Sydney Life

As a musician (or, to be more specific, as a young and relatively-cheaper-to-hire musician), chances are you’ll be asked to do at least five million gigs before you hit 25. NEVER underestimate the power of a gig. A ‘bad’ gig can damage more than just your morale. In order to preserve your friendships, sanity, petrol, and bank balance, I suggest thou readest on.

Now, as I am a person who prefers to let other people do all the preparation before sweeping in violinist-style* and taking all the credit, my most valued Gig Commandment is this:
Thou shalt only gig with those who have good gig folders
In my days of youthful naivety, myself and three friends regularly played together for weddings and parties. Unfortunately, none of us could be bothered to compile an extensive repertoire, and so we played either Pachelbel’s illustrious Canon in D or one of five Haydn quartets (arranged for Young Children) on repeat.
I imagine that an ice-cream truck owner would experience a similar sequence of emotions on their first day on the job. Greensleeves is quite a nice little tune, really. It just gets old extremely quickly. By the end of most gigs, I think if I had been an ice-cream truck owner I would have smooshed ice-cream all over the face of the next keen customer.
Moral of the story? If you can’t organise your own folders, make sure you only do gigs with others who do.

In our increasingly material world, the question of money is almost as important as the afore-mentioned point regarding musical satisfaction. Therefore,
Thou shalt consider the Where, When, and How Much before committing your services.
The Where: As an environmentally friendly citizen (learner driver), I strongly suggest looking up the location of a gig before agreeing to it. Basically, if your travel time greatly exceeds the playing time, I’d say it’s not worth it – stay home and practice instead!
The When: Given the context of this blog, I’d say that if a potential gig clashes with Uni – say no. In all seriousness though, the Orchestral Studies Manager in particular will not take kindly to Con students missing orchestra rehearsals for gigs!
The How Much: if you are called up to organise a gig, always be firm in your going rate. If you sound uncertain, or have absolutely no idea what you “normally charge”, the People With Money will SMELL your fear and you’ll end up playing for $2 an hour. As a guideline, most string quartet gigs pay $120 each for the first hour and a lesser amount (say $80) for each subsequent hour.

Thou shalt know when to be diplomatic.
This commandment refers mainly to the dreaded ‘Song Requests’. There are lots of websites around where one can download free (and often dodgy) arrangements of pop songs, and of course you can arrange pieces yourself. But people, know what’s appropriate. I know that Fourplay can play The Strokes and Metallica and make the string quartet sound groovy. Unfortunately, Joe Blow’s arrangement of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ played by your average string quartet just won’t be recognisable. **
By all means try to adhere to any requests you may get. But don’t be afraid to steer the bride and groom in a more realistic musical direction.

Thou shalt eat well, play well, live well.
At the end of the day, your first priority is to play well. No matter how terrible the gig (think 7am beach weddings in Wollongong), there’s always the chance that you’ll get a much better future gig out of it. Plus, I’ve known plenty of quartets who have had their payment cancelled for dodgy performances. You have been warned!
The truly logical mind will also take into account how much free food and drink they can scam at a gig.

If this post has confirmed in your mind what you secretly suspected all along – namely that musicians are lazy bastards out for a free feed – I suppose now is as appropriate a time as any to add a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: the blogger takes no responsibility for any adverse effects suffered by individuals as a result of taking this blog too literally. She would also like to add that not all musicians are as lazy as her, and sometimes you have to say yes to terrible gigs to have something to talk about at Uni.

* Unless I’m playing second violin, of course. The differences between 1st and 2nd violinists make for an extremely interesting study. One line of argument compares first violinists to America and second violinists to Siberia. The common man couldn’t care less what goes on in Siberia.

** Apologies to any real person named Joe Blow who may have arranged ‘Whole Lotta Love’ for string quartet. I’m sure it’s a very good arrangement.