday night and play if that was OK with her at no cost to the club. See agreed, but I have no idea why. She most likely thought I was crazy and would never see me again.I never said what sort of music we would play.

Tonya the bass player drove from Houston, Texas to make the gig and paid her own way. A couple of horn players from Tucson got wind of this and joined us. The keyboard player drove in from LA.

We burned the house down and before the night was over half the town was in the bar or out on the street.

Everyone in the band dressed to the nines and we put on a hell of a show. I even took a shower and washed off the cow smell...lol

The look on the club owners face was worth a million dollars. We never told anyone in Bisbee who we were or why we were there.

Sometimes it is fun and really worth it just to play just because you want to. No money involved, no recognition, no expectations.

Cheers,

Billy

Just for some perspective, how many people are there in Bisbee Arizona?

There is a city near me called Center Of The World Oho that has about 2 dozen houses and a gas station/quickie mart. Half the town there is like 22 people.... It's so small that no population is listed! LOL!!!

Every time my travels take me through there I think, I thought I was the center of the world???

Well, MY world, anyway...

Indeed. If you haven't already heard his solo in the song Long Road Out of Eden..... Oh...My.... Goodness! Go buy the album and listen. Soak in it.

Well, Half the town was an over statement. The club was packed and people were standing outside on the street. I really don't know how many people were there.
I think four or five thousand people live in Bisbee. Tourist go there from all over the world.

My point was more about "getting paid" and how money is only one measure of the rewards to be had playing music.

Billy

Actually Billy, I would LIKE to book a gig in Center of the World Ohio! If I got 12 people I could say half the town was there! Maybe even make more than that $6.25 I mentioned earlier.

Good for you. It is definitely slower starting that way, but in the long run the student will surpass the song learners to become much better musicians.

I remember seemingly endless hours of practice memorizing scales. And unlike the guitar, the same scale in each key has entirely different fingerings. So there are 12 different major fingering patterns, 12 natural minors, 12 harmonic minors, 12 melodic minors, 12 pentatonics, and so on. Along with the scales are the arpeggios (chords played one note at a time, ascending and descending because sax plays only one note at a time). Again 12 majors, 12 minors and so on.

But when I need one of those scales or arpeggios, what I hear in my head simply flows out of my fingers with no verbal thought involved.



Shredders are like Bebop players. Most of them simply play as many notes as they can with no relevance to either the song or musicality. IMO Instead of music they are playing empty notes.

But there are others who play a lot of notes but still play music. Being sax oriented I point to Charlie Parker and Richie Cole. They play a lot of notes, but it is rarely boring.

My favorite players have great technique, but unless you are listening to evaluate technique, you rarely notice it. Instead you notice music; melody, dynamics, phrasing, etc. -- vox humana. Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Stanley Turrentine are a few sax players that are masters at that.

When I solo I keep in mind two personal rules (although there are times when I break them on purpose).

1) Keep the melody of the song in mind - this doesn't mean be a slave to it, but use it. This was something Thelonius Monk advised people to do when improvising.

2) Know your audience and remember playing music needs a certain balance of predictability and surprise.

Predictability: The audience must be able to predict what you are going to play next some of the time, but if it is too predictable they will get bored.

Surprise: Sometimes the audience must not be able to predict where you are going next - surprise them. But if they can hardly ever predict where you are going they will get bored.

It's like playing with a cat using a toy on a string. If you let the cat catch it too often it gets bored and quits playing. If you never let the cat catch it it gets bored and quits playing.

Of course this varies with the audience. What you might play for a jazz audience might be too much surprise for a country audience. What you play for a blues audience might be too predictable for a jazz audience.

I'm aware of these things, but after the first song or two I'm no longer thinking about predicting my audience, seeing what they react to registers with me and my experience and instincts take over from there. Even with my eyes closed, most of the time I can tell if the audience is with me or not.

Music is a mixture of art and technique. To be a better musician you need a healthy dose of both.

To bring this back on topic, if you can entertain your audience, thrill them with surprises, keep them from being bored with your music, you stand a better chance of getting better gigs than your competition.

Insights and incites by Notes

Notes, I agree with you about the sax players you mentioned. The difference between them and the guitar shredders today, IMO, is those musicians knew when to breath, when to play slow, when to rest and when to use dynamics.

You can add just about all of the great jazz musicians in that category.

When I was playing out I only have one guitar lead rule and that was my lead must fit the song the band is playing. For instance slow song = slow lead, 50's rock = 50's lead, jazz standard = jazz lead etc. That simple formula made a lot of money for our wedding band and me.

I've never made any money playing music. Chump change. Small potatoes.

Still, I wouldn't change a thing.



Regards,


Bob

I have just been out money buying music related stuff, so you guys if not making money are breaking even....not bad.



Musiclover

When compared to the .0004 cents per streamed play, 10 cents sounds okay!

I thought this was about "GAS" prices not GIG prices and was going to list my next GAS item (Axe FX II XL+) - LOL

back to topic

IMO the days of the of semi-pro, or even "pro," disregarding in-demand studio or touring players, gigging and making enough to pay for even JUST some, let alone most, of the essential bills (roof over head, food on table, heat& light, gas for car, insurance for said car and roof over head, and some nits) I think went by the way of the slide rule (and I collect those).

For all the reasons mentioned previously and more. I won't get into the "more" because it will start fights and flames and I'm in a good mood today (I'm on my meds)

LArry

Great point, Mario.

What you play should serve the song and the music.

The choice of song should serve the audience.

And that's how you get hired again.

Insights and incites by Notes

Online venues, for the time being, as everything changes, in some cases are the exception. I play one hour shows on Krue.TV (no this is not a commercial it is a fact) and average between 125 & 250 per show from anywhere I have WiFi. And by no means am I the leading money earner there. Plus we as musicians have to take off the glasses that focus on Clubs, Coffee Houses and Restaurants etc. and look more into the corporate world where clients are paying 100 - 200 per hour for functions.

PS: To Bob's point . . . Not in anyway saying that is a "lot" of money but for cats at my skill level and thank God other income, well it ain't bad. Takes care of my G.A.S. attacks anyway LOL.

Later,

Depends.

I've been a pro musician most of my life. I did have two day gigs, two tries at being 'normal' while still gigging on the weekends. Neither one lasted more than a few years, and I found that normal is terribly overrated.

And I do have the BiaB sideline thing. I wrote my first styles for myself and my friends encouraged me to sell them. I get to keep some of the money I make with BiaB but the shopping cart, credit card authorization company, credit card merchant's account, web host, insurance company, tax collector, and sub-contractors, etc. make over half of what I take in. I do make enough though to keep me home during the slow season. Before this I used to do cruise ship gigs in the summer when the tourists are not in Florida.

OK, so I would have made more money if I had used my electronics schooling as an electronics engineer. That's a fact. And one of my day gigs, the one that lasted 5 years was as a Cable TV field engineer. Good pay, lousy job, high pressure and a company that went out of their way to make things more difficult.

However, doing music and nothing but music I bought and paid off a house one lot away from the east coast of the mainland of Florida (to the east a 2 mile wide lagoon and then a thin barrier island), I owned a 23' sailboat, I've bought new cars but instead of BMWs, they have been Minivans (got to haul the gear), and I've taken yearly vacations to Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, Central America and 49 out of 50 US States.

I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm comfortable and not in debt. I am frugal, I don't buy things that aren't important or necessary, and I spend my money wisely.

Most importantly of all, I'm living my life on my own terms, I make my own decisions and either win or learn by them, and I'm not a wage-slave to some faceless corporation.

Playing music is a business, and has to be treated as such. Most small businesses fail, that goes for music businesses as well. I know a mom & pop lunch restaurant that has been here for over 30 years, and I've seen scores of others come and go in that time. It's the same with other small businesses. And in today's corporate dominated world, it's even harder for a small business to make it.

Like any business, you have to be better than the competition, target your local market, and be price competitive.

Being better means having a good product, practicing, having the talent to pull it off, dressing appropriately, and conducting yourself professionally.

Targeting your market means playing the music that is in demand, and being versatile enough to play more than one genre. If I wanted to play nothing but jazz around here, it wouldn't work, but there are plenty of opportunities for baby-boomer music because of the huge retirement community. Baby-boomer it is, with enough Caribbean, newer tunes, and others to appeal to more than just the grey hairs.

Price competitive is important. If you are truly better than your competition, you will build up a clientele that appreciates the difference and will pay you more than the rest, but until you get to that point, you can't charge more than the others that you compete with. Don't underbid either as that will attract clients that won't ever pay more.

Of course promotion is important, word of mouth is slow, and if you aren't a promoter, an agency is worth their percentage. Find opportunities and fill them.

After saying all that, I must add that it's much harder today to make a living playing music than it was when I was younger. I feel sorry for young musicians in that way. There are many fewer venues for live music, especially for youth music.

Insights and incites by Notes

Excellent article 'Notes'.

Some real truths integrated into that submission.

It's always still possible, but don't sit back, relax, and expect the goods to find you. It don't work that way.

Trev

Bob Norton nails it.

Whether it's starting a business to open a store, fixing appliances, installing security (as I do) or playing music (as I have done)... the business end is crucial to the success of your business. You can't just be a dumb musician thinking if you play the music well, people will flock to your shows and clubs will have a bidding war over you.

I've been in the bands that had the attitude that we're strictly a country rock band, and we don't play pop country and heck no we don't do MOR pop. That's a hard, lean road because you run out of places that will hire you pretty quickly and those one time gigs are not the road to success. I've learned from the past and some of the more successful bands I have played in knew we had to be on time, show up sober and stay that way, play the full sets, dress and act appropriately, interact with the audience and play music they could dance to easily.

Danceable music = a packed dance floor = hot and sweaty dancers = a bar that's selling drinks and making money = you will be hired again.

Price is important but not something to die over. It's better to play several medium priced gigs and be working several nights a week than to play one high priced gig that nets under the sum of the several. The higher price will come as you stick with it, keep the club owners in the black and create a larger paying audience who are willing to drive a bit to see you. Getting to know that audience, especially the "regulars" is so important. You better learn their first and last names. We'd see folks coming is as we were setting up and we'd stand up and yell across the club... "Yo Fuzz... good to see you bro... where's Willy?" Fuzz and so many others would appreciate that we knew them personally. One fan in particular would drive over 100 miles to see us play. You best believe we let him know we appreciated it. Get to know the folks at the show. Even the ones you may never see again.