Freelancing

What it’s really like to work as a freelance musician.

I am a freelance musician. I have been studying and performing music for 30 years, and I have a music degree with an emphasis in percussion. Sounds pretty cool, right? Most people think that means I’m a “drummer” playing in rock bands all night and recording albums during the day. Others think that must mean I’m playing in the Chicago Symphony full time, or at least some other smaller symphony in the area. The reality is far from either of those things. To be honest, there are a million of me born every second. There are a million percussionists that want to play in the symphony or be the next rock phenomenon. There are a million artists that are probably even good enough to do those things if they were given the chance. The problem is that the law of large numbers is against us all, and we’re left to pick up the scraps from the musicians that really did get a shot at success and made it into those positions that we all covet.

Being a freelance musician, especially if you’re a percussionist trying to get gigs in a large metropolitan area, is grueling work that is not for the faint of heart. You will have to deal with politics, huge egos, union dues, expenses, and manual labor. You will have to take the bad gigs before you’re offered any of the good ones. And most importantly, get used to auditioning, because even when you’re up on stage, you’re always auditioning for someone. You never know where the next job will come from.

Still think it sounds cool? It can be, but read on before you decide.

Most Freelancers Have Day Jobs

Most of us don’t get to do this for a living full time. We have day jobs, and they are often boring day jobs that don’t require any extra time outside of the 9 to 5 workday. This frees up the nights and weekends for practice and performance. Unfortunately, it is also very draining. You have to keep the full time job to support yourself, but you have to keep playing gigs if you want to follow your passion. Yes, you could live in absolute squalor for awhile while you wait for someone to “discover” you, but the odds of that happening are severely low. More importantly, if you are constantly hungry and worried about how you’re going to pay the bills, you will not be at your best on stage. The hardest thing to do when trying to make a living playing music is to be realistic, but it must be done.

You Are Often Asked To Work For Free

It still amazes me how often this happens. Most business owners will not give their products and services away for free, yet it’s asked of musicians all the time. Would the owner of a bicycle shop give you a free bike because you do a lot of long bike rides and could offer “exposure” to the shop when people ask you where you got your gear? Never. You’d be laughed out of the store. Yet musicians are asked to give their services away free all the time in the name of “exposure” or “just for the love of music”. Unfortunately, the real reason people don’t want to pay you is because they don’t think your talent or long hours of practice are worth any compensation. In those situations, you have a hard choice: do you do it for the experience, or do you turn the job down? Depending on how long you’ve been in the game, it may end up being worth your while to take the job. There may be other people in the audience that would be willing to pay for your talent someday. If you’re at the point where you’ve already established yourself, it’s probably better to decide for yourself where you’ll play for free and where you won’t. The point is, there will be many times when you simply won’t be paid for your craft.

Rock Bands Are Exhausting

In my early twenties, I was all about playing in bands. I played in both cover bands and bands that did all originals. On busy weekends, I could pay the month’s rent with the money I pulled in playing in dive bars for just two nights. However, I did learn a very important lesson playing in rock bands, and that lesson was that I was not built to live that lifestyle year after year. A typical gig for a rock drummer in Chicago (unless that drummer is famous enough to have “people”) is as follows:

1. Show up earlier than anyone else, and find a place to park that’s close to the venue.
2. Lug your gear in, usually with no help.
3. Set up.
4. Be told by the manager about 5 minutes after setting up that you’re in the wrong spot.
5. Move.
6. Help your bandmates, who just arrived as you finished setting up, load their gear in.
7. Do sound check, then tear everything back down again to make room for the opening band.
8. Set up again and play your set(s).
9. Wait until the bar clears out so that you have a way to get your gear outside to the car.
10. Load the car back up, and grab the parking ticket off your windshield that is, oddly enough, for the same amount as what you were just given for your share of the door money.
11. Drive home, unload your car, and lug everything back inside.
12. Crash.
13. Rinse, wash, and repeat the next night.

This process is not fun for a drummer. The hour or two when you’re performing is a blast, but the three hours of hard labor on either side of the performance is brutal. It takes a special kind of person to do it long term.

The Symphonies That Pay Don’t Need You

I am classically trained, and I love symphonic music. I enjoy playing in symphonies and concert bands very much. The problem is that to make a living playing in a symphony, you need to find one that pays well, and to play in one that pays well, someone has to quit or die. The major symphonies tend to have low turnover so getting a spot in one of them is a waiting game at the end of which is, you guessed it, an audition. You will be competing with a million other people that are just as good as you if not better, and they all want what you want. Whoever is making the selection will be as picky as possible, and you have one shot at appearing to be the person they need. There is no room for nerves or mistakes. You will not be given a do over, and if you blow it, you may have to wait decades for another chance.

To Make Money, You Will Have To Play Awful Music

There are going to be times where you’re asked to perform incredibly bad music for money. You have to find a way to be ok with that. I am regularly asked to play music I would never listen to and do not find enjoyable in any way, and most of the time I take those jobs. If I continually turn those gigs down, I eventually burn down a bridge and will never be called to play at that venue again. I could also be walking away from a lot of money over the long term. It’s important to remember that just because a piece of music is not not enjoyable for me to play, it’s enjoyable for other people to hear, and they deserve to hear it performed in a professional manner, especially when I’m being paid decent money to perform it.

But Other Than All Of That Stuff……

Freelancing is really a blast. You will pay your dues at the beginning, and you will find yourself in some really terrible situations, but if you are dedicated enough, and if music is special enough to you, you will do it for the times when it is magical. If you put in enough time, those magical moments will happen more and more often. You’ll make friends in the music community, you’ll get calls from better employers, and you’ll get to pick and choose what and where you perform. You may never have the opportunity to perform for a living. Most people don’t, and it would be irresponsible of me to tell say that there is more than a sliver of a chance of it happening. But you might. If you have the talent, and if you can get yourself in the right place at the right time, you may find yourself landing that dream gig.

The beauty of being a musician is that it’s not all or nothing. There are so many levels at which music can be performed, and they can all be very satisfying. You can decide for yourself how much of your life you want to devote to it. If you keep your expectations realistic, and if you keep in mind that you are fortunate to have the ability you have, you will have amazing experiences. Some of them will be so amazing, you might even be willing to perform for free.