Justin Locke is an Author, Speaker, Playwright, Producer, Impresario, Publisher, and Score Reader. Here on the JLP website you can purchase his book, Real Men Don't Rehearse; you can read the scripts of Peter VS the Wolf and The Phantom of the Orchestra, his internationally acclaimed family concerts for orchestra. CONTACT |
The Heart of an Orchestra Contractor
One of the parts of the music business that rarely gets mentioned
outside the culture is the relationship between orchestra contractors
(a.k.a. personnel managers) and the musicians they hire to play.
Musicians with tenured contracts have one sort of relationship with
personnel managers, but for this article I am talking about
relationships between contractors and freelancers.
When I was a working freelance bass player, all of the players for the
major "gigs" in town were hired by the same guy, and I lived in mortal
terror of this man. I always felt that if I ever did anything even
slightly wrong I was in danger of losing my livelihood– which was
true. As a result, I tended to avoid any contact with him for fear of
doing something offensive.
Now that I am occasionally contracting orchestras myself, I get to see
this dimension of the business from the other side. I often find
myself vexed and frustrated by the musicians I hire and their
attitudes towards me and how they market themselves. At one point I
got so bothered I called some local music schools and offered to come
and speak to their performance majors about how to deal with, and
relate to, the people who hire them as professional players. I thought
they would leap at the chance to have their kids meet someone who
actually hires young musicians. I was told that "we are already doing
this," but it is clear to me as a contractor that no one is teaching
musicians how to deal with contractors. So while I am just one of
many contractors, I thought it would be appropriate in this context to
offer my observations and opinions.
One thing I often found myself doing when I hire a full orchestra was an amazing amount of tossing names around on lists. Typically, here is what happens: I have a list of, say,
violinists, that I know to be good players. But as we all know, some
violinists are better than others, and so I have a numbered list: the best
violinist is number one, the next best is number two, and so on.
Let's suppose I have a list of 20 violinists, but I only plan to hire
15 of them. What always happens is, something like violinist number
14– let's call him Ralph– can't make the gig for one reason or
another. Okay, violinist number 16 gets hired in his place.
OK, months go by, and I'm about to hire another orchestra. I have two
lists now: the original list of all the possible people I could call
(which is now all marked up with revised phone numbers and
recommendations and notes about who will call me back when), and another
list, the list of people who played the last gig, which is nice and clean and neatly typed, has no marks on it, and has everyone's tested current phone number and address. Remember Ralph? I have nothing against him, he's an excellent violinist, but his name is
only on that old grungy list now, and I might not even have that list
anymore. Unfortunately, Ralph may think that I am a very small-
minded person and may think I will never call him again because he said “no” to me
once. That's not the case at all. I am looking at dozens and dozens
of names, many of whom I don't know personally, and I just
wanna get this band booked. So Ralph gets forgotten.
I suppose in musician culture to forget about one player and hire
another who is a little lower on the local pecking order is something
of a sin. But I'm only human. I forget, I lose track. I have only
had one occasion where a player who got dropped from my list in this
way called me up to remind me of their existence. I was happy to hear
from them, because I had lost their number. But most the time, people
just accept this and don't do anything about it. I wonder how many
gigs I lost because I didn't bother to remind contractors of my
existence.
One of my biggest difficulties with freelance musicians is that they
often assume that I am clairvoyant, i.e., that I can somehow sense
when they have moved, changed their e-mail, or changed their phone
number. I have one violist that I referred to as my "problem child,"
because it seems like she moves every three months. Never once has
she ever bothered to call me or drop me a note telling me her new
information. (I keep telling myself that this next time she does this
to me will be the last time. But she isn't that much different–
musicians almost never tell me that they have moved. She just moves
more.) But I have to say, there is nothing more vexing, when you're
about to sit down and spend a few evenings calling 90 people, to hear
that obnoxious phone tone and be told that that number is no longer in
service.
I think a lot of musicians just assume that it is enough to have their
information in the local union directory. It isn't. I have my own
lists, and I use those phone numbers. Now I will admit, I usually
misplace notes and e-mails from people telling me their new
information, but when I finally sit down to call them for a job I'm
suddenly reminded that they made the effort so I don't mind looking
them up. When people don't keep me up to date, and I have to search
for them (and I don't even know if they left town sometimes), it adds
to my workload unnecessarily. It happens so often I don't really
think about it anymore, but it often amazes me that musicians who want
to get hired will often make it very hard for me to find them.
Of course, one must remember, that even if I get an e-mail or a card
from you telling me your new information, that information might not
make it on to the list that sitting in the top drawer of my desk. I'm
not the most organized person in the world. I am managing 90+ names
here. Forgive me if your name gets lost. Find an excuse to send it
to me again.
Every year I send Christmas gifts (or at least a card) to every client I worked for in the past year. It’s a common practice in most businesses. I have never once received anything like that from any musician I have ever hired. If one of them DID do that, I guarantee it would make them stand out from the others on the lists of names.
Anyone who wants to be a freelance musician and get hired by contractors should have a web page. That way, if I don't have your information I can just google you. Web pages are not that hard to do, they are not that expensive, and if you're a professional person you can't afford
to not have one. Most musicians, however, do not have one. By the way, announcing your webpage is yet another excuse to send a note to contractors and remind them of your existence without being pushy.
Another problem I run into with musicians is the whole concept of
auditioning. A lot of musicians simply will not do it. I know this is a difficult thing . . . an audition can feel like a very humiliating submissive experience for some people. But business is
business, and I have a responsibility to the people who are paying me, which is to deliver a product that I know to be good. A good substitute is getting invited to recitals and whatnot... I never go, though, because the only ones who send me these things are people that I
already know are good.
I sometimes run into another situation, where a producer for a pop
record company needs a single violinist for a rock 'n roll tune. But
they don't want just any violinist. They want (or least they think they want) a specific kind of
violinist, with a certain kind of sound. With such subjective subject
matter as "tone" and "feel" it is very difficult for me to know what
they mean, so I am always afraid that they will pay $600+ dollars for
a session with a violinist I provide and not be happy. It would be
great if I could send them a sample recording of the player I have in
mind so they could say, "yeah," that's it," and they wouldn't feel
like they are taking a huge risk.
But with a few notable exceptions, I find is virtually impossible to
get players to give me a recording of themselves so I can play it for
the producer and say "how is this?" In the Internet age, I really
think to not have an MP3 of yourself to e-mail to a contractor at
their request is kind of ridiculous. But this is what musician
culture so often seems to be about.
These are just some random comments and observations, but they all add up to one thing: professional music is a business, and marketing is a part of business. In all the classes I took in music schools, I never saw one about business and marketing. Sad to say, many freelance
musicians don't really know how to do it.
One more note– hiring an orchestra is a ton of work and stress, and the work of the contractor is usually taken for granted. Of all the musicians I hire, there is
one musician, and only one, who makes a point after each gig to come
up to me and say a very sincere "thank you." He always gets called
the next time.
–justin locke