You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How to Make Money Playing Jazz - #31

Episode Date: March 2, 2018

Peter and Adam share some creative ideas to getting paid to play. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Menace and I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Today we're going to tell you how to make money playing jazz. This is a fictional episode of, you know. Exactly. And episode finished. No, I mean, all jokes aside, because that's the only jokes we have on this pretty much anyway. You know, we're going to get a little bit tactical.

We're going to go into the business weeds a little bit. Yeah. I mean, we've given you guys another. musical and tourist information. Let's get to the nitty gritty. Yeah, this one could be subtitled how to get your hustle on. Right, right, I like that.

How to get your hustle on. Okay, the first thing, key to this, it should be simple and easy for you to know and I shouldn't have to say it, but I feel like I do need to say it. That is to learn how to play well, okay? Number one. That's number one.

So I know you might think that getting a great business card, or a great website or a great agent is the most important thing to make money playing jazz. But it turns out, unlike a lot of things in the world, how you actually function as a jazz musician has something to do with how much money you can make in doing it. I don't know, man. My business card game is on point. How many grams? What kind of paper?

3.2. I don't know. I don't know. But it's an egg shell? Is that a thing? Egg shell, sure. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, whenever you're thinking, of course, we need to spend time.

on the business side and on the business tip. But if you're not spending most of your time actively improving as a player and as a jazz musician and all the things that you need to do, if a majority of your time is not spent on that part of the craft, you're going to really have trouble making a living

at this music. Now, it's a very competitive world because it's such a beautiful and wonderful art form and there's so many people that want to be a part of it that even if you spend a lot of time and you get really good, you still might not be able to do it. It's like I love playing basketball.

I spent a lot of time, you know, honing my craft of basketball, but I'm yet to make a penny at it. I don't know why. I keep missing the draft or something. I don't think I get my application in on time. You tried hard enough. I don't think I've tried hard enough. But, I mean, so no guarantees anyway, but, you know,

you're going to put yourself in the best position to be able to deliver and make some money, and more importantly, have a sustainable career if you can play. So the next part of this is to keep practicing so you can continue to be good. You know, once you're good enough to start making some money, it takes some grit and determination to really keep going and keep working at your craft so that you can, you know, reach different milestones than you're playing and hopefully reach different milestones professionally. I mean, not everybody starts off being a 13-year-old prodigy. Sometimes it takes you to get into a life situation where you have enough time or the resources

to really progress on your instrument. So I would say, you know, even if you're starting to make some money, do not neglect what got you there and that's the hustle on your instrument. Right. Every day I'm hustling. That's right. That's right. And I mean, you know, for sure, this is not the type of thing that once you do start making some money, it's guaranteed to you. So that's part of the, I guess they would call it, you know, almost like professional development.

Totally. You know, people get on certain jobs and they're like, two days a year, you're going to have professional development. We can't do it like that. Like, professional development is every day. That's right. It's every day. Some of the best musicians that you'll meet ever who are well established, some of the most

famous people still practice like every day. Right. You know, that should tell you something. Yeah, the chance I got to play with Ray Brown when I auditioned for him at the Lake Merritt Hotel in Oakland, California, 1996, I think it was. 96, yeah, 96. I mean, this was a real eye-opening. We went and played Trio for like three hours straight, started at like 9 in the morning, just playing tunes, and he was checking me out. And then he's like, all right, let's take a little lunch break.

And the drummer and myself were like, cool. So we got up. We're like, ooh, I'm tired. You know, I'm like 25 years old. Like, cool. Like, get something to eat. And Ray just like, he's like, okay, now I'm going to practice. He didn't say anything, but I was like, why is he still playing?

He just said we're taking a break. He practiced the whole break. Like, the playing thing was one thing. He's like, I'm going to get my practice on. But he was Ray Brown, I'm pretty sure, already at that point. Yeah, I mean, he had nothing to prove at that point. But he knows that that's what's going to keep him at the top of his game. And so you got to keep at it.

Apparently he made a little bit of money in this jazz business, too. I hear that's the case. Okay, another way you can make some money playing jazz is to seek out different kinds of performance opportunities. So the obvious ones that you're probably already thinking about are playing gigs at clubs and concerts, and that's good. But there's a lot of other interesting places. And Adam, you're great at this.

Like, you know, we're in here working on different things and you'll be like, oh, I've got a gig at the chess museum or I've got a gig in the atrium of the little boy and little girls' home or whatever. You know, I mean, just examples. Yeah, totally. Tonight at 8.30 p.m. Yeah, don't miss it.

No, but I mean, there's a lot of situations, and I'm not just talking about background gigs, although that's a good way to make money, too, you know, kind of a little trio in the corner kind of thing. But, I mean, there's all sorts of different venues that, especially, like, anything that has to do with, like, art or things like that, this music can really fit in well. So sometimes you have to go actively seek those out

and talk to the people and say, hey, have you ever thought about having a little gig here or something? Yeah, and just to hop on that a little bit, you know, the gigs you're kind of talking about usually are concerts that I book like this. And the key is most cities, even a medium-sized city like San Luis, has a really thriving art scene with people that want to throw up, to put on concerts. So if you can put together a compelling program, a show, you know, an actual like where you're not just playing pickup tunes or whatever,

but actually make something that has a compelling story to it or something like that. It's easy to book gigs with these organizations that are always looking for opportunities like that. Right, and don't believe what you're going to commonly hear. Nobody likes jazz. Nobody wants to hear jazz. It's hard to get a gig. Sometimes, ironically enough, that's at jazz clubs. Totally.

Like, you'll go to a club and say, look, I want to have my tree on, I want my quartet and the surly old-school guy who's booking the club. is like, well, what kind of audience do you have? What's your latest CD and all this? They make it hard for you. And you're like, well, I'm a jazz musician. This is a jazz club. Whereas when you go into a small gallery or something and say,

you know, I've got some music that I wrote and we're going to do some free form improvisation in between it that's going to relate to this new exhibit that you have, wouldn't that be a cool thing? They're looking for those kind of ideas a lot of times. Totally. I mean, that's exactly right. The next point is to compose and publish your music. This is a big one for me, you know, as a professional musician, I probably make, it's almost, at this point, it's almost half and half between writing and performing for me.

And, you know, it's a huge, been a huge boost to my professional life to compose and arrange for other people. So it can be, you know, but, you know, just like playing, you have to work at it, too. You know, you can't just say like, oh, I'm going to be a composer now and just go get some gigs. You have to, almost all of these same principles apply. You have to work at it. You have to keep working at it. You have to seek out opportunities and network, and eventually you can start making some money from composing and arranging and publishing your own stuff. Yeah, that's an area that is just ripe for development and exploitation specifically for jazz musicians, because a lot of the organizations, foundations, and venues that will put up the money for compositions.

You know, commissions are actually specifically. attracted to anything that has anything to do with jazz. You know, I remember the first time organization commissioned a piece for me and they're like, we want you to write this piece for the 12 minutes long that's going to premiere in like two years. I'm like, who, okay, I've got some time. But I immediately thought, oh, they want like a classical style thing. No, they want your thing.

They want, yeah, they want it. They were like, no, we want it to be jazzy. And I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to come in and, you know, do this whole big classical thing. They're like, no, we want you to do your thing. And they want to be able to present it to their audience as something new. Beethoven Bach and all that. This is a really good point actually. This is something you could seek out in your area. If there are classical organizations and orchestra, you know, even if it's a uni orchestra

or, you know, a chamber group, you know, go to their concerts and meet them and talk to them and let them know that you can arrange pops things. You know, pops to them means anything that's not classical, right? But I mean, this is a big thing to be able to, you know, sometimes they're going to do a concert and they're like, I wish we had a string quartet version of the way you look tonight. Well, guess you could do that? You, Mr. Jazz Musician, that's way up your alley, so make sure to get on that. Absolutely. The next thing we're going to look at to make some money playing jazz or composing jazz is online opportunities. Now, this is an area that's relatively new, but it's starting to get some maturity. So we're thinking about, you know, music for YouTube videos, you know, for video games, for different websites.

it's, you know, jazz music is such a flexible and interesting music, and it can be atmospheric, it can be, you know, upbeat, all the different things that, you know, kind of ad agencies, digital marketing agencies look for and need for the music. And it's such a big component. I mean, if you look at any of the biggest YouTubers out there and you really talk about how they produce their videos and the process they go through, they will tell you what a big part music is to their process of presenting these videos. And so although, yeah, a lot of times they're not necessarily interested in jazz, a lot of times they are.

And everyone's trying to differentiate themselves. So see if you can partner with a great content creator on YouTube or elsewhere online, and then you can present your music in an interesting way and make some money. That's great. Our next point is to teach others. You could teach private lessons, of course. I mean, this has been a way that jazz musicians have survived for years and years since there was jazz. There was always a young kid asking the question of a professional, the professional saying, well, let's have a lesson then.

I'm not going to give that away for pleasure. Is your mommy have a checkbook? That's right. So be a part of that great tradition and teach yourself. I mean, it is a great way to supplement your income. You could also teach online. We're sitting here from our studio where Peter has been making lessons for years now and has developed the whole online lesson program.

Would you refer to Open Studio? Open Studio is the name. of that company. We are both very heavily involved in. But you know, there are great resources where you can make a little money doing this yourself. You know, we are friends with Adrian over at Sound Slice, and they have a whole program where you could put up your own lessons to sell. That's right. It's really, really cool.

It's kind of limitless. But, you know, it's all part of that hustle of seeking out these opportunities. Yeah, I mean, you can either, you know, just relegate yourself to accepting people saying, and this could be anybody from your mother, your mother, to your friends, to an article that you read, but somebody's saying, you can't make any money in the music business, you can't make any money playing jazz, you can't make any money playing classical music. And it's just not true, you know. But you do have to get your hustle on.

It's competitive, but there are opportunities out there. And I would just say if all the things that we've said so far fail, you can try to get a rich uncle or hope that you find a rich uncle, or maybe there was a rich uncle that you didn't know about the dies and leaves you some money. That's a way to make money and then you can just play jazz by yourself at home. Probably the greatest single piece of advice for any jazz just the kid or a friend. That's right. And I was, you know, we're trying to be politically correct and adapt to the times. I was going to say, get a sugar daddy or something. I don't even think we can talk about that anymore. You know. You got to do. You'll hear it. You'll hear it.

That's it for today's episode of You'll Hear It. We'll be back tomorrow, but if you need more information, you can go to you'll hear it.com.