Death from exposure

ByBret Pimentel

Working musicians, especially those trying to launch their careers or take them to the next level, are all too familiar with the idea of playing for “exposure”—in other words, playing gigs for free with the idea that maybe it will somehow lead to paying gigs.

Playing for free is one thing; there’s no reason you can’t do a favor for a friend, or show up at a jam session for fun and/or practice. But it’s more insidious when your unpaid labor is fueling somebody else’s profits. This seems to be a phenomenon that particularly affects creative types: the same people who want your band to play at their event for “exposure” or “experience” are no doubt paying the waitstaff, stage crew, or what-have-you, because people in those jobs simply don’t work for free.

Photo, Mark Robinson
Photo, Mark Robinson

The fallacy here is that the prospective employer is offering you exposure and experience and networking instead of money, as if the alternative were gigs that paid money but didn’t offer those things. That simply isn’t the case: you get all those benefits from paid gigs, too, plus you get to pay your rent that month.

I’m discovering the same issue with this blog. I am always pleased and flattered when someone finds my posts interesting or useful. But recently I heard from a major woodwind business, one you have most certainly heard of if you are a woodwind player. An intern (again: unpaid labor for “experience” [note: I have been informed by the company in question that their interns are paid. hooray!]) contacted me, bubbling over with excitement about the suggestion that the company might like to copy some of my blog posts to their own website and call attention to them in their email newsletter. By way of (non-)compensation, a link would be provided back to my site. “What we are offering is increased traffic to your website,” the intern enthused.

I have been down this road before, and I know that this situation is going to get me a tiny traffic boost the day the newsletter is published, and very little after that. But a copy of my content will live on the company’s website indefinitely, drawing away traffic that otherwise would have been mine, and diluting my online presence.

I suggested a compromise: a summary or quote from one of my posts, with a link for people to finish reading the article at my site. Nope. Apparently the company isn’t really that interested in sending traffic my way—they want to fill their own site with good content to build awareness of and loyalty to their own brand (no surprise there; they are a business). They are surely paying web hosting expenses and a web designer, a marketing team, etc. (with the pitiful exception of the intern). But they want the content for free.

I give my content away, directly to the reader, for free at my own website, but I retain the copyright. If someone wants to read it, they visit my site or retrieve one of my feeds. I make an astonishingly tiny amount of money from minimal advertising, the occasional affiliate product link, and a few donations. But the content remains under my control, in a single canonical copy.

Don’t fall for the flattery. Playing (or writing) “for exposure” means your “employer” is keeping your paycheck for themselves.

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  • Some useful phrases for gig calls

    ByBret Pimentel

    Here are some phrases that have been useful to me when somebody calls about a gig. When dealing with other professionals (or working through the musicians’ union) mostly these aren’t necessary—the caller should give the needed info unprompted. But many of the gigs in my rural area are one-offs for weddings or school or business events, and I’m dealing with callers who don’t regularly hire musicians.

    Let me call you back in five minutes.

    This has saved me many times. Sometimes I need a moment to think through the money/mileage/scheduling/etc., or to find a polite way to negotiate the terms or just turn the gig down. It’s fine to put the conversation on pause for a moment and prepare your response. (Or, depending on the caller, to pivot the conversation to text messaging, which gives you more time to formulate responses, plus a record of what was said).

    Who will be my contact person when I arrive?

    I use this one all the time with, for example, brides who are micromanaging the wedding planning (down to calling the saxophone player). If I arrive at the gig and need to know where to set up or collect my check, it’s going to be awkward for everybody if I have to bother the bride with business details On Her Special Day. If necessary, I gently suggest that she put a trusted friend in charge of answering the band’s questions and handing over their payment.

    Who is the musical director?

    This one is sort of a trick, because if it’s the kind of gig that actually has a musical director, then it’s less important that I know in advance (and, often, it’s the musical director who is offering the gig anyway).

    When I really need this one is when a well-meaning non-musician is trying to hire a band piecemeal (“Oh, my cousin is going to play guitar, and this guy I know from church is going to play drums, and my boss’s friend is a piano player…”). Asking this question gives me a chance to drop the hint that somebody needs to be in charge musically. In some cases, I’m able to segue into some friendly advice that they hire an existing professional group, or hire a professional to put together an ensemble.

    Just so I’m totally clear, are you offering me a paying gig, or is this more of a volunteer situation?

    I do still get calls asking me to donate my time. While I mostly turn those down, I don’t think it’s helpful to be nasty or condescending about it. Phrasing it this particular way gives the caller an easy multiple-choice question to answer without any waffling or weaseling. And when I turn them down, it seems less like I have refused a direct request, and more like I’m just passing up a chance to “volunteer.”

    Can I count on $XXX?

    Sometimes less-experienced hirers (such as someone hiring for a business or school event) have a budget range in mind, and (foolishly) tell me what that range is (“Well, we can pay between $AAA and $BBB”). The number they are hoping to pay is the smaller one, but I’ve made the mistake before of fixating on the larger one (and being disappointed later). Always nail down an exact fee. I try to get the top end of the range, of course, but make it worthwhile: “Can I count on $BBB? That way I can be sure to get a great keyboard player.” Or: “Can I count on $BBB? Then I can cancel some lessons that week and have time to look over the music in advance.”

    If they are hesitant to commit, you can say something like, “Okay, why don’t you call me back as soon as you have an answer, and we can firm things up?”

    Is that the base rate, or does that include travel/doubling/etc.?

    If the caller really is thinking in terms of base rates, then I probably won’t need to ask this question. But hirers who aren’t tuned in to this are probably counting on me to walk them through the process of hiring me. Asking this question gives me an opening to educate them that it’s appropriate to pay extra for travel time, or for bringing multiple instruments. (A quick web search for “afm wage scale” will give you at least a rough idea of what the union considers fair for doublers.)

    Do you have useful phone strategies for lining up gigs (large or small)? Please share in the comments section.

  • Thoughts on musicians’ websites

    ByBret Pimentel

    I first set up a personal website in about 2000 or 2001. There wasn’t much reason for me to do so—I was a college undergraduate, with virtually no worthwhile content to share. But it was a start, and fifteen or sixteen years later I have a few hundred blog posts and some other resources, plus a few college degrees and a university teaching position to perhaps bolster my reputation, and I enjoy a modest flow of web traffic. For what it’s worth, here are a few thoughts on websites for individual working (or aspiring) musicians, particularly those in non-“pop” genres and whose reputations exist primarily regionally or within specialized circles (such as academia).

    photo, Markus Tacker
    photo, Markus Tacker

    “Home” page: Put some content here. Why have a “landing” page that is nothing but a menu/obstacle to the meat of your site? Put your professional biography here, or maybe a recent blog post (the actual text, I mean, not just links to blog posts).

    Biography: Ask yourself, are your site visitors really interested in your life story? (“Bret Pimentel started playing the saxophone at the tender age of ten…”) Keep it simple, professional, and brief. Let people know what you do.

    For “who I have played with” lists, I suggest keeping it to 10 or 12 entries, tops. When you play with someone famous/interesting enough to add to your list, drop someone else.

    Résumé/vita: Potential employers (for gigs, teaching positions, etc.) aren’t harvesting résumés from websites. Your short bio is probably enough. If you insist on posting your résumé or curriculum vita, strongly consider posting it as a web page, not as a PDF or word processing document. (As a general rule, use a word processing document—preferably an “open” format—if people will want to download and edit it, a PDF if they will want to save or print it without editing, and a web page if they will just want to read it online.) And I suggest removing your address and phone number for safety and privacy.

    Blog entries: Not everybody needs or wants a blog, and that’s okay. But if you are hoping to use your website to build an online audience, it helps to have an avenue for publishing new stuff. (Nobody is coming back to read and re-read your bio.) I strongly suggest real blog software (such as WordPress, or a link to a WordPress.com or Blogger.com hosted blog), rather than just typing new entries into a plain web page. That way you can benefit from built-in syndication feeds and other technologies that make it easy for people to find and follow your content in their favorite apps, leave comments, etc.

    It’s okay to post only occasionally. Many, many of the musicians’ blogs I follow consist of annual apologies for not posting lately and promises of great stuff coming soon, and nothing more. Just post if you have something to post.

    Even if you are planning mostly to use social media sites to connect professionally, bear in mind that those can come and go quickly, and it’s nice to have a home base for your content where it will remain under your control. By all means, post your new web content to the social networks you use yourself, as those connections are the ones most likely to reshare and amplify your content.

    Articles/resources: For content that you intend to update or improve over time, it probably makes sense to publish it as a “static” page rather than a blog post. If you are old enough to remember these things, you might consider a blog post to be like a newspaper article, which you probably read once and then look for fresh content the next day, while “resources” are more like phone books, which you refer to on an ongoing basis and which get replaced by newer editions.

    Audio/video: I think it makes sense to host these elsewhere (YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.) and link or embed them on your site, since putting them in places where people are already looking for music and video gets them to a larger audience and boosts their search engine juice. They should never play automatically—only when your site visitor intentionally starts them.

    Photos: I used to have a photo gallery on my site, but I have removed it. Ask yourself: are you famous or interesting enough (yet) that people are going to have an interest in seeing your career’s visual history? Are you hoping they will be impressed by something related to your physical appearance? Consider using one or two photos on your bio page, and put the rest on Facebook for your friends and relatives to enjoy.

    Equipment: I am on record as believing that listing what brands and models you play is useless at best.

    (Also, if you have endorsement deals you want to brag about, remember that the correct wording is that you endorse the brand, not that the brand endorses you.)

    Contact info: Contact forms are kind of a pain. I suggest providing a real email address so that people can communicate with you using the software or webmail of their choice. Worried about spam? Use a free webmail account with powerful spam filtering.

    Social links: You don’t have to link to all the social media sites, just the ones you use and see as good places to connect with internet strangers.

    Instructions on how to use a website: If your website includes instructions on how to use your website, either your website is poorly designed or you are talking down to your visitors.

    In general, look at each page of your website and ask, is this here because it is potentially of use or interest to my site visitors, or is it only interesting to me? Would I read this content on someone else’s site?

  • Why musicians cost money

    ByBret Pimentel

    I very much appreciate this brief article by trumpet player Jeff Purtle: Why Do Musicians Charge? [Edit: article no longer exists, but see the video in Mr. Purtle’s comment below.] Mr. Purtle makes the point that it costs a lot of money to be a musician. This is painfully true for woodwind doublers, who need not only a large number of high-quality instruments, but also reeds, maintenance and repairs, insurance, stands, cases, and more for each instrument, not to mention the cost of lessons or even college or conservatory study.

    I think the overhead costs of being an instrumentalist are a really important and valid point. But I do think are some more reasons why musicians should expect to be compensated fairly for what they do: Read More “Why musicians cost money”

  • Interview: Gene Scholtens, Broadway woodwind doubler

    ByBret Pimentel
    Gene Scholtens

    One of the awesome things that has happened since I started my list of reed books in musicals is that great people from all over the world have contacted me to contribute to the list. These contacts are always a pleasure for me personally, and they serve to make the list more accurate, complete, and useful for others.

    I have a number of regular contributors who contact me periodically with updates, and until recently the record was nearly twenty individual contributions from one much-appreciated person.

    That record was shattered when, a few months ago, I started getting emails from Gene Scholtens. The first email was a small correction for one show, but then the floodgates opened. Gene revealed that he has been playing woodwinds in Broadway orchestras for over thirty years, and has been keeping his own very comprehensive log of who plays which doubles on which shows. Gene’s contributions to my list at the time of this writing number a staggering 72.

    As it turns out, Gene is not only a talented musician and a prolific record keeper, but also a very nice, humble, and generous guy, and graciously agreed to talk to me on the phone about his career. Here’s what he had to say. [Note: edited for length.]

     

    BP: How many shows have you played?

     

    GS: I’ve been playing on Broadway since roughly 1980. The last count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 90-95 shows.

     

    Wow. Read More “Interview: Gene Scholtens, Broadway woodwind doubler”

  • Handout: Blogging to build your woodwind career

    ByBret Pimentel

    I gave a presentation at last week’s Mid-South Flute Festival on blogging as a means for enhancing a performing/teaching career. The handout says “flute” on it, but I think the advice really is pretty generally applicable.

    Blogging to Build Your Flute Career (PDF)

  • Calculating gig fees

    ByBret Pimentel

    It took a while in my freelancing career to get a handle on how to respond when people ask what I charge for my services as a performer.

    I live in a remote, rural area (where my university day job is located) and there isn’t a musicians’ union presence, so I’m on my own in these negotiations. When a gig call comes in, I have to make the decision whether the offered compensation is enough, or be able to name a fair price on the spot. I’ve developed sort of a mental formula for this calculation, which I have converted into an online spreadsheet with sample numbers so you can see my process:

    Gig fee calculator

    If you have a Google account the link should prompt you to create a copy of the spreadsheet that you can play around with. Try changing some of the numbers and see how it works.

    Basically, I’m thinking in terms of:

    • A base rate, which is the minimum I charge for even the smallest gig.
    • Additional fees if I’m expected to double on multiple instruments. (I’ve written previously about my rationale for that.)
    • Additional fees to cover my travel time and expenses.

    This gives me a way to think through what I am charging in a consistent way, and a nice clear breakdown if someone asks why I’m charging what I’m charging, or wants some kind of itemized invoice. If I feel put on the spot, or I just want a little more time to think it through, I have had good success getting the details, then telling the caller I’ll get back to them within a certain time frame. (Maybe five minutes, or an hour, or the next day.)

    Depending on the type of gig, what works for you, and what’s common in your area, you might need to adapt my system to include things like preparation/practice time, bringing and setting up PA or other equipment, downtime between sound check and downbeat, and expenses for things like special wardrobe. And of course you should adjust the base rate and other options to suit your financial needs, your clout in the local gig scene, and what’s common/appropriate in your location.

    You should also think through what to do when the gig offer doesn’t meet your pay requirements. Turning down low-paying gigs contributes to an attitude that musicians should be treated as professionals and compensated fairly. But often weekend warriors or younger musicians trying to break into the local gig scene are willing to be a little more flexible. (The rights and wrongs of that are a larger topic than I will address here. Do what is best for you and your career.)

    Think carefully about what your time and skills are worth, and expect to be paid in a way that is fair to both you and your employers.

3 Comments

  1. Glad you’re addressing this issue here, Bret. Musicians love to play so much, that it’s difficult to resist the temptation to play for free. I stopped doing that years ago. Your points and your logic for resisting the temptation are spot on. Not only does it lead to nothing for the artists, it devalues our work in general.

    Regarding web content, I have had to learn this same lesson all over again. Your experiences with this reflect mine, as well. I’ve even had someone request to post one of my articles (with credit, links, etc.) only to find out when I visited the site that they didn’t even do that. (I had them take down the content they “borrowed” from me. Never again. Great that your giving us this info and (for folks like me) reminder. Thanks!

    Reply

  2. Thanks so much for addressing this issue. I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve said. As professional musicians, we must avoid this ‘race to the bottom’ where it is impossible to compete with someone who will give away their services. I would also like to put in a plug for the American Federation of Musicians, which has fought hard to maintain union standards in a difficult environment.

    Reply
  3. Pingback: Don’t Play for Pasta - Adam J Berkowitz – Clarinetist

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