Don't be a sucker!

I enjoyed Sean's visit to our class on monday. It was nice to know that with all of his success he's still a humble person that wants to improve as a musician, and didn't let his early accomplishments get to his head. Sean recognized that he is comfortable with the music business side of the professional world and has capitalized on that, but was also smart enough to know that  success doesn't mean he's the best he can be in the music world. What I gained most from the discussion was the importance of knowing my comfort zone and strengths in my semi-professional music career, as well as knowing my weaknesses and uncomfortable areas of the biz, and filling in the gaps. As a performance major, the majority of my time is spent learning and practicing my craft (the drums). There's more then a lifetime of things I can always be working on to become a better drummer/performer/teacher or whatever I do professionally, but what I was reminded of with sean was the music business side of the game, most importantly the money aspect. I have been in a pop/hip-hop group called Lazlo Supreme for the last four years and I have enjoyed playing with this group very much. However aside from the joy of playing and enjoying each others company, money has always ben an issue. My only form of income comes from my day job at a restaurant which I only work on the weekends during the school year. Unfortunately weekends are the only times we schedule shows so that we can get a good crowd. This becomes a major issue for me because I rarely get paid for our shows due to the debt we have as a band. None of this debt came from my pocket and all the choices about the expenses were not cleared or discussed with me, which makes playing with this band a huge financial sacrifice. Until the last year I never really cared about what the money deal was. I trusted the leader to do the right thing and I was just playing for experience. Now its such a serious issue I have to say no to playing shows and there has been arguments between band members. Sean and the rest of the class helped me realize that I have to address this problem to the leader and address it with a professional negotiable manner and to start paying attention to how much money were getting per show and knowing where all the money is going. To make a long story short, I can't be a sucker. At this point in my playing career I feel that my skills and professionalism should be accounted for financially with every gig I play. the time energy and talent it takes to tour and put on good shows deserves some form of pay wether its 15 dollars or 100. The good news is, I did talk to my band and we have an agreement that I will be paid for upcoming shows to cover what I would be making if I was working my day job regardless of band debt. I also don't want to give the wrong idea about the leader of my group. I do trust him and he's not trying to cheat me, I think he just makes some bad choices. Thank you sean for your helpful insight into the wonderful world of music.