Musicians need be passionate / was: Why SHOULDN't musicians be paid

[jayrope looper's delight <jrploopers@kliklak.net>]

Hello all,
i post rarely, cause i am normally not into tech discussion.
Nevertheless, payment for musicians seems to be an international  
issue, and as TH has pointed out: The "market" is so flooded, that it  
is rather hard to get paid or get reasonably paid, or comparable to  
other professions invoking a similar amount of engagement. Per Boysen  
has pointed out a more luxurious situation, Berlin then, where i  
live, is somewhere in no-pay or not-much-pay-land - unless you pay  
the Jazz Festival, which still pays much minor to locals compared to  
what they pay to an average US-Jazzer playing here. So us Berliners  
like to go elsewhere, Scandinavia, Asia, Austria, Switzerland, France  
etc. always pay much better than here, UK are a mess, but fun, too.  
It's the transparent tattoo on your forehead saying "Berliner".  
Ridiculous, but exploitable.

More overview: I would suggest to make an anonymous collection of  
international musicians wages to get an overview, this is something  
for a social scientist maybe (anyone here?) - personally i could  
supply the web platform and some of teh necessary programming skills.

Unions: Is there a union for musicians, where you live? In the former  
GDR, the socialist part of divided Germany there existed such a  
thing, and everyone i meet, who happened to work under such  
conditions is still missing the good old times. Guaranteed wages,  
guaranteed amoung of monthly jobs. But themusic was mainly crap. And  
i grew up in the West instead...

Government funds: Germany sports a so-called "Artist health  
insurance". Very helpful in some cases, but i never get sick and they  
don't pay for new teeth ,-(
France has this great system of an unemployment insurance for  
musicians, given that you are a French resident (married i guess),  
and play at least 45 contracted shows per year. Some friends of mine  
live nicely on the base of that.
How is it in your country?
Canada's got loads grants and scholarships for Canadians working  
abroad i hear...

Do these funding ideas apply to you, when you DON'T have an academic  
degree in music or went to some acclaimed music school otherwise?
Here it only very rarely does.
As someone, who devotes his life to music (and family / no (inner)  
choice otherwise) you stay with your passion or give it up at some  
point. It's just a question of how much trouble you can or want to bare.
You might end up getting invited for dinner by your 9-to-5 friends  
regularly. They don't honor their passion as much as you do, but they  
happen to have a steady good income. That can be embarrassing, but  
nevertheless YOU are the doctor, who heals their souls. That service,  
if it works out nicely for the erm "client", deserves good payment of  
any imaginable kind.
That's not like going to Berkeley music school on family funding and  
joining the David Letterman show band right after. The equivalent of  
such a thing in Germany is just to das to mention and i do sometimes  
work for such a thing as a teacher. My job is funny & absurd: I  
supply one-on-one inspirational teaching to 20-25 year old music  
students, who are technically superb, but don't know why they didn't  
get into the plumbing business. You know, the identical clones of  
rock stars, who are bored of their own profession (Nah, they are  
really people usually).

Passion and profession: To me it was always both, doing music  
professionally to a certain extent since 1986, learned from the age  
of six, refusing piano teachers to make me rehearse bloody Bach  
again, instead insisting on = passion, when profession = in most cases.
This attitude (hello attitude thread) clearly pays out, as well as it  
does not.

It fully pays out on the respect side, once someone has told you  
somethign equally to "your music saved my life", which happened to me  
before. You wake up, the sould floats, it's springtime, the fluids  
are rising, there's a whistling melody and a rumbling beat: someone  
looks at you like "yeah, man, that's wonderful." This clearly "pays  
out."
On the professional side the this attitude pays out on rare  
occasions, special festival invitations, because you insist to stick  
to your passion, specialties, weirdnesses and get invited to perform  
exactly that. This can be very well paid.
All the rest is daily business. People asking for free mp3, club  
promoters asking for free shows, you pay your drinks yourself. That's  
part of the "deal".
I learned to insinst on payment and rather not play my hometown for a  
year, at least in ambivalent locations, if payment is missing or too  
low. Asking prices and higher prices is clearly a strategy to raise  
the respect level towards you in the long run, if you can survive the  
intermediate 25 years of suffering after you finished school.

So finally... uhm, TH has reminded us, that music is available for  
free everywhere today. This simply states, that if one delivers a  
service, that recorded music can easily replace, then one can't  
expect payment. History repeats itself here: Did you ever read about  
the massive loss of work for musicians, when sound in films was  
invented in the 1930's? Oh my, what a catastrophe - comparable to  
ipods, almost.

I strongly believe, that passion will always pay out in the long run.  
Passion is what makes the difference in your audience's ears. If you  
sound like the hifi in the bar, then no one today will give a damn.  
Even if passion does not lead to a material pay out it is still  
guaranteed to keep you sane.
So that's the difference YOU can make towards the quality of your art  
(not your technical skills).
The passionate plumber is the better plumber. Of course it is not  
easy to stay this course, but i do believe it is worth it. I  
appreciate you read this.

Maybe i fail for you life-wise with this attitude, music is such a  
personal and taste-bound issue, but:
Come join me at Donaufestival.at on May 2nd, midnight at Halle 2.  
I'll be playing a Repeater and still a Lexicon Jamman as a guest for  
Vedette's world live premiere (myspace.com/vedettemusic).
= end of ad =

Salud from Berlin, jrp

On 16.04.2008, at 10:16, Loopers-Delight-d-request@loopers- 
delight.com wrote:
> Why SHOULDN'T musicians be paid?

with love from New Weird Berlin ,-)
---
jayrope
http://kliklak.net
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http://jayropinsky.kliklak.net
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