You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Ways to Lose a Gig - #129

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

In today's episode, Peter Martin and Adam Maness discuss 7 ways you can mess up your gig. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Manus. You're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today we're going to give you seven ways to lose a gig. How would you know about this? Oh, I know, buddy. I can tell you about losing a gig.

Yeah, I mean, I've fired people. And I've lost plenty of gigs, actually. Right. All right. So what do we mean by lose a gig? I mean that you mess up so badly that you either are not going to get hired for a gig that you potentially could get hired for, or you are going to lose a gig that you are our

already on. Okay. Or just being fired. These are nice ways to say being fired, right? I thought of this is just a generally, like, you know, this could be titled too. You want to know why you're not getting any gigs? This could be it. That's right. Seven reasons you aren't working. That's right. All right. Well, let's get started with number one. How about don't prepare at all? That's a good way to lose a gig. That's a good way to lose. Now, we mean just an utter lack of preparation. Like, you just show up and you're like, woo's up. Yeah, the gig has been on your calendar for two months. and you haven't done anything about it. Right.

Yeah, that's a great way to show that you don't care about that gig. Although on the positive side, you did show up, so there's a little bit of preparation. We're going to get to that later, actually. All right, but no preparation in terms of the music, and you want everything kind of handed to you. You don't even know who else is going to be playing. You're calling 30 minutes before the gig to ask where it is and what you're supposed to wear. Do a little bit of homework about what you're playing, who you're playing with, where you're playing. Now, I will say that this is, sometimes if you want to lose a gig or don't want to do any more gigs at that place or with that person, this is a good way to do it.

Oh, this is good. So we could flip this. It's not the easiest way, though. We can flip this list. So, like, want to get rid of a gig without, you know, having to actually say I quit? Well, we said seven ways to lose the gig. We didn't say it's a positive or negative. You can use it for whatever you want.

All right, I'll move on here to number two. And that is to be a downer. You can be a total downer on a gig and you will lose it. Would this be like a Debbie downer? Is that what we're talking about? A Debbie downer. A Debra Downer? It would be, you know, one-syllible answers to questions,

not at all interacting with the people you're on the gig with, not interacting with the audience, just staring at your shoes and or beer on the brakes. You know, even if you're a quiet person, you can still be polite and pleasant. So that's interesting. So you're really talking more personality-wise on the gig, not even musically.

Because you could also be a musical downer. You could be a musical downer. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm talking more about just like in general, like, or even, you know, you ever be on a gig where it's like maybe it's not the best gig, but everybody's, but like one person's like, oh, this stinks and they play like crap on purpose and they're just not into it or whatever. But that's interesting about even the personality because if, like, you could lose a gig if you're sort of a downer, even if you're playing well and sort of executing. I mean, unless you are just the top, top level, you know, Billy Holiday level, then you can do whatever you want. Right. But I think if you're just, I mean, some people would be like, well, I don't have to have a good personality.

That's fine. But at the level you're playing, if there's 10 other saxophonist, pianist, bass player, vocalist, or whatever, and they're not a downer, then they're going to lose a gig for them. It's very competitive. Yeah, it's kind of like, unless it's your gig, you know, and even if it's your gig, if you're a downer, you might not get tired by the club. That's right. No, but I'm, yeah, and I'm also kind of talking about, and this is interesting because, you know, I have experience with probably more than you of, like kind of bad gigs of like gigs where maybe it's like you don't feel as appreciated or people aren't listening or whatever and I can always tell the people that I'm not going to get along with

because those people check out completely and they're upset that they're on a bad gig and I'm like well what are we even doing here man like let's let's get it together you know we still get to play music for a living this is a communal music this is a it's an artistic endeavor it's supposed to be something that's funny even on the biggest drag of a gig and I do have a lot of experience with bad. There's just so much, I just don't remember them as well because they're more in my past than yours.

But I think that, you know, I think back to, I mean, we always talk about, well, do people talk about wedding gigs? That was always like the bottom level. Yeah. Maybe good pay, but just potentially just the worst possible playing situation.

Yeah, thankfully, I don't do a ton of wedding gigs anymore. But when I did, like, if there were someone checked out, all they're doing is bringing the rest of the band down. You know what I mean? Like, you could at least have fun with us or like, interact with us. Right.

Plus, it's a wedding. presumably people are happy. And those usually pay the best, too? Exactly. Yeah, at the very least, you know, you're making some money. All right. Number three on our list of seven ways to lose a gig. Wasn't that, what's the Paul Simon, seven ways to lose a lover?

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Number three is to talk smack after the gig on social media. Okay, so I actually have personal experience with this. This was from a jam session I was on. Yeah. There was a trumpet player. He was terrible.

He sat in on an F blues. He got lost. and this was a decent rhythm section, like of good players. And then he went on after the jam session on Facebook and like talk smacked about the rhythm section after he got lost. Right, right, right. Saying they were playing these, you know.

Alternate changes? Yeah, well, they were alternate to what he was doing because he was lost. Yeah, because he didn't know what the heck he was doing. Anyway, he's not really had too many gigs after that. I would imagine that. Well, and I mean, this is the thing, social media, people say,

oh, this has brought on all these problems, but this has been going on way before social media. it can just spread so much faster now and it can go international. So you really have to be careful with that. Yeah, you don't like you don't have to be actual friends with the person. You could just kind of see with acquaintances. Yeah. You know, like, oh, that guy's kind of a jerk.

Right. Yeah. Not going to hire him. Right. And I mean, I think, too, you know, it's, you know, the social media, like if it's in your name, whether they see it or not, people can still hear about it secondhand, third hand, just like it's always been, oh, did you hear? Because, I mean, actually, talking smack, I've,

This is another way to lose a gig. I remember with a certain vocalist that got lost, same thing, got lost on the tune, and then talk smack on the mic. Oh, that's the worst. Yeah, and then they were like trying to blame us, and they came in at the wrong place. Oh, man. That's actually happened to me before where they turned around to me like I did something wrong. Right, right.

I didn't want to be on that gig anymore. Okay, number four, this is to either be too drunk slash too uptight on the gig. Now, this is the two different sides of the coin. Yeah, yeah. Isn't this four and five, maybe? Yeah, kind of is. But no, this is just to the point where it's like... Oh, two...

Two... Both ways. Both ways. Yeah, either are too high-strung or you're too inebriated to really do us much good on the gig. We don't appreciate that. Right, right. Yeah. Good.

Number five. Oh, this is one I may have been guilty of. Play too long. Do you checking through your mental rolodexes of... Yeah, I was like, ooh, it'd be gigs. You play too long. Yeah. So that, you have to be very aware what is too long.

is not necessarily a time limit because it has to be appropriate for the gig, the audience, your position on the gig, you know, kind of your seniority in the pecking order and whatever else. But with experience, that becomes a little bit easier. Yeah, I think experience is key here. I mean, one thing that I see commonly that happens

is if it's not your gig, you don't want to count choruses or whatever, but don't play five minutes longer than the leader played on every tune, making it kind of your show. Exactly. Like understand where, like you said, kind of not the, you said the pecking order, but even just like with the context of the show,

you know, don't play. Yeah, and I think we, you know, we've talked about before how we let the musical flow just decide how many choruses we play, and that's always how it should be. It should never be, I'm going to play three. I hate that when I hear people say, I'm going to play three choruses on this.

Although it's funny, because I've heard some great musicians say this, but I've still like, I feel like we have to leave something to be in the moment, at least on most tunes. But in terms of thinking about the other players that are there and what your position is, it is a good idea to keep that in your mind. So it takes number six, and that is to not show up.

In the non-music world, this is called a no-call no-show, and we'll get you fired from any gig. Day, night, whatever. But this happens. This is sort of taking yourself out of the game. It really is. You're not even losing the gig.

You're like, what is it, recusing yourself from the game. But this happens all the time, then, which catches no show up. Now, what about, We didn't, it's funny because we're saying seven ways to lose a gig. Now, we know certain musicians that don't show up sometimes, but they're so good that they don't. Well, there are friends too, you know what I mean?

No, but I think it goes beyond just friendship. I mean, I think that when you, if you're sure, and now we're not endorsing this or promoting this concept, but if you're sure you're the best, at least regionally at what you do, I mean, you can kind of get away with us. Well, without, with, don't show up. If you send a sub, you can get away with it. So I guess, yeah, the last, yeah. Are you thinking of somebody in particular? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But see, he always.

sends a sub. Don't say he. Could be he or her. He or she always sends. There's always someone there in their place. Suitable always? Now, if you're going to do this and you're not the best in your region, you might want to take that time to be practicing.

Right. Or send a better sub. Then you'll lose your gig. That's good. Okay. So number seven of our seven ways to lose a gig. Yeah. This is like the most obvious one.

It kind of encapsulates everything that we say. And that is to play like, ship beep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you play like, play like shoot, you will lose the gig. I mean, that's the bottom line. Like, yeah, it's great to not be a downer and not to be drunk and all those things. But ultimately, we are there to play music.

That is our job. We are a pianist, a bassist, drummer, whatever. We've got to deliver on the goods, you know, because we could have a list of, like, things to do to keep a gig. And that's like, have a great social media profile and praise others and show up on time and all that. But none of that matters if you don't play well. Yeah, I mean, you got to, we're in the show me. state here and you got to show me. And I think too, I mean, you know, the better you, you know, the further you stay away from playing like crap. So the better you're playing, the more

you can actually get away with sort of doing all these other things potentially, like if you're good enough. Yeah, if you have number seven together, number one through six don't really matter. Yeah. Kind of like we said. Well, thanks again for tuning into today's episode, seven ways to lose a gig. We're having a blast here at the You'll Hear at Podcast. If you'd like to give us some ideas for topics for the podcast or just say hello. Or questions, right? Questions, yeah, you can write questions. Or answers.

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