I want you to think very hard about this question I am about to ask you.
What is the value of music? If you're a musician, what is your value?
And I want you to think about the question in terms of money. Now I want you to tell me exactly what service a musician provides. What makes his or her (or your) service as valuable or worthless as you say?
Now do you know Amanda Palmer? You know, Amanda Palmer of the (late) Dresden Dolls? Married to urban-fantasy hero-author Neil Gaiman? Founder of the newly minted Grand Theft Orchestra? She's fun... But just watch out for her videos if you're the squeamish type.
Like so:
Well Ms. Palmer recently called for "professional-ish" musicians to play their instruments on tour with her. "Professional-ish" is an important term we'll be getting back to here. So at every stop at in Palmer's tour with Grand Theft Orchestra (GTO) there would be a tiny battalion of trained horns and strings waiting to jump on stage:
http://www.amandapalmer.net/blog/20120821/
Her payment as follows: "we will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily." As you might have noticed, there's no mention of any monetary compensation. Well... Musicians on the internet didn't like that at all:
They didn't like the concept of not being paid for their job. Not to single out Ms. Vaillancourt-Sals (other militant voices can easily be found), but this is who Amanda Palmer responded to:
Vaillancourt-Sals's (VS's) point is that each musician who works for free then de-values the rest. As she points out, it is difficult to keep the electricity on with the power of hugs and beer. Palmer understood VS's concern (while continuing to praise the power of a good brew of course), but began defining payment differently. How much is exposure worth for instance? These musicians will be on stage with a well known indie musician. That's a great connection and experience to have. Should musicians only be concerned with money? I don't know. Amanda Palmer raised over a million dollars for her tour then claimed she couldn't pay 35k for strings and horns.
Musicians work for free all the time. This is true. I'm a musician. I work for free all the time. This is the culture that we have created as "classical" musicians for ourselves. We enjoy making music. So we'll make it for free. And the act of providing free music shouldn't change. There's an interesting/foolish comment under Amanda Palmer's open letter to Amy from one "Joyce Ford": "Call up a plumber and ask him to work for three hours on a Saturday night. I say whatever he charges you is what a musician should be paid."
This is a ridiculous analogy. The plumber uses their impressive skill to fix a physical pipe. They perform a service to save your home from damage. A musician's skill-set doesn't have an easily attached measurable product. A musician has to deal with taste. Plumber is to musician as fixed pipe is to...? What is a musician providing? Why should a musician be paid at all? Continue thinking about it.
Palmer's argument is faulty as well. Exposure? No. Any musician getting on stage with Amanda Palmer (especially since there's a new set of "professional-ish" musicians at every show) will only get the barest of recognition before being completely forgotten the next day. Both sides of the argument were either being disingenuous or they were believing their own fiction.
But here's what happened anyway. Amanda Palmer felt guilty and, being who she is, decided to pay every "volunteer" musician she pulled up on stage (retroactively as well):
So here we are at the end of the Palmer saga. But we shouldn't be done with it.
How did Ms. Palmer become the villain of thousands un and underpaid musicians? She had a very cool idea and was up front about her intentions. Interested musicians answered the call and good times were had. Look. I would jump at the chance to perform with a high profile band I loved too. I would do it for the experience and for a free show and for a chance to share a drink with a musician I liked. Wouldn't you? The answer is yes. Yes you would. Let me tell you what I think she did wrong. She used the word "professional-ish."
Think of our friend the plumber. They have trained years to achieve mastery of their craft so that they may do one specific task flawlessly: repair pipes. When we make that late weekend call to a plumber, we expect a person that can do a job efficiently and flawlessly. They are professional. When Palmer made a call for musicians, she wanted people that knew how to play their instruments efficiently and flawlessly, that would stay in tune and make on the fly changes to suit the music. She wanted people that knew how to amplify the vibe from the stage and project it out over the audience. Amanda Palmer wanted musicians who had trained years to achieve a mastery of their craft. She wanted professionals.
We are professionals, and we have sunk too many hours into music to take our professionalism for granted. And this is what we have done. Amidst all the fun we've had, all the "experiences" we've shared, the jam sessions, odysseys, improvisations, amidst all the DIY concerts, and all the chord progressions we have forgotten that we are valuable. What we do is provide a service. But unlike plumbers each of us provides a radically different service. Each of us has a responsibility to ourselves to assign our own value. And yes, I do mean price tag.
Now, musicians please keep having fun. Keep working for free. Keep doing exactly what you love. Just think about what you're doing. Think about the value of the music you create. Think about why it is valuable. Think about it every time. Think about it when you go on stage with Amanda F. Palmer. Our value starts and ends with us.
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