 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-04-08 13:38
This article appeared in the Baltimore Sun Paper today, baltimoresun.com under "facing the music" it's very timely to the thread I've recently posted about symphony jobs it the USA. It starts off "Freelance musicians scramble for new sources of income as gigs they counted on vanish amid the economic cutbacks.
ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com (my new web page, only about 3 weeks old)
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Author: bbarner
Date: 2009-04-09 15:59
I found it interesting that the profiled bass player made only $4,000-5000 during a January-May season of opera orchestra, chamber orchestra and Concert Artists gigs--$100-160 per rehearsal or concert. If she can improvise walking bass lines and bossa novas she can make twice as much playing wedding receptions and corporate events in Baltimore and Washington.
Bill Barner
http://www.billbarner.com
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2009-04-09 17:34
The same is happening all over the world. It's happening here in the UK certainly, I've lost things that I've been doing for years due to money drying up. It's a sad state of affairs really.
Peter Cigleris
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-04-09 23:11
Bill, it's not only about making money, it's also about playing her art form and bringing it to the public, you know, what she worked for all her life. It's just nice to be able to make a living, or in her case, to simply supplement her living through what she was trained and love's to do. ESP
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Author: Ryan25
Date: 2009-04-10 00:54
"Bill, it's not only about making money, it's also about playing her art form and bringing it to the public, you know, what she worked for all her life. It's just nice to be able to make a living, or in her case, to simply supplement her living through what she was trained and love's to do. ESP"
Please. If this were true, then she wouldn't turn down gigs if she just wants to play and make music. It is about money. Somewhere in there she says she normally wouldn't drive far for a gig that paid only 250 but now she will. Nothing worse than a string player whining about gigs. Gigs fall in string players laps like rain falls on the ground.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-04-10 13:10
Ryan, I said it wasn't ONLY about making money, of course a person needs to make a living and wants to be paid for their art. The point is that she would much rather play what she was trained to play and what is in her heart but needs to take other "gigs" to make ends meet. Musicians take gigs that they have to take to make ends meet just like many others do jobs they would rather not have to do to pay their bills. Let's not make more out of this than I meant it to be. Classical music in the USA has, and probably will always, be challenged. The arts in general are always challenged but we are all the better for having them and we should not let them disappear but try to build them up not tear them down. ESP
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2009-04-10 13:25
Many, many other people have already felt the pinch by the time a major institution like that fails. Freelancers that provide music for weddings, bar mitzvahs, club dates, holiday parties, conventions and other business events, have all been see this slowdown for several years. Events that would have hired 4-5 musicians several years ago now hire 2. Everybody is scrambling. But, people who have ignored articles and e-mail about effective marketing strategies are now taking them seriously.
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Author: bbarner
Date: 2009-04-14 19:36
Ed Palanker wrote:
> Bill, it's not only about making money, it's also about playing her art form >and bringing it to the public, you know, what she worked for all her life. >It's just nice to be able to make a living, or in her case, to simply >supplement her living through what she was trained and love's to do. ESP.
I didn't mean to suggest that she play weddings instead of concerts. She supplements her classical music-playing income by teaching and the occasional non-musical day job. If she was willing and able to play jazz and pop music in addition to classical music she might not need to work at the department store or dog kennel.
--Bill B.
Bill Barner
http://www.billbarner.com
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2009-04-14 20:07
We've reported time and again about the steady decline in real wages for freelance musicians. In my own experience, 20 years ago a typical 4-hour combo gig (for parties, weddings, corporate functions, etc.) paid an average of roughly $200 here in the Washington, DC area. This number has remained steady or even declined, even as inflation has reduced the value of that dollar value to less than half of what it was. As an example, this week I have two such gigs (making it a really good week, by the way!) and I'll be getting an awesome $125 per for these performances. In inflation-adjusted dollars, in other words, I'm probably making no more that 1/4 of the salary I would have made 20 years ago doing the exact same things (and hopefully I'm a far better player now, but that doesn't seem to matter at all). New Year's Eve gigs used to be so plentiful that every musician in town, no matter how bad, was booked that night, at $200-500 per person. Now, 20 years later, most musicians I know are sitting home idle on New Year's Eve watching the ball drop in Times Square on the television, and those few musicians who are working, are making the same or less money in NON-INFLATION-ADJUSTED dollars as they did a generation ago.
I realize the young players coming up have stars in their eyes and are sick of all the gloom-and-doom talk by us geezers, but this is the reality. For the vast majority of musicians, music does not pay. It's a wonderful hobby.
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Author: chorusgirl
Date: 2009-04-14 21:57
I've faced this for years as an accompanist. People simply do not want to pay a musician for their time and expertise, and it is getting worse.
Before I moved to the state I live in now, I used to do accompanying for students trying out for All-State (for those of you who are familiar with NYSSMA, you know that level VI All State contenders were required to perform with an accompanist). I would literally have parents call me the night before the adjudication, and expect me to do it for free since I would already be at the event, and I already knew the music (yes, my years of learning/practicing/performing the Mozart, Poulenc, etc. didn't warrant any payment in their view).
Nowadays, I have school principals that do not appreciate the time and effort we take from our schedules to learn, to rehearse, and to perform, with groups other than our own contracted obligations. Stipends for accompanists for school choruses have been eliminated from school budgets, and forget about performing any kind of piece that calls for other instrumental accompaniment. Churches? They have no money, anymore, either. My friends who used to supplement their incomes nicely with church gigs all say it's completely dried up. It is pervasive, this attitude of not wanting to pay musicians.
One of my greatest pet peeves is that we, as a society, are willing to pay ball players and movie stars millions upon millions of dollars for what they do, and yet we are not willing to do the same with our musicians. Why are the major members of our greatest symphony orchestras not making millions of dollars? Why is the general public willing to fork over hundreds of dollars for a box seat for a ball game, but will not pay $50 for a (classical) music concert ticket?
Unless one becomes a rock star, it is unlikely to become truly financially comfortable just by being a musician.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2009-04-14 23:24
David Spiegelthal wrote:
> In my own experience, 20 years
> ago a typical 4-hour combo gig (for parties, weddings,
> corporate functions, etc.) paid an average of roughly $200 here
> in the Washington, DC area.
I was making that nearly 40 years back playing bass for polka gigs twice a week ($100/night). At age 15, in the St. Luke's (I think) parish hall, Portland, ME ...
Polka gigs were the best paying back then - brutal sessions, though, as the music gets faster as the night gets longer. Great training for a very young aspiring musician.
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