10 things you should know before hiring a musician
Apr 12, 2016
“You are a musician doing what you love and therefore you should be happy to do it for free”. Until recently I thought that this was just an outdated mentality. Surely, in this information age, people understand musicians better ? When I heard these words actually come out someone’s mouth I nearly laughed out loud. I soon realized they were not joking. Though many people know musicians exist and work in this world, very few really understand what it is we do.+
The idea that “we love playing for free” comes in many forms. It may be as simple as “but you are doing what you love so why would you not want to play for free”, but the more subtle forms of this are “I am offering you a chance to perform. Since you are always looking for opportunities to perform you should be grateful” and “playing with us will help boost your career too”.
The truth is that all these things are true. We do love what we do and some of us struggle to give it a price tag, especially when know that sometimes people are unable to afford musicians. We are looking for opportunities to perform and of course we will have to dedicate our time to things that may not bring us money but will boost our careers. So there are going to be times that we will (happily!) play for free. What is the problem?
Playing for free is not the problem, the assumption that we will do it is.
When people assume that a musician should play for free they forget that these musicians are actually doing them a huge favor, giving up valuable time and money, and should be treated accordingly. This is also true for musicians who are being underpaid (where there is often the added assumption that this musician is being paid enough). If you are aware of the fact that musicians should be paid a good sum of money for the service they are giving you, you will start to treat them very differently. And whether or not you need the same musician to return, or are looking to always get the highest quality musicians, the way you treat them is going to make all the difference. To learn how to treat musicians you need to first try and understand the them a bit better.
1. Practice, practice, practice
Musicians have spent between 3 to 6 hours over the past 10 to 20 years practicingevery single day. And I mean, EVERY SINGLE DAY. Weekends, holidays, even Christmas if they have to. They take breaks, but usually feel guilty about those too. It also never ends. They have to keep practicing their entire lives in order to stay fit, like an athlete would, except unlike an athlete musicians' careers last 50 or 60 years!
2. They don’t just ‘play’
People say musicians ‘play’ an instrument, but it is not all fun and games. Sometimes musicians spend one hour on a few notes in order to perfect them. To help you understand this, here is a little exercise for you. Spend as much time as you need trying to perfect the phrase 'pad kid poured curd pulled cold' so that when you are done you can say it fast, ten times in a row, without a mistake (no stumbling, mispronouncing words or glazing over the phrase!). Now make it sound beautiful, so that people will want to listen to it. This is the work musicians do, for hours, days and months. It can be fun, but it is hard work and frustrating at times.
3. Many of musicians are freelance, working from job to job
Musicians’ schedules may be really busy and they may have several gig offers on the same night. They could also have nothing for several months. The profession is unpredictable so planning is important for musicians and they really just need dates, times and the commitment that they will be hired. Committing to a gig may mean turning down several others, so changing dates or times last minute is really going to impact them negatively.
4. They are usually underpaid
Musicians are highly skilled professionals. Professional with similar hours of training and expertise earn two, three even four time the annual salary of musicians, depending on the country. So the truth is most musicians are underpaid. Most don’t see it this way, because it is the reality they have grown accustomed to. There is probably no musician who gets into the profession with the goal of becoming rich, but this is not a justification to underpay a musician further.
Musicians usually charge by the hour so the phrase “time is money” has great importance. Every hour of their time they are giving to you for free or for a reduced price could be given an exact monetary value. In other words, the more time they are spending helping you out, the greater the "price" of the favor is. Sounds obvious, but experience shows that it isn’t.
5. They do what they love but do not love everything they have to do
One of musicians’ primary reasons for choosing the profession is that they enjoy playing fulfilling concerts or shows to a listening audience. Trust me, playing three hours of background music at a wedding where you can hardly hear the musicians over the conversation, is not exactly what many musicians “love doing”. Likewise, there will always be certain types of music that musician won’t enjoy playing, gigs they will not enjoy doing or people they will not want to work with. So do not assume that you are necessarily offering them a chance to “perform and enjoy their art”.
If you have a good musician willing to help you out for free (or underpaid) then you probably have a highly skilled professional or student, who really relies on their time to practice and make money, does not earn a lot (relative to other professions), has perhaps even turned down other offers to help you and may not be absolutely wild about the music they are about to play (they are also probably your best friend in the whole wide world or you are just incredibly lucky!). This is the assumption you should make. It may not all be true but if you make this assumption you will be willing to find ways to make your musician feel valued and respected. Your musician has agreed to give you some of their valuable time so let that be their only inconvenience. Let us look at what you should and should not do when working with musicians.
6. Don’t waste their time
Ever. I mean ever ever. I have explained to you how much time musicians need and spend practicing. The busier they are the more precious it is. They are also often masters of their own time management and will immediately identify when their time is not being used efficiently. If you waste their valuable time they will get very angry and frustrated and it is probably the easiest way to ensure a musician will never want to work for you again. Remember that every unpaid hour you are wasting has a concrete sum of money attached to it. It is also an hour that could have been spent at another gig. So be organized. Be upfront about how much of their time is needed when you ask them to play in the first place. Don’t switch around dates and times without an incredibly good reason. Make sure your rehearsals are very efficient. Make sure that you have minimized the time they need to be present for a gig or recording. If things go wrong, and they do, be transparent with them, ask them if they are able to stay longer. Do not waste a musician’s time. Really, seriously, just don’t do it.
7. Respect your musician
I should not have to say this, but speak to your musician with respect. Next to wasting my time this really angers me; people who speak to musicians in a rude, pushy or entitled manner, especially when the musicians are offering them a free service. This is perhaps the greatest result of the “love-to-play-for-free” assumption. If you realize what a massive favor this is, how incredibly lucky you are to have a musician helping you, you would perhaps think twice about being disrespectful to them. It goes without saying you should treat everyone with respect (which is why I really should not have to say this) and if you need something from your musician you should ask for it of course, but remember the onus is on you to make sure the musician will want to work with you again.
8. Be organized
Make sure your musicians are not running around looking for chairs to sit on or a place to set up. I have so often shown up for a gig where they do not even know where we should set up. It feels like we are an afterthought: “musicians…oh yes we hired those, didn’t we?”. This is a small thing but if you really want a musician to feel valued, have a big enough space organized for them to set up, have chairs ready, google how a quartet is set up, ask them what they need. If you want the real brownie points organize music stands for them. Of course musicians can do all this, and they really don’t mind, but when you organize this for them it really leaves an impression.
9. Food and transport
Our orchestra conductor at college joked with us, saying that musicians want to know three important things before accepting a gig: How much, how far and is there food? We laughed, but it is so true! Especially if there is no “how much?” consider offering your musicians lifts to and from the gig and if you can, feed them or provide snacks and drinks. I mean who doesn’t love free food? Your musicians will love you for this, every time.
10. Remuneration
By this stage you should understand enough about a musician to want to pay them and the only reason you should ever ask a musician to do something for free is because you really cannot afford them. Perhaps you are a start-up or a non-profit or something similar. This is fine. But I warn you. If a musician feels they are being misused in anyway (like most normal sane human beings) they will run the other direction and never look back.
If you are not paying your musicians find a way to meaningfully thank them for their time. This can be a really sincere message, helping them by liking and sharing social media posts or chocolate (always works). If you are paying your musician something, however small, make sure you pay them as soon as possible. Musicians have numerous gigs a month and really cannot waste time following up on every person who forgets to pay. Never mind that they are living off this money and have planned it into their budget.
Of course you can ignore all this and think: “well the musician agreed and could have said ‘no’ so they should just get over it”. If you waste their time or treat them with disrespect, the musician will probably just never work for you again. You will lose all the good musicians willing to work with you unless you can offer them really great payment. If the situation is bad enough, regardless of the money, they may just never work for you again. To add to this the music community is small and people talk. So your behavior towards them will quickly travel. However, if word gets out that you treat your musicians like gold, the musicians you already have will be willing to work for you time and time again and others will be more than ready to do so in the future.
Though I have looked specifically at working with “free” or “underpaid” musicians, I think most of this can be applied to all areas of hiring and working with musicians. Do you have any experience as a hirer or a musician? Please comment below and tell us about it! Like, share and lets all enjoy working together!
*Ms. Thaele can be reached at her Linked In account https://www.linkedin.com/messaging/thread/6127541270706470912