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Should musicians play for free?

It began, as these things sometimes do, over breakfast last week. While sipping coffee and munching on scrambled eggs and toast, singers Rani Singam and Bevlyn Khoo, musician Yang Ji Wei (who’s the executive director of the TENG Ensemble) and I started chatting about a favourite topic among professional musicians in Singapore: How much should musicians get paid for a gig — if at all?

It began, as these things sometimes do, over breakfast last week. While sipping coffee and munching on scrambled eggs and toast, singers Rani Singam and Bevlyn Khoo, musician Yang Ji Wei (who’s the executive director of the TENG Ensemble) and I started chatting about a favourite topic among professional musicians in Singapore: How much should musicians get paid for a gig — if at all?

Seeing as all three of my companions were on the board of the Musicians Guild Of Singapore, a non-profit association that supports working musicians, the answer seemed to be a no-brainer.

“For full-time musicians, this is our livelihood,” said Singam. “This is not a hobby.”

“Unless it’s a charity gig, we don’t play for free,” added Yang, who recounted that when the TENG Ensemble was starting out, some show organisers would ask them to play for free, offering “exposure” instead of payment.

But even in this enlightened day and age, there are those who apparently still don’t think it is necessary to pay musicians. A couple of days after that meeting, netizens got their knickers into a twist over a post on local online forum/marketplace Soft.com.sg by someone called hacky.

The post, which had the headline “Looking for bands to perform live at F&B outlet”, said: “Hello, do you have passion for sharing your own music and love performing? We are exploring at having you perform live (sic). Plus: We have a mini stage for you to showcase your music. Minus: Bring your own gear but we provide free electricity and aircon. =D

“If you are looking at monetary returns, sorry. The best we can do is provide for your meals.”

The gig would be in the evenings, the venue was somewhere central, and the songs performed ought to be in English and Mandarin. It also had a caveat: “No Nirvana pls. Classy restaurant setting.”

This was followed by another post: “I need to reiterate as above: no pay as we do not charge customers.”

Needless to say, the posts resulted in a barrage of angry and bemused responses.

“A charitable restaurant?” quizzed a certain ridethetiger, while TravisK was a little more direct: “Take this insulting post off already. This fella is mocking us. Free electricity. Free air con … So insulting.”

Other responses were a little more measured. Fifthnote wrote: “Any musician worth his salt knows the amount of sacrifice one has to make in order to hone his/her craft. Time practicing, away from socialising, costs, etc, the journey can sometimes even be difficult and emotional. We sometimes refer to these as ‘paying your dues’. Musicians deservedly take pride in reaching their level of musicianship. There are many avenues to gain exposure. Betraying your dignity is definitely not one of them. Not even in your most desperate moments.”

Jazzbell222 commented: “It doesn’t matter if you charge your customers or not. If you want ‘live’ music, please have the budget to engage musicians. Otherwise, please have the decency to play CDs or use Spotify.”

WHY DO MUSICIANS NEED TO GET PAID?

Not paying musicians? Gasp. If Taylor Swift found out about this, I’m sure she would have been shocked and disappointed — like when Apple initially declined to pay musicians during their free trial period earlier this year.

But such questionable practices aren’t new. Back in the 1990s when I used to be a member of a band and trying to be a rock star, many show organisers were offering spots for bands — for free. We would be getting much needed exposure, we were told. Surely, that would be worth more than any sum they could pay us, right?

(To be fair, there are musicians who would actually play for free, and not just for charity shows. But that’s another story altogether.)

Such behaviour isn’t unexpected. After all, concert organisers and venue operators are running a business. Now, any logical businessman (or even a primary school student, especially those who could figure out Cheryl’s birthday conundrum) can tell you that in order for a business to be profitable, your revenues must exceed your expenses. And one way to keep expenses low is to not pay musicians. Furthermore, most F&B owners will tell you that their annual profit margins are fairly low, compared with other businesses. So anything that can increase that profit margin would be more than welcome.

But, if Singapore wants to make its music scene viable, then all the players need to look at what they do as a business and recognise that being a musician is a job and/or a business, too. Which is why musicians need to get paid. Like what the old adage says, we can’t live on love and fresh air alone — including musicians.

Musicians who want to make a living must ensure that their revenues exceed their expenses. For many, expenses incurred aren’t just the monthly household bills they have to pay or even lunch money. There are other costs such as rehearsal room rentals. These average around S$20 per hour, and since rehearsals can last, on average, three hours, that’s S$60 the band has to fork out before they even go onstage. If there are four members in each band, that’s S$15 per person.

That may not seem like much but that’s just the cost of one rehearsal. If you look at four rehearsals per show, that’s S$60 per person.

If you’re carrying your own equipment and don’t drive, you won’t be taking the MRT or the bus to your gig. Taxi fare can average around S$50 to and fro — more if you have to pay surcharges.

Based on those numbers alone — and that doesn’t even include the money spent buying the equipment in the first place, and the time and money spent learning, practising and honing one’s skills — a musician spends at least S$110 per show. In order to turn a profit, one needs to earn more than S$110.

A few years ago, the band I was playing in was offered S$200 for a whole night to play at a bar, from 8pm to midnight. This did not include food and drinks, which we had to pay for — at bar prices, no less, which was about S$10 for beer and S$6 for a Coca-Cola. Going by those calculations, our band of four was making a loss of at least S$240. And that’s if we didn’t eat or drink.

With such numbers, is it any wonder that many here don’t consider being a musician a viable career option?

Many professional and amateur musicians can probably tell you more anecdotes of unscrupulous concert organisers and venue operators who not only don’t want to pay for their music services, but also want to charge musicians for the opportunity to play.

Of course, not all concert organisers or venue operators are like that. There are those who do remunerate musicians — and properly — for their services. But for many, the aptly-named hacky’s post indicates a certain lack of respect or understanding of the effort it takes to learn how to play a musical instrument.

Still, perhaps there is hope: hacky put up this post a few days later: “Sorry it was never meant to be an insult to you guys. I’m really sorry if i offended any of you in any way on what I can provide in return.”

Sure, it’s not much, but it’s a start. As TENG Ensemble’s Yang mentioned in our meeting, once people stop having that “money for nothing” attitude towards musicians, then perhaps things will start to change. Once people realise that music isn’t just a hobby, then perhaps we can build that music industry that so many have talked about.

As Chinese philosopher Laozi said: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Let’s hope that more people take that first step.

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