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Looper's Delight
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> > I would even encourage artists to give their music away for FREE! [Of > > course, at this point in my life, I am still the consumer, and not the > > artist, so I may be biased here.] > Hmmm. > I realize most of the people on this list aren't actively making their > living through playing music, and that even fewer are making their > living playing their own music. I've got no problem with people who > want to trade or give away their music out of sheer goodwill or the > desire to have their music heard. > However, here are some arguments for an artist actually charging a price > for what they do. (Hopefully this won't utterly reek of a struggling > musician complaining about his lot in life.) Well, Andre goes on here to say a number of things that hit the nail on the head, but I'm going to go a few steps further than his paragraph above. The notion that someone's music is somehow a part of the ether that is freely available to anyone who wants it, like freedom or love or the air you breathe is patently absurd. My personal take on this is that it's based on the myth that because artists supposedly love what they do so much it's somehow not fair for them to be negotiating compensation for it, that they should somehow be so grateful for that priviledge that just the mere reception of an audience is payment enough. That's really pretty naive. When's the last time YOU were so generous with the means by which you pay your rent and feed your kids? When's the last time you were told that trying to negotiate more money for those means, or taking on a task you'd rather not do, was a compromise of your personal integrity? Believe it or not, I've had club owners ask me to get some of the best freelance jazz musicians in LA for gigs and then say they were only offering $30 a person because they were extending us a forum to "have fun". Or, I've had the parents of the bride ask the wedding band to play an additional hour beyond the contracted time, without additional pay, because "everyone's enjoying your music so much". When's the last time you got a plumber to fix an extra pipe for nothing because you appreciated him so much? When's the last time you got your mechanic to "have fun" fixing your brakes for $30? Make no mistake, under the best circumstances I love doing it for a living, but there are many drawbacks. I don't get paid sick days. Health insurance, even through the union, is prohibitively expensive (fortunately my wife has a job that allows me to be on hers fairly inexpensively). I have no recorse against 90% of my gigs or students that decide to cancel at the last minute. Let's not even get into what creditors think of you... And no, I don't expect to see a huge proliferation of "Joe Schmoe, Internet Looper At Large" T-shirts on the street in the near future... Hmmm...I wonder if this can work both ways? I wonder if someone could send me an EDP, a nice 4-track digital home demo set-up, or a Blonde Butterscotch '52 Reissue Telecaster if I promise to have fun with them? Nothing too extravigant, mind you... Ken R