Why whine?

Here is a little something that has been passed around Facebook lately that makes me wince a bit.

I actually re-shared the piece above on Facebook with some qualifiers and immediately regretted it because musicians ignored my qualifiers and started agreeing with the piece itself. The truth is I actually do not want to be associated with this kind of content.

The reason this gives me angst is not because it is not true; there is some truth in it. Musicians ARE often taken advantage of and even end up working for free for nebulous reasons. I very much sympathize with musicians I know in the industry. I know musicians that are far better than me that work for next to nothing.

But a Facebook campaign to enlighten the world about how the supposedly horrible conditions of professional musicians is a bad idea. It may help musicians feel better about themselves but it does not help in any other way.

If you are a professional musician, here are some reasons why you should think twice before passing this kind of thing around.

1) Musicians really need to point the finger at themselves first.

Professional music is not the only occupation where working conditions are not ideal. This is just a classic free market issue. It is very simple really: musicians work too cheap because they choose to work cheap. If a venue can find and hire musicians at a ridiculously low price, you can hardly expect them to pay more.

I am not saying it is right or it is fair. But it is what it is. Musicians are part of the free market. People buy goods and services and price is often a factor, but like anyone else, musicians are free to set their own prices.

Yes, I know that musicians feel their hands are tied because if they raise prices, they will not get work. But that is not the fault of the people hiring musicians. The blame for that rests squarely on the fact that there are probably too many professional musicians for the available jobs and they undercut each other too aggressively.

Any way you slice it, musicians are not really the victims here. I am not saying that there are not individual musicians that suffer because of underpay. But as a whole, the musician community itself needs to take responsibility for the issue.

2) Perception matters. Whiners are not respected.

There is a place to grouse about musician working conditions. That place is with other musicians. With the door closed so nobody else can hear…

I had to laugh at the last line in the shared piece: “Share this with everyone and get the message across.” That is wishful thinking. In my opinion, far more harm is done than good when that kind of thing is passed around.

Many people admire professional musicians. In many cases, they envy them. They would be happy to play professionally for free in fact. When you consider things from that perspective, think about what they might think when they see you complaining on Facebook about pay.

In a nutshell, they see it as whining. And they are not far off.

In the world of music, I am a big fan of staying as positive as possible in public and fighting the battles privately. The perception people have of you is important.

Yes I know that a few high profile musicians will go off and rant about industry things such as illegal downloads from time to time. But in general, you don’t hear that from smart professionals. There are two reasons why. First, they know it hurts the perception that others have about them and second, they know that success is about turning lemons into lemonade anyway. Successful people find a way to succeed regardless of the circumstances.

3) Who says it is a bad thing to work for exposure and experience?

Every musician hears the exposure/experience line a lot. Most of the time, we smile and ignore it because we all know that in general, playing for thirty people is not going to generate more work.

But on the other hand, I cannot tell you how many things I have done for the exposure and experience. I have done those things my whole career and will continue doing them. In fact, the most famous musicians in the world still do things for exposure and experience.

If you can’t get a grip on that and insist on being paid for everything, I can promise you will have a difficult career as a professional musician. The truth is that exposure and experience are often worth infinitely more than the few hundred dollars you would have asked for.

The key of course is to understand how to value the exposure and experience that a situation might bring to you. That takes some guesswork and you might be wrong sometimes. But never consider a job without factoring intangible benefits in.

A career as a professional musician is rewarding in many ways besides getting a check at the end of an event. I know that money is important; I know musicians have to eat. But there are other things that are important too.

For these three reasons, I would encourage you professional musicians to think twice about airing the dirty laundry to the world on Facebook. I am on your side; I am in your boat. But there are better ways to fix the problem.