peteb

It won't be the bands fault or anybody else's. But unless live music can be made financially viable then pubs and clubs will either close or stop putting on bands. Everybody (musicians, pubs & punters) will lose out. The problem is that in a recession, punters will struggle to be able afford to go out to pubs or clubs - let alone spend more on a rare night out to support the venues & bands.

But what if venues start offering lower fees and corporate gigs have their budgets cut? Will your brother be prepared to accept less money or risk losing work to those who will? I’m not really talking about playing for free. I might do that as a one-off gig while social distancing remains in force and then only for a venue that I already have a good relationship with. What I am trying to do is get my bandmates used to the idea that they may have to accept that they could be playing for less money next year.

Absolutely. Two things I would say: at some point in the not too distant future people will feel safe enough to go out and not avoid crowds and; it is not a case of being ‘principled’ to refuse to accept changes in market forces and go out of business. There is going to be a recession, not just because of COVID 19. This will lead to venues closing but still (nearly) the same number of bands who want to play in them. Therefore, there will be an over-supply of bands causing band fees to drop. Going hand-in-hand with this will be a drop in demand from punters, many of whom may lose their jobs or struggle to pay the mortgage and therefore can’t afford to go out to support live music events. This will mean a potential loss of income for pubs / venues, again forcing gig fees to drop. As you say, all this is going to push down band fees as a result of the change in the supply / demand curve. All of this is going to have an effect on the live music scene, both at the professional and semi-pro levels. At pub band level, the better bands with established followings may find themselves having to reduce their fees and start competing with bands who are perhaps not so good. These bands will struggle even more for gigs and may be forced to play less often for free. On one hand, this might mean that it is likely that there is an awful band on when you turn up at a typical pub venue, on the other hand how are these bands supposed to get better it they’re starved of gigs?? At the pro level, it’s difficult enough these days trying to make a living with music as your main source of income and it’s not going to get any easier! Interesting times…

You're certainly not being dim mate, the rules are incredibly vague and will be ignored apart from the main points i.e. social distancing. This allows the government to demonstrate that it is showing support for the sector, whilst putting all the blame on the venue if anything goes wrong.

I don't think so, especially not covers bands that generate additional revenue for pubs / other venues and get paid for providing that service. However, I think that going forward, musicians who expect to get paid for gigging (be it their main form of income or just additional earnings) are going to find that the current market for their services MAY well change. There is very likely going to be a recession that could last for a while, which will affect the number of punters who can afford a night out watching live music (or at least mean that they do so less regularly). This will affect the amount that venue will be able to pay. It is no good simply insisting on your current fees, or thinking that you are too good to play for less money because there is a real danger that you just won't work - venues will not be able pay bands more money than they generate in bar sales! I know that this is crystal ball stuff, but you do have to at least be prepared for the possibility. The real danger for most gigging musos in the long term is that punters start to get out of the habit of going out to watch live music.

Would it make any difference if the question was: 'Would you play for a reduced fee to support a friendly venue who can't make their usual way of promoting live music financially viable in the current climate (social distancing, etc)', instead of 'would you play for free'??

I think that this is mainly an issue while social distancing is still operating in venues, so the resulting smaller audience pretty much makes it impossible to make gigs where they pay the artist financially viable. I would be more open to doing this than I would have in the past, but I would have to like / trust the pub manager / promoter and I would be very wary about this becoming the new normal going forward. So the answer for me is 'possibly, depends on the venue and circumstances'. There is another related topic on whether market forces (in the midst of a likely recession due to COVID 19 and other reasons) may mean that fees might have to be reduced in the future to make gigs financially viable?

I would be much more open to doing something like that than I would have been before lockdown. I'm still a bit cautious though - potential for a slippery slope there...

To be honest, not being the sort of chap who participates in debate among the classical music set, I didn't know that. I thought that for the past 200 years plus the thing was very much, play what's on the page.

I'm not sure that I know any more what point you think I was making. All I was saying is that Beethoven was one of the greats of classical music, but I don't think that he could knock out 12 bar rock & roll tunes as good as Chuck Berry could (or even Status Quo). Similarly, songwriters can successfully write across different genres (to a point). Paul McCartney has had great success writing songs across the pop music and rock & roll canon, but he has never made a heavy metal record as good as Master of Puppets.

I think that you have to be careful looking for similarities across the centuries. The great composers would often write on commission and they didn't just write grand symphonies. They would write what there was a demand for (but all within a broad classical tradition), but they would not deign to write certain types of 'low' or folk type music, which they thought below them and would not please their wealthy patrons or high brow society audience. I believe that the possible exception was Mozart, who liked to upset the more pompous sections of society (but I may have just got that from Amadeus)...

To be honest, I don’t think that I have moved the goalposts. Possibly you have stretched my argument to breaking point with distractions about Paul Gilbert, etc but the central point remains. I am not doubting that songwriters can apply their craft across different genres, but the composer (widely accepted as a genius) of some of the most renowned symphonies in history would not have the slightest interest in knocking out a catchy 12 bar and it would be a waste of his immense talent to do so. Even if he fancied having a go for the money, he would come short as he would not have grown up idolising Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and the Beatles nor would he have lived a life of sweaty pub gigs, the resulting dubious romantic encounters and the endless motorway miles that helped shaped what made Quo connect to a mass audience, mainly made up of teenage boys looking for a release from their daily frustrations. I disagree about "authenticity" being “the biggest load of codswallop in music”. You have to be careful here, otherwise you can go down several rabbit holes of nonsense about whether you are the right race or sex to play a particular type of music. But at a minimum you to have a genuine understanding of the genre and preferably a connection to it. Think of why Guns n’Roses exploded like they did and their remaining appeal, or why Thin Lizzy were such a great rock and roll band in the 70s and such a mediocre metal / AOR band in the 80s. Equally, I agree that "contrived" does not mean 'not able to write it', but it does mean not being able to do so convincingly.

No, I'm saying that apart from playing trumpet in the school orchestra, he didn't have the level of technical proficiency or musical training of Paul Gilbert or Alex Skolnick and as far as I am aware, Ludwig van Beethoven didn't write "Roll Over Lay Down" (although there may be a clip of an early performance from 1796 on YouTube)...!

But that's a different thing! Gilbert was a music school kid and Skolnick had a decent level of musical training, including being taught by Joe Satriani. Both are trained musicians who happened to grow up loving heavy metal and other types of classic rock. Neither of them are Ludwig van Beethoven and nor have they have been associated with anything as basic as Status Quo. On the other hand, Rossi served his apprenticeship playing old time rock and roll in British holiday camps in the 60s and made his mark writing pretty basic 12 bars. I would say that is a considerably different arena to that inhabited by Gilbert & Skolnick.

There are certain situations where musicians are not actually on a stage, so performance is not such an important factor (although in many situations I'm sure that it helps). As far as the DLRs of this world - obviously they generally have a larger than life personality to start with, but they really do develop their craft. I can tell you that for sure...

But Miles had a very definite stage presence that people wanted to buy into. That's kinda the point...! I'm not so sure about that. If Rossi had a deeply profound knowledge of advanced musical theory, would be have able to write such convincing barroom boogie ditties, or would they have come across as contrived??

A strange but noble body of men...!

I should point out that we're not talking vaudeville here and you don't have to be a Steven Tyler or Bruce Forsyth or whatever. You just have to be able to communicate with your audience to the point that makes them want to listen to your music...

I'm not disagreeing with your first point at all. BUT, if you can't do it on a gig (or session or whatever) then you can't do it at all and stagecraft is the ability to hold an audience. Once you get on a stage you are in showbusiness (like it or not) and if you can't engage with an audience then it doesn't matter how much musical knowledge you have, you shouldn't be on that stage...

I'm not trying to say that it is an 'either/or' process, just that people will get different levels of formal (or informal) training and then use what talent they have to make of it what they will. For lots of people I know, someone showed them a scale and a few chords then they just listened to their favourite records over and over again (continually lifting and replacing the needle) until they managed to play something like the original. As they got better then they were able to copy the record exactly, but they still probably learnt more in their earlier attempts to get it nearly right! If they are any good then they will soon pick up what simple harmony is, the intervals that make up a chord, the relationships of chords, etc. For example, I had worked out what modes were long before I found out that they were actually called ‘modes’, yet alone the names of them (some of which I still forget)! The only way that 'creativity' can actually be hampered by absorption of knowledge is if a musician does not learn how to apply what they been taught and if they have not developed their ear alongside their training. I’m sure that you have seen guys on a bandstand that have sailed through music college, but are routed to the spot on a gig staring at a non-existent score – no feel, no groove, no performance skills. But of course, that is not to say that applies to everybody who has had formal musical training – far from it…!

I think that it’s a lot to do with how you learn the instrument in your formative years. A good player who has learnt from listening to their favourite records and then going on to playing loads of gigs with lots of different musicians, will develop a pretty good ear. They will also pick up quite a lot of music theory along the way without being taught formally, but they will mainly rely on feel and listening skills. A good player who has been taught will hopefully listen to a wide variety of artists, play lots of gigs and develop a level of ‘feel’ that can’t be taught in a book. However, there are plenty of guys who have been through music school who could easily play in a pit and read a theatre gig, but could hardly get through a blues gig playing 12 bars. Then again, there are loads of decent self-taught players who could play a blistering blues set but wouldn’t have a clue if you put a score in front of them. Probably the best (and certainly the most successful) bass player that I know, taught himself to play from listening to records and playing loads of gigs. He has developed an amazingly good ear – absolutely awesome. After he had been a pro for a bit, he learnt to read so that he could pick up more work. To me, that’s the ideal way of doing it, but he was developing in what might perhaps be seen as more of a ‘golden age’ (in terms of gigs being available) and I’m not so sure that people starting out these days can do that so easily.

Well yes, IF there is a demand for their basses and there are players who are prepared to pay their prices

I’m not sure that is what Gianni is actually saying (he can correct me if I am wrong of course)! I think that he is asking why what is essentially a Fender copy with an undeniably ugly headstock so expensive? Of course, the same can be said for many top-end fender style basses (Sadowsky for a start). I can’t comment really about AG basses, as although I have seen a couple (that looked to be a high quality build), I’ve never actually played one. I d think that you have to be careful when you talk about ‘Fender Shaped Objects’. The electric bass guitar has been around for 65 years or so and although there have been many different designs in that time but, like it or not, for many the reference for what a bass should look and sound like is either a Fender Precision or Jazz (and to a much lesser extent a MM Stingray). This includes many band leaders, recording engineers, other musicians, plenty of bass players and even many punters. Therefore, there is a demand for something that looks and basically sounds like a Fender, but with certain improvements. Hence Sadowsky initially going into business to meet the demand in New York for a hot-rodded jazz bass and Lakland for players in Chicago who wanted something that covered both the sounds of a jazz bass and a stingray. Of course, we could all play Harvey Bentons (or whatever they’re called), but where’s the fun in that??

It was just a point of information - I'm as confused as you are...

I believe that the 14th amendment was introduced to protect the rights of former slaves in the southern states following the civil war.