TimR

We played a club gig where the manager kept telling us to play more rock and roll even though we had the dance floor full. We played a rock and roll tune and half the floor emptied. At the end of the gig we had loads of compliments from people who loved the fact that we hadn't played loads of Rock and Roll like the usual bands did.

Within reason. They're employing you as an entertainment specialist and it's your job to know what will get people up and dancing and having a good time. Whilst they may know their guests there are a lot of people who will ask for tunes that they like to LISTEN to but I know won't fill the dance floor, will be a PIA to learn and never played again. In that situation I'll get them to provide a break playlist and put the tunes on an iPod. There needs to be a good reason other than the person booking us doesn't particularly like that tune for us not to play it.

That's what I mean by pubs being loss leaders. If you're running a band the musicians expect to be paid at a certain level. My friend plays for a Big Band. They get paid the same regardless of gig. They also get travelling expenses if they submit receipts. However the band charges different amounts for each gig. The band leader keeps money back from the good payers to pay the musicians on the bad payers. I tried to implement this with one band because, as I saw it, we needed to do pub gigs to advertise the band but some members of the band wouldn't go out for less than a certain amount and picked and chose which gigs they were 'available' for. It didn't work because they were greedy and wanted their money there and then and wouldn't wait or do the pub gigs ("We're too good to do pubs"), and then complained we weren't getting any good gigs.

Makes you wonder what the point of having a regular band and rehearsals is.

People will dance to whatever you play as long as you play it with confidence and attitude. There are a bunch of standard tunes but you're right the black shirt White tie and Brown Eyed Girl are very cliche. You can't play ALL the party tunes. The secret is learning the latest tunes quickly and get them in the setlist and keeping that up to date on your website. If you play stuff from the Radio 2 playlist people will be more impressed than if you do Come On Elieen for a drunk 50something. You also MUST have a frontman/woman who can read the crowd, knows when to make a humerous remark and knows when not to and just crack on with the set.

Commiserations mate. I like the way you have undone your top button and rolled ip your sleeves in an attempt to look cool.

Red ties?

We all tend to get precious over our projects. Deps is the way to go. You don't HAVE to play the complex tunes. Put together a dep band with guitarist, call it something else. My 6 piece band once got booked for a gig. I knew the sax player couldn't do it when I took the booking. But then the drummer, keys and singer all dropped out. I found a dep singer who knew about 50% of our usual tunes. She emailled me a list of hers. The week before the guitarist came round my house and we put together some tunes from her list. The first time the guitarist, singer and drummer met was at the gig. Usually the person booking you is ok if you explain the situation well enough in advance and offer them the opportunity to cancel and book someone else. Normally they happy as you've saved them the hassle.

There are a lot of musicians who can't listen to the 'whole'. Bass players tend to be better at it which is why many of us become producers. I used to go to gigs and pull the bands apart concentrating on what they did badly. Then one gig the band were so musically awful but the audience were so into it I stopped. From that moment on I looked at a band to see what they are doing right and learn from that. I think the big mistake we all make is spend too long getting the music 'perfect' instead of getting the vibe right and getting out there and gigging. A gig is worth a thousand rehearsals. it's no good being able to play exactly like the original in the practice room if you've spent so long perfecting the tune that you have lost the vibe. The audience don't listen to the parts they listen to the whole and contrary to what we would like to believe we are visual creatures and use our eyes more than our ears. So if it looks good and sounds close then it is good. Unfortunately it's catch 22. You don't get good by practicing and you don't get gigs unless you're good. So get out there blag some gigs playing simple easy tunes well and move on from there.

Rule No1 on mentioning spelling. Always put in a mistake in your own post.. It's not really very grey. The taxman is fairly clear on what constitutes a hobby. I would suspect that the hobbyists fall into two distinct camps. Those that could show they don't make any money by including gear depreciation, travel to gigs, strings, practice room costs, coffee etc. and those that it would be pretty obvious that they're making no real money from gibing.

That's not quite what I'm saying. There are other things you have to provide when stepping up from the pub circuit. As examples PAT testing, Public Liability insurance, email correspondence spelled correctly I would also expect a written contract and a non returnable deposit. Once you have committed to a gig you're fairly bound to do it. Compared to pubs which you or they often cancel on the day, or sometimes when you arrive. This is why some people don't do private gigs. Not because they're not musically good or equipment is not up to scratch. Purely because they don't need the extra hasstle. Professionalism isn't just earning a living.

Obviously if you're not in it for the money and you are turning down party gigs in favour of pub gigs then that's up to you but you can't then complain that you're not getting paid much if 1) you don't want to be and 2) you're turning down better paid gigs. So my comment stands. You don't deserve to be. The thread is about money.

Lol. I play in a hobby band. I wasn't talking about the musicianship. That's not what is being discussed, it's the proffesionalism I'm talking about.

When it comes to parties soloists and duos are competing with discos as I imagine most of what they are playing has backing or simple arrangemnents. Couple that with the amount of set up time and gear. No drums for a start. Bands are different. Parties should be £450-£650 then dinner and dances £650-800 and weddings £800+ for your average pub type band stepping up from the pub circuit. Once you have an established client base then you can start to get a better feel for what you can charge them. The other issue is how much are you prepared to gig. One band I know do a pub gig every month.then a party. So they are busy enough then any extra they bump the price right up because they don't want to be gigging 3 or 4 times a month unless the money is there. You can tell hobby bands a mile off and they deserve to be paid £200 a gig.

As I say playing in a pub should be your loss leader and you should only be playing once every couple of months, not treating it as your main source of income. If you're playing pubs only and you're only getting £100-£200 and you want more then you have to improve your show and go for parties and weddings.

Pub gigs are, and always have been, a place for you to showcase and hone your giging skills. A place where you can invite prospective punters to see you and get yourselves known. I try to aim for £10 an hour per person from the time you leave your house till when you get in. So an easy local pub turn up,set up, play and go home could be £50-£80 a person. Parties start getting expensive as it's not unusual to leave the house at 3pm and be home at 3am.

Probably not EVERY Saturday night though

When you're in a band you are providing a service. Sometimes it's to provide high quality music, sometimes it's part of a package to entertain people on a good night out. Do the market research and provide the service that is required at the right price.

It's all about entertainment. You'll never get many gigs if you are a bunch of virtuoso shoe gazers. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't work on your music but there becomes a point of diminishing returns where the music is 'good enough' and you have to work on your stage presence and attitude. But some people are natural at that, especially in front of their mates. Wait see how they perform in front of a strange audience.

Piano, violin, bass, tuba.

Discussions where people have polar opposite views always go on for pages. Especially when people have strong views of the way things are supposed to be done based on their experiences. If you're getting paid it's not a hobby and if you expect to get paid you will never get much if you treat it like a hobby. At some point the band becomes a business. Yes there are many reasons why people play in bands. BUT I played in a band for 12 years that gradually evolved into something I didn't sign up to in the beginning. We had regular meetings to discuss "the direction of the band" and "the way forward" but people would nod and agree to things that they didn't actually agree to and then do nothing. Essentially you need to speak up and if they don't listen, or if you don't agree with the drinking then you end up leaving which is a shame becuase I think a lot of bands fold due to "changing attitudes". But again that's life. The older you get and the more you experience it, the more you come to recognise it before it becomes a problem and do something about it.

Mainly anecdotal but I was in a large band of 70+ musicians. It was hard to get them to commit to one concert a year. I've played in at least 3 bands that never got to gigging 'standard' according to the band leader. Another band the guys only wanted to play gigs less than 30mins from home and one band where they only wanted to play once every couple of months. My brother has had similar experiences including a songwriter who had written songs, got a band together to play them, then spent 3 months worth of weekly practices changing each song.

There are far more people in bands because they like to be able to tell people they're in a band than are in bands because they like to perform.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1333977351' post='1609011'] I live in SE London and it's a two-and-a-half hour round trip for me to rehearse. I have a couple of beers during rehearsal - as does most of the band. This was the way of things before I joined them, so who am I to rock the boat? Had they been totally down on booze I would have respected that too - I can take it or leave it. It's just not that big a deal. [/quote] And to be fair to the OP he joined a band who rehearsed then went down the pub. They now want to change that and he's not happy with the situation. In his (and my) experience things rapidly go down hill after that. Personally if the band's not gigging I would have left well before then anyway.

It's not a case of telling people how to behave. It's a case of having respect for your fellow musicians. People just seem to think they can behave as they want and ignore the effects it has on other people. Sacking someone from a band is something no one really wants to do and this sort of thing can fester for a while before either someone gets sacked or gives up and leaves. Which is essentially where the OP is coming from. If the band regularly drink at rehearsals then obviously it's not the band for me or the OP. The problem happens when either no one speaks up or they're ignored. And what does regularly mean? And NO we don't all live in huge cities with bands around every corner. I drive 20mins to my rehearsal to play music, if I wanted to hang out with my mates drinking then I would walk 5mins to the pub.