Let 'em work, let 'em live

When I was dating my ex-girlfriend and visiting her at her home in Connecticut, I saw a series of road signs with a slogan in connection with construction workers: “Let ’em work, let ’em live.” As many motorists will doubtless infer, it basically means that motorists are to slow down enough in construction zones to be sure they’re not going to accidentally hit a construction worker. On another level, the slogan has a broader meaning that can apply to just about any job: interference with a worker while he’s working could lead to an error on either side that could affect his ability to work in the future. And whoever can’t work can’t make money. And whoever can’t make money can’t live. And musicians are no exception.

You’ve doubtless seen the occasional movie or an episode of a TV series in which a musician is seen talking and playing at the same time. From a filmmaking and storytelling standpoint, it makes sense to have such a musician do that, because then the producers don’t have to use twice the film, twice the story time to get the performance out of the way and then allow the musician to deliver his speeches. Unfortunately, having a musician talk and play at the same time in a film or TV episode leads some viewers to believe that musicians are capable of doing that in real life. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Music is a language all its own, with its own rules, its own syntax, its own mode of expression. There’s a lot of multitasking going on when it comes to just playing. For any given note in a classical piece, the musician has to consider whether he’s playing it at a volume level and at a level of expression appropriate for the type of piece it is, the style it’s written in and the emotion it’s intended to convey--all while concentrating on his performance, ignoring ambient sounds such as people coughing and the like. Jazz musicians have it even tougher--when soloing, they have to consider the chord progression, and whether the solo is making musical sense, both as a whole and in progression from one chord to the next.

Now try doing all that and having a conversation at the same time. Not easy, is it? The reason for that is that your concentration is constantly shifting back and forth. You can excel at either one or the other at any one time, but the two of them simultaneously--forget it. Playing music and talking involve totally different parts of the brain.

Most musicians perform to entertain, and in a lot of entertainment venues it’s a given that people are not to disrupt the performance. Some musicians, like me, play for church services, and while most people follow common sense there too, I have encountered a few who haven’t, one of them as recently as this afternoon.

Now, while church services are not entertainment, there is no logistical difference between a church service and a musical theatre piece. In a church service we have a script called the liturgy, music we call hymns and settings of parts of the mass, costumes we call vestments, props we call things like the chalice, the ciborium and so on--I could go on and on. It therefore follows that there is no difference in the professional responsibilities involved between a musician who plays to entertain and a musician who plays to help glorify God.

As I pointed out last month, one of those responsibilities a professional musician has is that he is to play every gig like it’s his last. If you’ve read my last entry, you remember the story of that band that goofed off at a gig and ended up losing that other, potentially career-boosting gig before they were even aware the booking agent for it was even in their audience. In this case, though, the band was responsible for the disruption of their own performance. If you try to talk to a musician while he’s playing, you are responsible for disrupting his performance.

I’ve addressed this topic once before on my old Netscape site, and I made the point there that if you have a band playing, you can talk to one of the musicians to pass on a message to them along the lines of, “Last call for alcohol,” or “We’d like you to play such-and-such”, because the other musicians can cover for him in such a moment. And when you’re dealing with a DJ, your conversation with him is not going to affect the performances on the records or CDs he’s spinning because they were recorded and pressed before he even brought them to the venue. But when you’re dealing with a solo performer, be it one who is entertaining you or helping you worship, that performer has no one to back him up. When a solo performer is distracted, not only is the distraction a detriment to his focus on his performance, but the resultant slippages in his playing is noticed by everyone else, and their enjoyment of the event is thus reduced.

I’ve spoken of musician marketability before in these Chalk Talk entries, and this is no exception. Take, for example, my own situation. Right now we are starting to go into summer mode at St. Augustine’s, and I will be playing for all three masses this summer. Aside from the regulars, you never know who will be attending a given mass. People from out of town will be visiting our parish who have never heard me play before. Any one of those people might want to hire me afterward for a house party or an upcoming wedding or something. But I can’t know there are any such people there until they come up to me after the mass. As a result, I have to play as if there are such people there. I can’t afford to let anyone disrupt my concentration. If someone does that, how will the resultant mistake make me look in the eyes of those people? Are they still going to ask me to play that gig now? If not, then there goes whatever income I would have made at that gig, and thus some of my ability to live. And the gossip can spread, just like in that old shampoo ad, thus making the problem worse.

So my advice to you is this: Let us musicians work. Let us live. Don’t do anything to disrupt our performance, because that will mess things up for everyone. And nobody wants that. It’s never any fun discovering you were the one responsible for turning a performance into an artistic disaster, let alone that you were the catalyst for turning a musician’s dream of bigger and better things into more of a logistical nightmare than necessary. So let us do our job and give us the room we need to do it well. In the end, it’s the right thing to do.

Leave it to the pros

I just got off the phone yesterday with a client who had asked me to play for a fundraiser, but was now turning me down in favor of someone who was willing to do the gig for free. Looking back on that conversation, it seems obvious to me that the person they’re getting doesn’t do music for a living--if he did, he would certainly be charging them at least something. People, regardless of career choice, can’t make a living when they’re not making money.

I think this is a lose-lose situation for everybody involved. First of all, I certainly lost out on what would have been a great gig for me--a gig in which I would have presented European hit parade material that is rarely, if ever, heard on this side of the Atlantic. I’m out the revenue I would have been paid for this gig, and this other guy is being “hired” for free. Is this fair? I don’t think so. Let me ask you a question. If you had a leaky faucet, who would you expect to do a nice, neat, water-tight job? Who would you rather get? A total professional with savvy and experience, who knows what he’s doing, and expects to be paid for it, or somebody just off the street who is willing to do the job for free? I think we both know the answer to that one. The latter person may well forget to turn the water off first. It’s the same with musicians.

Theoretically I could have done that fundraiser for free, but since I’m a member of the American Federation of Musicians, I would have had to clear that with my Local’s Executive Board first, and I suspect I wouldn’t have had time for that. And this is true of any labor union representing any aspect of the performing arts. When the Love Network was created for Jerry Lewis’ Muscular Dystrophy telethons in 1968, there was some opposition from the Theatre Authority, an organization that represented theatrical-related labor unions, because their permission is required before the representing talent can perform without charge.

The amateur in the case of this fundraiser is losing out too. First of all, he may be doing the gig for the exposure, but such gigs are worthless if that’s the only reason the amateur is doing it, because nine times out of ten he’ll be exposing his talent to the wrong people--people who are not involved in the music industry, who are not in a position to help him take his music career to the next level. And if the amateur happens to be doing the gig for free that one time out of ten, the right people may well feel that because he’s doing the gig for free, he has few or no serious aspirations to become a professional. They’ll turn a blind eye. (And it would be very easy for them to determine his status if they wanted to--they could call the AFM Local in whose jurisdiction he’s playing, find out from them whether he’s a member there, and if so, whether he cleared the freebie with the Executive Board or not.) Besides, returning to the plumber analogy, what entry-level professional plumber would want to do jobs just for exposure and no payment? Secondly, do you remember what I said in my blog about Walkmans and headsets? People who want to make a living at music here in Ottawa, or in any other small music market, either have to take on multiple music projects, or do a nine-to-five job while doing only one music project. In the case of an amateur, the latter scenario is more likely--if he doesn’t want to make money doing music, he has to be making money doing something else. As a result, he doesn’t have the time to develop his musical craft on a professional level.

Another thing to consider is that people who are working in the performing arts have to keep their personal feelings in check when they perform on stage. If a musician is having a bad day, for example, they can’t afford to let it show on stage, or it will affect their future marketability, not to mention the event as a whole. Developing the ability to suppress negative emotions on stage like that isn’t something that a music teacher can give you--it’s something you have to develop within yourself. Who is more likely to have a stronger ability at this, the amateur or the professional?

Then there’s the question of having the right attitude on stage. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor Marc Alaimo once said at a convention, "People are paying you to entertain them, so don't screw around with the performance." I once read of a band that didn't follow this principle. They played a gig in a seedy bar that had maybe five or six people in the audience the whole night. They decided to goof off in front of the audience, take extra long breaks, that sort of thing. Unbeknownst to them, one of the people in the audience was a booking agent that was looking for a band to book at a venue that would have taken this band to the next level in their career. He was unimpressed, and he left the bar without bothering to talk to the band. Clearly, this band wasn't as professional as they could have been. They were professional in the sense that they were being paid to perform, yes, but little more than that. Would a true professional act like this? Of course not. But what about an amateur?

Given all this, how do you think an amateur’s performance at a given event will affect the audience, his client and the event as a whole? It all boils down to two things: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and you get what you pay for. People go to events to escape from their problems for a little while, and they expect to have a good time while they’re out. If the musician delivers a mediocre performance compared to a professional, the event as a whole suffers, and the audience won’t have as good a time. The audience may well decide not to return to that event if they know that musician will be performing there again.

With this resultant diminishment of audience turnout on subsequent show dates, the client will lose money in the long run because of lower ticket revenue. And that’s particularly dangerous in the case of a fundraiser because the economic purpose there is to raise as much money as possible. I doubt Jerry Lewis would have raised even a tenth of the money he did at his Muscular Dystrophy telethons if the only talent there, both in front of and behind the camera, had been non-professionals.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re planning parties or running a business--there are times when you have to spend money to make money. How much publicity for a service or an event are you likely to get if you spend money on a tiny three-line ad in your local newspaper’s classifieds section, compared to if you spend the greater amount of money on a larger advertising campaign? Or take the tragic case of Richard Chamberlain’s character Roger Simmons in the movie The Towering Inferno--Simmons’ decision to save money by using substandard wiring results in a massive fire that destroys half the tower and costs dozens of lives, including his own.

So my advice to you is this. If you are planning an event and want music, leave the music to the pros. Labor unions set basic minimum scale rates, and while many musicians charge higher than scale, they will be willing to reduce their fees closer to scale to accommodate an event that has a lower operating budget. I tried doing this for this fundraiser, and I’m sorry the client made the decision that she did. I wish them well, but I doubt the event will turn out as well as it otherwise could. If you absolutely must insist the pros perform for free, you should then assume they are members of the AFM and book them early enough to allow them time to clear the freebie with their Local’s Executive Board. Given that music is as tough a business as it is, and that professional musicians are struggling to make a living, isn’t it better to take advantage of the opportunity to help them out?