I’m glad I hadn’t seen it before I started gigging (I was about 22 y.o.); I imagine I was quite annoying for some people as piano was out of tune (perhaps can be called honky tonk) but back than the audience was quite supportive and even slightly drunk people were rather nice to me. Members of the stuff were also very supportive. Can’t say the same about my recent attempts, they were not that stable I also I had a feeling that I need to change something.

Playing not too loud became my priority quite soon, I held a “quiet” pedal with my left foot through the whole evening (perhaps in English it would be correct to say “whole night”, but it creates quite a different picture).

What I want to say is that maybe we should be careful about stereotyping this sort of work. After all, each occupation can be called unrewarding; but there’s no job which fits everyone.

Judging by YouTube I can say that people do want to watch and listen to all sorts of musicians playing all sorts of music. Somehow, studio recordings ate not enough.

I read somewhere about photography. One man in the industry explained that first someone tries to work as a part-time photographer for small money, then he tells everyone how little it pays. While there are pros who make quite a good living doing the same, but with different quality. Certainly, you can always find people who would say “who do we need photographers when we have iPhones?”.

The difficulty is, which, by the way, people on SynthZone helped me to realize, is that musician has to treat it as a private business and to be ready to work a lot a lot.

It also makes sense to combine gigging with other occupations, of it works out better.

The video is nice; I just realized that I totally think of the characters shown as different persons, while it’s obviously the same guy.

Very true, its happened to all of us.
I think the most annoying is "can you turn down, we want to talk"
I actually had someone ask me to turn down and I wasn't even playing, just sitting there with my hands off the keys. It was a DJ in the next room
And the topper, yelling in your ear while your singing.

I am sure there are many more scenarios to tell from
pro gigging musicians for sure.

Funny video and so true!

I once performed at a golf course country club, a job that was obtained for me by an agent. I knew things would not go well from the minute I pushed my rock and roller cart through the front door and was stopped my the club manager who in no uncertain terms told me this door was for members ONLY, and I must bring my gear in through the kitchen/delivery entrance in the back. Ironically, he had me set my gear up just inside the main entrance, 100 feet away from the diners.

I was required to wear a tuxedo the entire time, including while setting up the equipment. Then I was told I have to remove my rock and roller filled with the empty cases and put it back in my van. Now, I was already sweating like crazy when I rolled the cart to the van in the nearly 100 degree f July heat with matching humidity. I had to wait about 20 minutes before I would play live music, so therefore, I put on a light-jazz midi file that I obtained from DNJ a few months earlier. With seconds of firing up the midi file, the manager came to me and said "You will have to either turn than down, or turn it off." Things went downhill from there.

I turned the midi down to the point where I could barely hear it over the AC unit that was cooling the huge room, which measured 150 X 200 feet. I got up to check the volume level and began walking through the room. When I was about 50 feet from the keyboard, I could barely hear the midi playing at all. At this point the club manager came up to me and said,"Sir, this area is strictly off limits to anyone other than members. When I told him that I was just performing a sound level check, he scowled at me with a somewhat menacing look and said, the music it much too loud, turn it down as I asked you to do"

With that I walked slowly back to the keyboard, turned everything off, went outside to my van and got the rock and roller cart, took off my tux jacket and bow tie, returned to the club and loaded up my gear and walked out the front door.

Early the next morning, the agent asked what happened and I explained it to her. She said she fully understood, and she was not going to take bookings from the country club again - this was the third time it had happened in a month. All of the other players walked out as well.

The only other annoying thing I can think of was when audience members, some very drunk, walked up and began talking to me as if I were not singing or playing, despite the fact they could see my fingers on the keyboard and my lips moving. More often than not, they wanted to request a song. I solved this problem by carrying a sheet of paper with me that contained a bunch of songs. I scribbled the titles of the songs on the paper, some in black ink, some in blue, a few in red, and several in pencil. In large print at the top of the page, I typed, place your request at the bottom and when I get through the others on the list I will get to it. Worked like a charm. Sometimes, I actually looked at the song they requested and played, but most of the time, I just never bothered.

Great topic,

Gary

So what's your real Job? What do you do for a living?

YEP!

For the past 30 years, my real job was as an musician/singer/entertainer - best job I ever had! Prior to then, it was just a part-time job, weekends only (Have guitar will travel). At the same time, I was working in many other fields, cardio-pulmonary medicine, sporting goods store owner, state police, freelance outdoor writer, NASA Project Mercury, and other jobs I would rather forget about. I tried to cram as much life into my 80 years on the planet as I could without killing myself in the process. And, I damned near accomplished the killing myself part a couple times. Got broadsided on I-95 at 70 MPH while driving my full size Chevy van to a job. Also jumped off a 700-foot high sand dune at Kitty Hawk, NC hanging onto a hang glider - I was the second oldest guy in the nation to obtain his Hang Gliding Certificate at Kitty Hawk Kites. I later found out that several people in California lost their lives doing this. Scary!

Just another fun day in Paradise,

Gary

Gary
Love the hand written song list idea. And walking out of the CC Bravo !!!
I had a CC manger go off on me once and I just ignored it because he went off on everyone. I was very temped to turn and walk but it was nothing out of the ordinary for him. It was becasue I recommended a band to him for a date I couldn't cover. He only wanted two pieces (cheap) so choices were limited. Not knowing the place they brought a big PA that he didn't like the look of and he went off on them. As they say no good deed goes unpunished.