tegs07

OK I am clueless as you were everyone. I would suggest you look up the dictionary definition of Amateur and Professional though before making comments that make no sense. If people constantly pay me to plaster their walls I am not an amateur plasterer. I may be a crap plasterer but that’s a different matter.

Some get lucky, some don’t, some realise that they are not that great and quit, some are crap but hit the jackpot anyway. It’s not a fair or just career path!

Without being pedantic I am struggling with two bits of logic: 1. Amateur musicians are affecting the careers of professional musicians even though all professional musicians started their careers as amateurs. 2. Amateur musicians should always be paid. Even if they are at the work experience stage of their career and are not very good. I love watching pub bands and bands at community events, particularly if I know people involved but have to be honest there are very few I would pay to watch.

Biscuits for breakfast - Fink

I don’t care if I am right or wrong. If there are venues out there that will give an amateur musician a break I am happy. If an amateur can turn pro and start to earn money even better. If an amateur plays for fun and gets pleasure from doing so again this is fine.

From Wikipedia: They performed their first live show at the Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea, on 1 April 1987, and their last at The Half Moon, Putney on 1 April 2012, exactly 25 years later. They initially played in local pubs with no ambitions to take themselves seriously or to turn professional. Note: professional simply means paid or paid enough to give up your day job. Getting to the point of being paid or paid enough will start somewhere. Usually this is as an amateur and for fun not cash.

Amateur network engineers don’t get paid. They have to do something else to get paid until they get the experience. The same with amateur musicians and amateur carpenters and amateur actors and amateur photographers and ….

The anology is CCNA not a ticket to network engineer. Amateur musician is not a ticket to paid gigs. Simply having some skills doesn’t mean you get paid for them. It takes time and some luck. I have a bass and a guitar next to me. In my garage I have woodworking tools. I’m not going to get paid straight off for using either as I am an amateur.

So The Hamsters emerged fully formed as pro musicians paid from the offset with promoters and an audience waiting for them. They were never teenagers with their mum dropping them down the local to play bad AC/DC covers with their college mates? I know some musicians with agents playing original music and some playing covers. They all started playing for free and were thankful of the venues that let them play. How many times do you need this explained to you if your going to be rude?

The Oyster Band were another of the pub circuit bands I saw progress to art centres, small events etc alongside The Men they couldn’t hang (who I always preferred) and the ones that got to the next level (pun intended) The Levellers. Glad the Hamsters were decent blokes- they always made the effort. Never saw them do a bad gig even when playing to less than 50 people in a pub beer garden BBQ thing in the rain.

Pick up the pieces- AWB

Nobody needs average music. I wouldn’t pay an amateur plaster to get better honing their craft on my walls. A decent plasterer will always have work but needs some way of getting the skills required. Free pub gigs and community festivals IMO are a good thing and a rite of passage for most musicians. My teenage years were spent watching various mates bands play pubs. If people had to pay to get in then they would never have got the gigs to start with. Most of them were crap, but it was always fun. At least one of the guys I went to see got good enough to make a living from playing their own music. Everyone has to start somewhere. Edit: As I have said this exists in every industry. In my own career I have seen endless paper CCNA and MCSE guys shocked that no company will let them loose on their network. They start on a help desk and work their way up. The hours spent and cash spent on the exams is the start not the end of the journey.

Back in the day I would pay to see the hamsters frequently even though plenty of other middle aged blokes were playing blues/ rock for free in pubs. I would even drive miles after work. The Hamsters had an audience and made a living playing pubs and bike shows etc as they were better than the amateurs. The vast amount of people playing pubs won’t make a living playing their music. I don’t feel this is down to the competition playing for free.

If they really want to see you they will be willing to pay. If they aren’t willing to pay then it’s not because another band is playing for free. It doesn’t work like that.

To have a market you need a willing consumer. You can’t force people to pay for something they don’t need or want. I don’t need an average pub band and plenty of times I don’t want one either.

Nobody needs music. They chose it. Artists that are good enough to make a living from music will do so. People doing it for free won’t take anything from them as they are simply good enough to get paid for what they do. I don’t think it can be compared to other market activities unless you compare qualified plumbers, electricians or decorators with DIY folk.

I don’t believe this for a moment. I am happy to pay for decent live music from artists that connect with an audience and have something special. These artists find an audience and they do so from hard graft and something I don’t have or really understand. They will always outshine the talented amateur that plays for free. The sad reality is they are rare. Really rare. Making a living from original material is really hard and few have the qualities to do so no matter how gifted they may be. Music as with photography or literature is really hard to make money from. I know countless gifted painters and photographers. I don’t know any that make a living from their original art though.I do know several that have managed to find ways of making a living by being creative with the talent they have though. Function bands, cover bands, wedding photographers, sign writers etc. A compromise maybe? Others get a career doing other work and play for fun (often for free) whenever they can.

That’s all folks. Nothing to do with Judas hobbyists. Get good. Get paid. It takes time and starts from scratch. Some go from zero to a salary. Most don’t.

The problem is I have seen hundreds of pub gig bands. Apart from very rare occasions they are crap. Even the ones that are competent musicians rarely have any material that will get them out of a pub circuit. If I had to pay I wouldn’t go and I was (less so these days) a member of a dying breed that sought out live bands playing their own material. The tradition of passing round a hat and allowing bands to sell Merchandise and cd’s is probably the only way a venue can offer some way of a band or artist getting paid if they are an unknown quantity. Very few bands at pub level playing their own tunes will attract a paying audience.

Personally I don’t expect to be paid for skills I haven’t honed nor to be given opportunities I haven’t earned. If I started a career as a musician I would expect to start at the bottom and work my way up. Pub gigs and local events are unlikely to be paid.

This is exactly the issue. In the early days I would see a lot of gigs. Most of the ones that I paid for (that had little media coverage) I had seen at various festivals (where I suspect they played for free). I saw plenty of pub bands who I would never have paid to watch as they were crap.

I’ve frequently volunteered to work for no pay as well as putting in many hours of study to get the skills required for the next step up. Any professional has to put in unpaid or very poorly paid time to get the qualifications and experience to progress. A working musician at the dog and duck is doing the plasterers apprenticeship, the TV execs runner days or the surgeons sleep deprived, gruelling junior doctor days but that’s just my opinion.

In order to progress in my current career I have put in hundreds of hours of unpaid labour over the last couple of decades. People don’t pay for practice in any industry.

Or someone in their late 40’s/early 50’s who hasn’t played in a band since their teenage years. If I were to form a band again I would expect not to get paid until I got good enough. In the same way as someone who is in an established but not particularly successful local band would play Glastonbury for free (entry to festival provided for free) or an established middling band would have their management pay or get paid beans to support a big name act on a large tour. It’s all relative to where you are in the food chain.