TimR

[quote name='Monkey Steve' timestamp='1500654056' post='3339428'] I see it as a three way split. 1. Those that have to do it for money so want to play every paying gig 2. Those that do it for fun but playing gigs is more fun than not playing gigs so are happy to commit to whatever comes along 3. Those that do it for fun but will only play gigs when it's fun for them, and want to pick and choose and will put other social arrangements before the band when it suits them. [/quote] #4 Being in a band is hard work and has costs associated with it. You're providing a service (albeit having fun while doing it) and should be adequately renumerated for it, even if it's just to cover those costs.

You'll get weird phasing effects as the sound bounces off the back wall and then couples either constructively or destructively with the waves going straight out to the audience.

Excellent. I've managed to make a dent in the 35 tunes I have to play in 4 weeks time. A shed load of them are 3 chord wonders. Happy days. A shed load of them I've never heard of before though. Not so happy days.

[quote name='gapiro' timestamp='1500290754' post='3336667'] Depends on how you want to do it - generally i've seen a number of our venues wanting to pay bank xfer so I bill them "band name c/o gapiro" and then as I'm paying them , I assume (and i'm probably wrong) that I can just say for tax purposes that the costs of a gig were, say 200 quid (4 musicians at 50 quid lets say). Does mean i'm gonna get closer to the higher rate of tax... [/quote] There's some discussion on the Tax position towards the end of this thread: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/308588-end-of-cash-in-hand-for-gigs/page__pid__3335934__st__90#entry3335934

Formal business accounts attract fees. You could just open a personal account with two signatories. Draw up a simple contract about what happens to the money when someone leaves, more importantly decide what will happen when someone joins...

http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2012/what-does-google-actually-make-money-from-goog1121.aspx?lgl=rira-baseline-vertical

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1500134758' post='3335854'] The 5% figure you mention is interesting as its often used by HMRC themselves when considering whether something is material or not and for me is a "sign post" that this may be more than a hobby. So if your music [i]profits[/i] (after deducting all relevant costs) are regularly 5% or more of your total income (whether this is employed or self employed income doesn't matter), I would agree you should think about getting some proper advice and think about whether you are doing your music commercially with a view to a profit, or it is just a successful hobby. And remember even if you're doing this commercially you're allowed to deduct a whole bunch of costs in establishing whether it is actually profitable, including your bass, amps and pedals, agents' fees, studio hire costs etc. There is obviously a grey area where something transitions from being a hobby into a commercial venture and at this margin its important to look at individual facts and circumstances. [/quote] £50 a week is 5% of £1000. If you're earning less than £1k a week and/or making more than £50 . You're going to have to keep a lot of recipts and books in order to explain why you shouldn't pay tax.

The other point is that pubs will prefer to take cards. They're paying something like 0.2% on their transactions. Compared with 0.4% when banking cash.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1500107855' post='3335634'] No more than others bring up they're not in it for the money. Blue [/quote] It's not a personal thing Blue, it's a cultural thing.

[quote name='project_c' timestamp='1500061798' post='3335466'] Agreed. There's going to come a point where internet businesses realise that the people who keep them running need to be rewarded with more than just likes and followers, especially when those likes come from people that get bombarded by adverts every 10 minutes. These businesses operate on the same model as the "we can't pay you but you'll get great exposure" clan. It may work for a select few, but it's just exploitation for almost everyone else. The whole internet success thing needs a big re-think, it's all pretty sketchy at the moment. [/quote] The thing is, the most expensive part of media, is the content creation. So while the user is also the creator (prosumer), social media can grow very large, only requiring small amounts of financial input. The likes of Facebook and Soundcloud are only going to suffer when they are forced to police the content the users produce more rigidly. However the same users are being used to police the content that other users are providing. It's a very interesting and obviously a very new concept.

Ah yes. Rhythm stick isn't a personal goal, it's a requirement for the dep gig! Help!

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1500046696' post='3335365'] I've been talking about attitude. Blue [/quote] Well, I got myself involved in a band. Older guys, practiced hard and sounded great in rehearsal, pro gear, pro attitude to getting and pricing gigs, looked smart, great setlist, on paper it was a licence to make money. Unfortunately as soon as they stepped on stage they all fell apart musically. I think I did 4 gigs before walking away. Shame because the drummer was excellent, but you can't play a gig with just drums and bass while everyone else is making mistakes and forgetting whole sections. Sometimes attitude and application just isn't enough.

Taken in isolation per band per gig, it's not a lot. If you were a pub though £250 a week works out at £13k, potentially £2k-£5k per year per venue on unpaid taxes. Scale that up to brewery level... Assuming they're not engaging hobby bands of course. But while it's all cash, there are no checks and balances in place.

[quote name='bubinga5' timestamp='1500040428' post='3335304'] Most are talking about the audience, not noticing the difference in bass tone. Nothing to do with music difference [/quote] In some cases yes. But I think Blue is talking about attention to detail in music.

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1500038446' post='3335289'] TimR - sounds like you've reached that peak because you have put in the additional effort. Looking at your background in playing and how you describe it you have obviously gained a vast amount of experience over the years. So i guess that answers the OP question in a way. To get a flawless or a good performance requires a lot of dedicated hard work and a drive to put that job in front of other things in life. I guess that's why professional musicians are where they are too. It has to be a balance of what you feel is important to you. Dave [/quote] Yes. But the experience is cumulated. In my case it's sporadic but over several years. For a pro I would expect that experience to be gained quickly in a few years. I think it's more about how you approach your playing. If you join a covers band and stay in that band for years playing with the same musicians concentrating on exact facsimiles of tunes, never having a lesson, you're not going to develop much. Go to college for 3 years and you'd come out with far more experience and knowledge than I have. We also talk about developing big ears. That's listening to lots of different types of music and being able to hear where tunes are going. I.e. Knowing what and where the chord changes are going to be. There are people who are open to music and new ideas and there are people who have very closed minds. Really what I'm saying is that Pro's and more experienced musicians have a massive tool kit and make it look easy, and to some extent it does become extremely easy. There is still the occasional tune that requires a lot of work. Hit me with your Rhythm stick is a tune I have to learn. I've always shied away from learning it. I'm expecting it to take a while (maybe an hour or two?) to transpose and get the right feel. But now I have reason and an excuse to learn it. That's one reason why changing bands often is quite an important driver for me.

[quote name='Panamonte' timestamp='1500026734' post='3335187'] ... [/quote] That's a great story and something that's probably happened to all of us in some form or another. That's the skill of being a good musician though. Someone who just learns the tune parrot fashion and can't adapt when things don't go to plan would be stuck and freeze. Keep smiling and wait for a queue or a nod. Communication, communication, communication.

The pub will have cash in the till. I'm guessing the issue would be how the landlord takes that cash out of the till to pay you. All the cash going over the bar will be accounted for and put into the till as everything is electronically ringed up and has to balance at the end of the evening. Unless staff are pouring drinks for free and pocketing the cash. In which case the stock levels will reduce quicker than the till receipts increase. In a tied house the brewery will notice. In a free house or part free/part tied house there would be a bit more freedom on the beer side. Ultimately the person paying you could easily take £250 out of the till and give you £150 and pocket the change. .

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1500023953' post='3335163'] Agree with you on reasons Blue. I do regard you as a Professional musician tho as you earn a living from playing. Not sure whether TimR is also a full time musician or is it a hobby. My question was for TimR on how he managed to get to that level himself. If he's a full time musician then i would expect that kind of level. If its a part time job then i'm curious as to how he reached that level. Its not a sarcastic reply to TimR and not having a dig at anyone here. I am curious to know how a part time bassist achieves that higher level. Some guys are just sh*t hot at playing and have a natural ability and that would be the answer to my question. If it's solely down to putting in the additional effort and hard work then that kind of explains why some people are just better at it than others and partially answers Blue's original query on this thread. Dave [/quote] It's just down to making yourself available to play in many different situations with as many different people as possible. Go to Jam sessions, move bands when you think you're not getting gigs or making progress musically, let people know you're available to dep. A lot of people claim they don't have a lot of time to do things but I'm a great believer that if you want to do something you'll find the time. My other hobby is running. It takes up about 7-8 hours a week. But that's only an hour every other day and 3 hours on a Sunday. People say they'd love to do that but don't have the time. Then in the next breath ask if I watched X on TV last night? No, instead of spending that hour watching X I went out and ran. Yes, there are people who work very long hours and have big commitments, those people will be good at work and their other commitments. As you say somewhere along the line you have to draw the line about how much time you can reasonably spend on your 'hobby' without impacting on other things. I've been playing for 35 years as a semi-pro, theatre pits, jazz trios, function bands, thrash metal bands, rock bands, pub and club bands. You just get a feel for how a gig will go and sometimes it's not worth putting in another 10% of effort to improve something by 1%. When the punters won't notice the difference. A three minute pop song shouldn't take more than 15-20 minutes for a band up have gig ready. Some should be gig ready on first or second play through, or even just play at the gig. There's a limited number of songs (standards) that do the rounds and everyone owes it to themselves to just learn them.

Regards professionals having more time to practice, most of the professionals I know don't practice in the same way as hobby players. Once you have achieved a certain amount of experience, playing and learning new material is extremely simple. I have a dep job with a band in 4 weeks where I have to play 35 tunes that I've never played before. I haven't practiced one of them yet let alone met the rest of the band.

My take on this is we all have different levels of talent available to us in our bands. Music is an art form, we are creating art, not a piece of engineering that either works or doesn't. Putting on a performance works on a law of diminishing returns. There comes a point where you're not going to give a significantly better performance with the amount of time and talent available to you. At this point you have to ceed that it's 'good enough' and 'the punters won't notice any difference" if you spent another rehearsal trying to polish what you have. That level is going to be different for every band. It's not an admission of failure, or laziness, it's just being realistic. It has nothing to do with striving to be your best, you may be performing at the limits of the bands ability.

Good point. There's probably also a very small proportion of people being paid cash and claiming benefits.

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1499888071' post='3334374'] OK. You think they're being above board. I don't so here we part ways. [/quote] Lescherions stated it would be nice if the government looked at Google and Amazon first, a few posters also expressed the same sentiment. I'm just saying they did and changed the law which changed the behaviour of the large corporations. I'm not sure an expensive lawyer makes a lot of difference. Ultimately it would be down to a jury to decide what was reasonable.

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1499887198' post='3334366'] Nice link TimR only the "loophole" is so good it gets mentioned twice. HMRC can't do a thing unless [color=#333333] ‘arrangements cannot reasonably be regarded as a reasonable course of action’.[/color] [color=#333333]Fine point of law best argued by well paid lawyers which corperations have aplenty. The "[/color][b]The ‘double reasonableness’ test" is an expensive thing for HMRC to prove.[/b] [/quote] So much so that both Google and Amazon have already changed the way they operate as a result?

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1499880771' post='3334304'] The Isle of Jersey, and several others, still have their 'special' position concerning taxes, I believe. It's maybe 'fixed' for Amazon etc (I'm not really convinced, as it happens...), but there are still gaping 'loopholes' for the fiscally astute to benefit from. [/quote] http://www.rossmartin.co.uk/penalties-a-compliance/compliance/1259-general-anti-abuse-rule-gaar-at-a-glance

[quote name='leschirons' timestamp='1499884365' post='3334336'] Meaning? [/quote] [quote name='Rich' timestamp='1499862369' post='3334124'] Folks, I have edited several posts to remove political content. No more please. [/quote]