Hey everybody I hope everyone is as ready for the weekend as I am. Today's blog comes from an interesting discussion I had last night at the Copa Cavana open jam. This will serve as my bitch session for the week and it deals with the pay of musicians.
Now something I have seen through the bands I have played with lately is that payment of the musicians can be very dicey at times. There are many club owners or band leaders who find it fitting to short change a hard working musician. Why is this the case?
Well I think the main thing that can be said is greed. Greed club owners and band leaders want all the money for themselves and they don't give the guys who do a lot of the work a fair shake. Its a shame but its reality. I think a lot of good musicians are left out to dry more times than none.
Now why should musicians get paid what they deserve? Well is it right for a musician to show up to a show that pays the band $600 and he/she only ends up making $50! That in my opinion is ridiculous and I'm sorry to say it has happened to me before. Musicians are paid to not only play but in many cases do a lot of setup and tear down of equipment. That alone should merit a fair piece of the pie.
It honestly pisses a guy off sometimes when he gets short changed on a gig because of someone else's greed. Give everybody a fair cut and you will have a happier band. It may be harder to find those good paying gigs in localized bands now a days but at least express to the bar/club owners that you need to take care of your musicians and then take care of them!
Tell the greedy owners that good music comes at a price. If some sort of deal has to be worked out in order for the band to be adequately taken care of then fine, just make sure it happens. Even though the majority of musicians play for the love of music it is still a profession and you should be paid what you deserve for that profession. Don't make a good musician drive two to three plus hours away just to work his ass off for nothing. It is not right at all.
Until next time keep on rocking away music lovers,
JAS
I fully agree. I've known a lot of great musicians that could have excellent careers, but are actually cut short just because of the fact that they can't keep playing shows because they need to eat and have a roof over their heads. If you do the math, $50 bucks for 4-6 hours of work is less than what somebody at McDonald's gets paid.
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm not saying that the fine burger flippers of our nation's finest Scottish restaurant chain don't deserve all of the accolades and pay that COMES with Mcburger, but speaking from experience, it takes a HELL of lot more blood, sweat, tears, balls, practice & dedication to learn an instrument than it does to say "Would you like fries with that?"