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I was chatting with a student recently when the topic of locking keys in cars before gigs came up–I can’t recall what on Earth we were talking about that led us to this topic, but I told him a story about the times (yes, I’ve done this more than once!) that I’ve locked my keys in the car right before a gig.

Here’s what I told him:

Keys Locked in Car #1
keys locked in car.pngI did all sorts of dumb things in high school, like forgetting my music for important gigs, but I somehow managed to avoid locking my keys in the car until the end of my senior year. Since I came from a town of only a little over 100,000 people (Sioux Falls) in a state with only a little over 700,000 people (South Dakota), I ended up doing the sorts of gigs that would be reserved for professionals in larger urban areas. Therefore, I found myself playing bass for the local theater production of Guys and Dolls. I had decided, about 30 minutes before the start of a show (I liked to cut things close in those days), to drive over to a nearby Seven-Eleven and get a Super Big Gulp. It was a hot and muggy June day, after all (South Dakota is frigid in the winter and scorching in the summer), and I needed to get all caffeinated up before the show.

I ran in, slamming the door to the car, and after coming out with my massive soda, noticing that, to my horror, my car keys were sitting on the passenger seat… and I had about 15 minutes until the start of the gig! Luckily, I had left the bass in the pit, but I was at least a mile away and dressed in pit black during the middle of a really hot day. Without thinking twice, I started sprinting downtown.

I made it to the theater–barely. I was sticky with sweat and aching from head to toe, but I made it. I played the gig, calling my parents from the theater’s pay phone at intermission (this was in a pre-cell phone era) to have them drive over and get my keys out of the car.

Keys Locked in Car #2
You’d think that the keys-locked-in-car predilection would have been stamped out with that episode in high school, but I guess I had to learn that lesson one more time…

I was on my way to a Northbrook Symphony rehearsal on a freakishly cold March day back when I was the principal bassist for that group, driving up north from downtown Chicago after wrapping up a gig earlier that day. I’d made plans to meet an old friend who was in town auditioning for the Chicago Symphony. We had enough time for a good dinner and a nice chat, and I bid him farewell as I walked back to my car, rubbing my hands to keep warm and ready to head off to my evening gig.

I pulled out my keys, staring at them blankly. Where the heck was my car key? I had my keys right there in front of my face (I’d gotten into the habit of making sure that I was always holding my car keys as I closed the car door after that incident back in high school).

I peered inside the car. Aargh! My stupid car key was in the stupid ignition. What on Earth…? I suddenly remembered yoinking that key off my keychain earlier that day for the valet during my previous gig, not wanting to give him my janitor’s set of house and school keys along with that car key. I had checked my keys before going in to dinner, and I had them–just not my car key. And now I was locked outside, bass in the car, with the temperature around zero degrees Fahrenheit and a gig fast approaching.

To make a long and annoying story short, I called a locksmith, paid $100 (twice what the gig I was heading to was paying–I played really poorly paying gigs in those days), and actually made it to rehearsal, dashing in with frigid fingers and a racing heart as the oboe was playing the tuning A. I remember unpacking and trying to tune, having a great deal of difficulty even holding my bow because I had been outside in subzero temps for so long waiting for the locksmith. My stupid hands ached for days after that rehearsal, but I made it–and got my $50! Another chapter in the life of a freelancer…

It’s happened to all of us: you get out of your car, whistling a happy tune, saunter into your rehearsal (or concert!), unzip your bass, and reach into that music pocket…..no music.png

….only to find that your stupid folder is not, in fact, in your trusty music pouch, but back on your stand at home, and you’re up a creek without a paddle.

I’m Guilty as Well
The first time I forgot my music was for my local youth orchestra. I remember my conductor clamping both hands on his head as I sheepishly mumbled, “Uh, Ray… huh huh” in my doofus high school way. He tore me apart and told me to get back home and get it. Not a happy day for me.

The second (and last, thankfully) time I forgot my music was for a dress rehearsal of Carousel, which I was playing for the local community theater. Again, I was in high school (apparently I had issues with bringing my music during my teens!), and this time was worse–I was the only bass, and the whole show had to go on sans low end as I scurried back home to grab my forgotten part. The conductor gave me a little lecture about responsibility, which made me feel very bad and must have done the trick. I now routinely pull my car over on the way to gigs, pulling my bass out of the back of the car and feeling around to make doubly sure that that darned folder is really in my case.

Four Guys Without a Scrap of Music
A friend of mine was sharing an embarrassing incident that happened to him recently on a gig. He used to function as the contractor for string quartet gigs for a regional orchestra in the area, and he would generally play the gigs and provide music for the four people involved. A new personnel manager got hired in the orchestra recently, and apparently there was a mix-up as to which party was responsible for making sure that there was music for the gig.

To make a long story short, the quartet ended up at the gig without any music at all, and to make matters worse, they were the focal point for the opening of a new center, positioned front and center as the crowd came in. So they stood, each playing a solo rendition of “Happy Birthday,” an orchestral excerpt or two, or whatever else they had memorized. Not exactly a resounding string ensemble! This is the kind of goof that everyone notices, regardless of musical training–people aren’t used to seeing a string quartet trade random solo snippets for a couple of hours. The people that hired them were furious.

Make Sure You Have Everything Before Leaving the Train
Four good-natured but somewhat scatterbrained guys that I went to grad school with had a similar situation happen to them: they were meeting in downtown Chicago for a gig, and the guy with all the music fell asleep on the train, waking just before his stop and bolting off, in his haste leaving all of his binders on the seat next to him. The train roared off (well, puttered… the El isn’t exactly a fearsome train) and he was halfway down the steps before he realized his unfortunate mistake.

These guys ended up doing the same thing as the first quartet, playing Don Jan excerpts, scales, and all other sorts of blatantly non-gig repertoire. They slunk out of there as soon as they could. No check ever came…and they never asked about it.

My Forgetful Student
Unfortunately, it seems like I’ve passed at least a few of my bad habits on to my students, among them my penchant for forgetting my music. On of my students was playing a string quintet arrangement of The Entertainer in which he was the featured musician at the Brevard Music Festival one summer. His teacher was in the audience, and he noticed as the ensemble filed on that the bassist had no music in his hand. Bad sign! They got set up, tuned, and began. It quickly became apparent that the bassist was improvising the part….and that he barely remembered any of it! He ended up playing something that was equal parts Joplin and aleatoric randomness. Not a good thing when you’re the soloist.

His teacher came backstage, hopping mad, and let him know what he thought of that particular spectacle. Hopefully that talk did for my student what the conductor of Carousel did for me all those years ago.

We had a couple of pretty humorous moment at the Elgin Symphony this month. I usually don’t mention specific people or ensembles in story posts like this after realizing that they’ll pop up right at the top of search results (sometimes before the group’s actual website!). But what the hey, we’ll do a non-anonymous one this week:

An alarming yet amazing thing happened during our first night of rehearsal with guest conductor Andrew (last name redacted!) at the Elgin Symphony recently. A dynamic and engaging conductor with a wonderfully musical grace to his interpretations, Andrew was really getting the orchestra to respond to his gestures and idea. Things were really cooking!

Andrew was looking quite comfortable, perched on a high stool and leaning casually against the brass railing behind the podium. His podium was right up against the edge of the stage, just as you’d expect for an orchestra rehearsal.

All of a sudden, the brass railing gave way, clattering to the floor, and Andrew started to fall backwards. He stood up, knocking over the stool in an attempt to save his balance, but inertia had taken over, and he ended up falling off the stage in a terrifying-looking reverse belly flop right off the stage and into the seats.

The orchestra was silent, everyone looking in surprise and horror at what had just happened. The conductor had, mid-sentence, fallen clear off the stage!

Somehow he managed to do some kind of complicated midair acrobatics and land on his feet, popping back up over the lip of the stage, looking around sheepishly for a moment, and then picking up right where he had left off in the rehearsal.

Now that’s the mark of a pro!

P.S. – The concerts were awesome. What a conductor!

When I was getting started as a freelance musician at the tail end of my masters degree, I was quaking in my boots about my future prospects. After all, I was regularly buying CDs at Borders and Barnes and Noble from former Northwestern doctoral music students. If the best they could do was retail bookstore work after getting a doctoral degree, what were my prospects going to look like?

Fortunately, a lot of stuff fell in place for me in a hurry, and I found myself with three regular gigs (the Elgin Symphony, IRIS Orchestra, and Milwaukee Ballet) by the fall.

Now I just needed some teaching!

I got a call for at the…. well, I’ll call it the Jimbobo School of Music for the purposes of this post. I’m sad to say that this “school of music” still exists here in metro Chicago, and it’s a truly rotten operation—the perfect representation of everything that’s wrong with the private lesson “music school” system.

In fact, I’ve got some choice words about this whole system at some point in the near future. Oh man, do I ever have some stuff to share about this system. But that’s for another time…..

Landing the Teaching Gig
I was delighted to be called for an interview at the Jimbobo School of Music. A gig teaching the bass? This sounds great! Adding some private students into my freelance mix seemed like the perfect thing to complement the work I’d already lassoed. I drove out and met with the director of the Jimbobo School. Everything sounded fine to me. I was to get $34 an hour (the parents were almost certainly being charged $80 for this lesson, but hey, those administrative costs are mighty high, right?), and I was to have one student. I was to travel to their house in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago to teach them.

But wait! This was only going to be a half-hour lesson. So only $17 for me per trip. Um, OK…

Hmm…. $17… plus traveling to the Gold Coast, where there is absolutely, positively no parking whatsoever…. well, I could take the train…. if I left 1 1/2 hours early I should be able to make it… and then there was the train ride home… another hour or so.

OK, so I’d be getting $17 for teaching plus the 2 1/2 hours of commuting, minus the $3 I’d pay for the train (or $12 for parking if I chose to drive). That came to $4.67 an hour if I took the train, and $1.67 if I drove (crappy Chicago traffic made the commute by car about as long as the train ride).

Alright, $4.67 a lesson after getting a masters in music from an expensive private school! I was on my way up in the world, sure to pay off those $40,000 in loans in no time flat. Right? And hey, if I chose to drive, I’d actually have enough money for a coffee… before taxes.

But hey, some teaching was better than no teaching in my mind, and maybe I’d get some more students…. in the Gold Coast…. that I’d have to get to…. but whatever, sounds good to me!

A Job Finally.jpg
I made it to my first lesson with time to spare, and I sat in the south end of Lincoln Park doing some people watching. This area of Chicago has always fascinated me, as the truly opulent bump right up against homeless people sleeping in the park. Fur coated women walk poodles walk past men wrapped in blankets, and limousines drop dapper young hipsters at The Pump Room (where Sinatra used to hang out when visiting Chicago) just down the street from the Cabrini-Green housing project.

All this was happening nearly ten years ago, and the Cabrini-Green housing project has largely been demolished to make way for more high-rise condominiums. But the homeless still sleep in the park, right next to statues of Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Schiller, and other historical luminaries.400px-Schillerlpstatue.jpg

Meeting My Student….Yikes!
My student was a seventh grader at a prestigious private school in the area, and though I was pretty green as a teacher, I knew from the outset that he was trouble personified. To call him spoiled would be an insult to spoiled children—he was basically every private teacher’s nightmare: inattentive, inappropriate, uninterested, and just basically impossible.

I was led upstairs to his room, where our lessons were to take place (the worst possible place to teach a student—don’t teach them in their room!). He promptly flopped on the bed, closed his eyes, and refused to respond to my cajoling.

This lesson was going great! This was worth the $4.67!

I finally convinced him to stand up and play a few notes, though he tried at one point to climb back on his bed with his bass (don’t teach lessons in kid’s rooms, remember?). I think that we got through a D major scale…. maybe…. before calling it a day.

Teaching experience! Yay!

Needless to say, at this point I did not think that teaching was something I was interested in developing, career-wise. These early experiences made gigging seem like striking the jackpot.

One quick aside—I now love teaching and actually prefer it in many cases to playing. You can read a more contemporary reflection on my thoughts on teaching here. I’m just trying to illustrate how truly bad this situation was, and how it turned me off of teaching altogether for a time…but only a time.

Where’s My Paycheck?
Weeks went by, with these agonizing lessons continuing. I had been instructed at the Jimbobo School of Music to send in a timesheet (fax-not mail) at the beginning of every month. Lacking a fax machine in my grad student hovel, I trudged down to my local Kinko’s and plopped a few bucks down to fax this over to them.

I faxed my September timesheet.

No paycheck.

I faxed my October timesheet.

No paycheck.

I called the office.

No answer.

I left a message.

No call back.

I called again.

No answer.

I left another message.

No response.

The Lessons Grind On – Still No Paycheck
November came, meaning that I had taught this student for two months with no compensation and no response to my faxes or my phone calls. I could drive out to the Jimbobo School, but this place was located on the opposite side of the suburban area, over an hour away from my place in Chicago at the time. Did I really want to spend more money on collecting my $4.67 hourly wage?

Coming out of one of my lessons in late October, I ran into a former colleague from the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. He was heading in to teach violin to another sibling for the very same family!

I stopped him for a moment, determined to get to the bottom of this:

Jason: Let me ask you something…. does this school take a long time to pay?

Violinist: Oh, heavens, yes! I haven’t gotten paid for months! I call the office and yell at Ms. _, but nothing seems to get done.

Jason: [incredulous guffaw]

Violinist: You know, none of the teachers are getting paid. the husband of one of the piano teachers calls the office all the time, yelling at them in Russian to get paid, but nothing ever happens. I am just about to quit myself.

Scammed?
Even though I was new to the “teaching business,” I knew that something was rotten in Denmark. I mean, c’mon—no paychecks and no phone calls for two months? In no way, shape, or form was this worth it. Not for experience, not for musical satisfaction, certainly not for income! Just not worth it.

I decided that quitting time for my association with the Jimbobo School had arrived, and I called the office to “tender my resignation,” as it were.

No answer.

I left a message

No response.

I faxed all my timesheets again, having to go to Kinko’s and shell out some more $$$–I was well into negative figures on this teaching “gig.”

No response.

Taking it to the Board Members
I went to this student’s house a couple more times in November, noticing that the leaves had changed on all the trees in Lincoln Park. The residents were dressed in their finest, like 19th century industrialists, while the homeless continued huddling in the park.

I recalled the Jimbobo School’s director mentioning that the parents of the student I was teaching (really quite nice people, despite the frustrating behavior of their son) were on the board of directors for the school. I decided to tell them about the whole situation.

Jason: Sorry to say it [keeping true feeling bottled up deep below surface!], but this will be our last lesson.

Parents: Oh no!

Jason: Did the Jimbobo School fill you in on this?

Parents: This is all news to us. We had no idea you were quitting.

Jason: Well, I haven’t gotten paid once since starting to teach for the Jimbobo School, so I told them last week that I’d have to quit. I just can’t work for free!

Parents: What?!? We’ve been paying them! We donate to them and everything.

Jason: Well, I though you’d like to know that none of the money is reaching any of the teachers.

At Last: A Response!
Guess What? The next day, I get a frantic call from the school’s receptionist.

Though I’m a stickler for calling people back, I decided to let this one sit and marinate on the answering machine.

Later that day, guess what? Another phone call! This time from the director of the Jimbobo School.

I let this one marinate as well. Apparently, I’d gotten their attention! They informed me that a check was being issued and would be mailed that day.

Getting….Paid?
Sure enough, a check arrived in the mail.

I opened it.

It was for half of the first month’s lessons! A whopping $34.

For years, I’ve kept a file folder labeled ‘Evidence’ (kind of like my lame version of Nixon’s enemies list… only not about enemies…. uh, never mind). I’d put any material directed at me that I thought I’d need to possibly refer to later. I’ve got all my car explosion papers, nasty notes left under my windshield wipers from 10 years ago…. and the pay stubs from the Jimbobo School! I kid you not.

Scammed!
I got on the phone and called up the Jimbobo School, quaking with frustration and anger.

The receptionist picked up. Caller ID? Maybe they were instructed to actually answer calls from my number this time.

The conversation that ensued only added to my frustration:

Receptionist: Hello?

Jason: This is Jason Heath, the bass teacher. I just got a check from the Jimbobo School.

Receptionist: Good. We sent it out earlier this week.

Jason: Right….the problem is that it’s only for half of one month’s pay!

Receptionist: That can’t be right. We sent you a check for all of September.

Jason: No, I only got a check for half of…. wait a minute! You only sent a check for September? What about all the October lessons I taught and the one I did in November?

Receptionist: We’ve only issued checks to teachers for September at this point.

Jason: Well, actually, you didn’t send me a check at all until I told your board member I hadn’t gotten paid. When will I get a check for October?

Receptionist: We don’t have that information at that time.

Jason: Don’t have that… information? OK, I need to get paid for all my lessons now.

Unsurprisingly, this encounter ended without resolution. Lovely.

Up the Chain of Command
The next day, I got an angry call from the Jimbobo School’s director:

Director: The __ family says that you’re quitting? What’s going on? You can’t quit! This is unacceptable!

Jason: Why haven’t I gotten paid? That’s unacceptable!

I won’t bore you with all the details–suffice it to say, I was informed that I would be paid the remaining amount owed promptly.

After finally making it clear that I was in fact quitting, I was asked if I could recommend anybody for the “position.”

Why on Earth would I recommend that anyone deal with this organization? I wouldn’t inflict that o my worst enemies, let alone my double bass friends and colleagues. I informed him that he’d not be getting any recommendations from me and hung up.

Least Profitable Venture Ever
Not only had I invested all those hours teaching and commuting, plus shelling out money to park or take the rain, but I’d also frittered away considerable time on the phone, walking to Kinko’s, and gnashing my teeth in frustration as I tried to fall asleep late at night, fuming about this ridiculous situation.

My compensation? After 2 1/2 months of frustration, indifference, and lack of communication?

$34.

I love teaching! Especially for private music “schools!”

Angry Jason Takes the Stage
Determined not to let this school continue getting away with scamming inexperienced music graduates Thats It.jpglike me (my violinist colleague was going through the same exact thing, remember?), I called up the Civic Orchestra of Chicago office (where the Jimbobo School had gotten my name) and filled them in on all the gory details, strongly suggesting that they refrain from giving any more teacher names to this organization.

They let me know that I wasn’t the first musician to complain about this school (!), and that they weren’t planing on giving out any more Civic Orchestra member names to this school.

Full Payment at Long Last
My check for the complete amount finally arrived by early December, along with a Post-It note imploring me to come back and work for the Jimbobo School. I ran to the bank as fast as I could and deposited the check.

I’d now make a little over $100 from teaching, and I only had to invest $40-60 in commuting costs plus a few dozen hours of my time.

Teaching rocks…and it sure is profitable!

The Final Confrontation
I got one more phone call from the Jimbobo School, this time from the executive director. He was a doctor with a practice near the Jimbobo School, and he seemed like a very nice fellow. I’ve probably never let loose in a professional situation like I did with this person, and though I am convinced that I was completely justified in my frustration and anger, I definitely feel more than a little chagrined as I remember my words. He called me as I was walking into the local grocery store, and I remember standing in the entryway ranting and raving for a solid fifteen minutes on my cell phone, the spitting image of the eccentric musician.

He listened quietly as I said my piece, apologized for the treatment I had received, and filled me in on the background of the school. Apparently, this school had been run into the ground financially and had reorganized the previous year, and all efforts were being made to get things on the right track financially.

I felt ashamed at becoming so frustrated, at telling my board member parent about not getting paid, at calling the Civic Orchestra office and warning them about this organization. After all, arts organizations are always dancing on the precipice of financial disaster, and I as much as anyone want to see them succeed.

But this wasn’t a case of a symphony financially imploding, a summer festival losing their funding, or a school budget facing governmental shortfalls. I was teaching a private lesson to one student, and this group couldn’t pay me the less than 50% cut I was owed? C’mon, we’re talking about a hundred bucks here!

Final Thoughts
This is a prime example of why I like teaching private students privately, and not through some music school framework. Local music schools offering private lessons to K-12 age students often charge twice as much (or more!) as they pay their teachers. Why should a parent have to pay a 50% premium for a lesson? Aside from providing the teaching space (which is usually at a premium in local music schools anyway), what benefit does this arrangement offer either teacher or student?

There are many examples of stellar programs that incorporate private teaching, music theory, orchestra, and chamber music into a cohesive experience for their students. The Merit School of Music here in Chicago is a prime example of such a school, and many others exist in the United States and beyond. Many people prefer this kind of arrangement, allowing the school to handle student recruitment, collect payment, and in many cases even arrange teacher schedules.

I prefer to handle these things privately and maintain my own studio. This is not a ideal arrangement all teachers, but it works for me. In fact, the whole private music academy versus independent private teacher topic is worthy of a more extended discussion, and I’ll try to get into it at a future time here on the blog.

For now, however, just take this tale of the Jimbobo School as a cautionary lesson in assessing a teaching situation. Could I have avoided this situation? Probably, though I was so inexperienced that I didn’t really know what sort of teaching situations existed out there.

Readers: How have your experiences working for private music schools been? Better? Worse? Similar? Have you gotten reeled into inequitable teaching arrangements like this in the past, and if so, how did you disentangle yourself? What benefits (and there are certainly many, despite what I’ve written here!) to such schools provide in your eyes? I’d love to hear from you!

The price of gas rose 31.5 percent in 2007, which means that the average consumer (driving 10,000 miles a year) will spend between $5,510 and $9,095 to operate a 2008 model car. This figure is based on gas, oil, tires, and maintenance–parking or tolls are not included in these calculations.

As a full-time freelancer, I drove around 50,000 miles per year between 2000 and 2007 (when I “saw the light” and realized that doing all this driving was complete insanity). At these aforementioned rates, I would have been spending somewhere between $27,550 and $45,475 for vehicle operating expenses in 2008 if I had kept up this pace of gigging.

No wonder I never had any money!

The cost of operating various common vehicles
How much are you really spending on getting to that gig? Let’s see! Here is a list of operating costs per mile for a variety of common vehicles:

Vehicle Model Operating Cost Per Mile
Small Cars: Chevrolet Cobalt, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla 55.1 cents per mile
Mid-Size Cars: Chevy Impala, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Toyota Camry 71.9 cents per mile
Full-Size Cars: Buick Lucerne, Chrysler 300, Ford Five Hundred, Nissan Maxima, Toyota Avalon 85.8 cents per mile
Minivans: Chevy Uplander, Dodge Grand Caravan, Kia Sedona, Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna 74.9 cents per mile
Mid-Size SUVs: Chevy Trailblazer, Ford Explorer, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Nissan Pathfinder, Toyota 4Runner 91 cents per mile
Imagine if you kept a little jar on the passenger seat next to you, tossing in 55, 75, or 91 cents every time a mile ticked by on the odometer. Would it make you think about whether you really needed to get into the car for that particular trip?

What these costs mean for the freelance musician
dollar-signThis topic really gets interesting for me when I think of the implications it has for the freelance musician While these vehicle operating costs obviously affect all of us, even if we don’t drive at all (most goods in the United States are delivered by truck, and these costs have a huge impact on the overall economy), freelance musicians live and die by their cars, and the cost of commuting (usually either under-reimbursed or not reimbursed at all by employers) to various locations has a major impact of the livelihood of these road warriors.

Real commuting costs to various locations by vehicle type
Let’s take a few examples of common gig destinations for Chicago freelancers and the real cost associated with commuting to these various venues:

Destination (and round-trip distance from Chicago) Mid-Size Car Per-Trip Cost Full-Size Car Per-Trip Cost Mid-Size SUV Per-Trip Cost
Chicago Philharmonic Evanston, IL (28 miles) $20.13 $24.02 $25.48
Elgin Symphony Elgin, IL (84 miles) $60.40 $72.07 $76.44
Milwaukee Ballet Milwaukee, WI(168 miles) $120.79 $144.14 $152.88
Madison Symphony Madison, WI(320 miles) $230.08 $274.56 $291.20
Illinois Symphony Springfield, IL (480 miles) $345.12 $411.84 $436.80
What are you actually making?
Because I don’t want to appear mean or vindictive toward any particular group (I’ve been accused of this with these table analyses in the past!), I will substitute real names and pay scales with imaginary ones for the following examples. Keep in mind, however, that these examples are right in line with what freelance groups actually pay, so feel free to substitute the group of your choice into the following table to determine if you should really be taking that gig.

Gig and per-service pay (including mileage) Profit After Mid-Size Car Commute Profit After Full-Size Car Commute Profit After Mid-Size SUV Commute
$100 gig in town (3 mi/RT) $97.84 $97.43 $97.27
$100 gig in nearby suburb (20 mi/RT) $85.62 $82.84 $81.80
$100 regional orchestra gig (80 mi/RT) $42.48 $31.36 $27.20
$100 moderate distance gig (180 mi/RT) -$29.42 -$54.44 -$63.80
$100 long-distance gig (320 mi/RT) -$130.08 -$174.56 -$191.20
$100 very long-distance gig (480 mi/RT) -$245.12 -$311.84 -$336.80
Choose your gigs wisely!
I like quoting these statistics to my fellow freelancers (especially now that I’m not doing all the long-haul driving that I used to do!), and I frequently get defensive replies, with claims that it doesn’t cost them that much to commute. Call me foolish, but I don’t see how you can find a way to make these trips cost less… besides not making them! A trip to Springfield, Illinois in a certain car costs a certain amount of money to undertake, and if you’re only getting paid $100 a service (this gig actually pays less than that, though there is a little mileage that bumps it up to around the $100 per-service mark), you’re actually losing between $245 and $336 per trip.

Think about that for a moment.

In what alternate universe do people pay tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds of thousands in many cases) to go to music school only to fight for a job that pays -$336 a service? Has the world gone crazy?

I was recently called to play a gig in southern Wisconsin that pays $55 per service (with no mileage or cartage).

If I’d accepted that, I would have made -$39.64 per service, or -$198.20 for the week. Not finding many reasons to pay (both up front in gas and later in maintenance) almost $200 for the “privilege” of playing with this ensemble, I said no.

Add in the hours spent driving to long-haul gigs, and you’ve got a whopper of an equation staring you in the face.

A typical service for an orchestra I belong to in Milwaukee averages around $90 per service, with no cartage or mileage. Let’s break this little bugger down… as if I’m not depressed enough already!

Distance to gig (round-trip): 150 miles
Per-service pay: $90
Operating cost of vehicle for each service: $136.50
Tolls per trip: $5
Parking costs: $8
Total profit per-service: -$59.50
Hours spent on road (could be greater if traffic is heavy): 3.5 hours
Hours spent at gig: 3 hours
Total hours devoted to gig (1/2 hour cushion built in to allow enough time to park & get inside venue): 7 hours
Services per week: 7 services
Trips to Milwaukee per week: 6 trips
Hours devoted to gig per week: 45.5 hours
Profit per week: -$267
You know, it really is like some eerie alternate universe, isn’t it? Working for 45.5 hours at a minimum wage job would garner a person around $267 profit for that week. In the world of music, however, that money is in negative dollars!

The loss per week would actually be greater that -$267, but thankfully there’s one double built into the schedule, which actually allows for a little profit that day! This is a valuable lesson–if one’s doing out-of-town commutes, the more doubles the better!

Drawing Conclusions from this Study
If I can find one lesson to take away from this analysis, it would be this:

Work close to home!

Unless you’re being compensated accordingly, try your utmost to build something up in your community. If opportunities don’t exist, create them for yourself (see my article Musical Entrepreneurship for my suggestions and a more elaborate discussion of this topic).

While there’s something to be said for getting opportunity and cutting your teeth (remember, I’ve driven all over Creation for the past seven years, so I’m speaking from personal experience), there’s also something to be said for not committing your time, money, heart, and spirit to something that actually costs you money, sucks away your life expectancy (through icy commutes and hair-raising overnight drives) while resulting in a negative income stream. After all, freelancers are independent contractors, small businesses unto themselves, and what small business would continue to operate in the red week after week and year after year without re-evaluating their business practices?

Why not just pull your checkbook out, write out a donation of a few hundred bucks to your state highway commission, and hunker down in the practice room to try to win a gig that is in one location? Either that, or use all the contacts you’ve built up in music school and the professional circuit to start your own organization and enrich your own community in the process?