[Dixielandjazz] Play for pay!
Gluetje1 at aol.com
Gluetje1 at aol.com
Tue Jun 5 13:50:14 PDT 2007
Something I try to do and even occasionally experience a mite of success: I
meet retirees living on their pension who see it as good-hearted charity to
play music, be in a vocal quartet, etc. and entertain for free for civic
events, senior citizens, etc. I try to see if a bit of education and information
will help. Education in making sure they know such places do have an
entertainment budget. Compliments that it is great that they want to give their
time and talent to charity. Then I make suggestion that their group could
charge and then donate their earnings to whatever "actual" charity they wanted.
Also ask them if they know what the income circumstances are for longstanding
professional musicians in their area. They don't. Try to point out that it
may be uncharitable to be taking money away from musicians who do need these
jobs to meet living expenses. Suggest they make it a fair competition for
gigs. I actually know a couple of groups that did indeed decide to stop
playing for free as a result of such conversation. It's not hard to come up with
charities in actual need.
The other piece of "education" is to try and help the person engaging the
group to reflect on what they are "doing" to their audience when they inflict
poor quality entertainment because it's free; subtly suggest how this reflects
on them.
More than once I have had entertainers tell me that entertaining in nursing
homes is no different than entertaining pre-schoolers. And they mean it!
Right down to their selection of grade school songs and their clown,
infantalizing, antics. What an insult!!
Ginny
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