[Dixielandjazz] Fw: The results of your email commands

[John McClernan]

Pet peeve of mine........musicians who do NOT quote a price for their services to a prospective client, asking instead, "what does the job pay?"  For pete's sake, you can't call your mechanic and say "hey, my car needs brakes, the job pays $60, do you want it?"  And does your mechanic go home after work and practice with his tools?!
Try calling your account and tell him you need your taxes done, it should take about an hour and the job pays $40 for the hour. If he doesn't hang up on you, he will laugh in your face.

Buying your service is rightly a negotiation. As with most every job we have ever held, the employer tried to buy our services for as little as possible and we tried to get him to pay as much as possible. Music performance is no different, in my view.
We need to treat our craft as a profession and not a hobby!..............sure, it might be a little bit harder sell because our product can be recreated by mechanical means, but don't let that deter you. As Brian points out, we have put time, effort and expense into our art. Don't sell it cheap. That hurts us all.
 
Ok, off the soapbox. Happy new year to everyone.
Cheers,
John

On Jan 3, 2012, at 2:52 PM, Brian Gail wrote:
-  RE  CRAIG'S   LIST    ITEM 2
        non musicians must think  we love playing for nothing and have scant regard to the time and effort we spend learning our craft.
    Another often request is from people from other professions who when a band quotes a price they are shocked at the price until asked how much they charge an hour for  their services