Monday, April 24, 2017

To gig or not to Gig

Hey everyone,

As some of you might remember last Sunday was the celebration of "national everyone who can make a noise on a trumpet gets a gig day" otherwise known as zombie Jesus day.... I mean Easter.

What is it about this one day that calls for every brass player to show up to church early in the morning to play brass ensemble music for the masses, but come the following Monday people are happy to take a hiatus till at least Christmas if not Easter the following year. Wouldn't it be a crazy, if every day was like Easter morning? You wake up, play some easy tunes, and you are home before 2pm with more money than you might make the following week combined. Sometimes it does feel like we are getting away with something.

On a side note, I've noticed a lot of musicians make these pride statements that they don't take work on the Holidays. It's comments like that that make me want to get off social media. Like, we get it. You are in a place in your life where $500 isn't going to make or break you financially and you have chosen to be home with your loved ones for the holiday. It just seems like kind of a jab at the rest of us who look forward to the lucrative work Easter/ Christmas and other holidays. Me? I've never felt to connected to attending church as an audience member, so even as a kid I looked forward to playing in church as opposed to sitting in the pews. When I was in high school I played in my church's brass quintet (for probably no pay!) for Easter. It was made up of my teacher (who played trombone in the group as well... maybe we were a sextet or something).... Anyway, it was also more fun sitting around in the green room during the service practicing scales and than going out at the end to play a couple tunes. What do you guys think? Is Easter your fincially honeypot that keeps on giving? Or do you look forward to the day you no longer have to wake up at 6:30 on a Sunday to make it to that 8:00am rehearsal before the 9am mass?

1 comment:

  1. Agreed with everything you said here. I remember my 1st Easter gig. My first $100 made playing trumpet while I was in high school, and I had to get up at 4:30am to get to the church that was only 20min away... Played with my band director (trumpet) who I took seriously about arriving at 5am before the 6am rehearsal. What made it memorable was that I had mono, and somehow I made it through the 2 services I played.

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