If anyone knows me and my history being in the music scene they'd tell you I'm a singer, vocalist, whatever. That's definitely true but it's not all.
Like I've said before, when you're 16-17 years old and you're starting a band for the first time, the singer is just the kid who sucks the least. No one can sing at first. No one I know anyway. Including me. It was pretty bad...at first. But you work on it and get better.
What most people don't know is that I've been playing the piano for over 15 years and actually have a music degree with a concentration in piano. Jazz, classical, rock, pop, blues...you name it I've played it. I've been a part of award winning jazz groups, played in numerous R&B ensembles and played my fair share of Bach sonota's. I usually only pull out the "piano card" as I call it in certain situations where it's needed.
I also mess around on a guitar a bit. Basically I can play almost any song but I'm not a soloing mo-fo that'll play leads all night. It's just not my bag nor do I have the energy to be the next Eddie Van Halen. But I can play rhythme, which is a plus.
So why am I telling you about all the things I can do? The point is, as a musician you can get much more work if you can do a variety of things. Here's a perfect exampl, which actually led me to write this post:
Sunday night I was at a practice for a new band I'm in called The Salesmen. I joined the group as the lead singer. It's a cool cover/function band. We're in it for the money and that's alright because the guys in the band are great and everyone for the most part gets the job done.
After the first practice we realized there were way to many keyboard/synth parts in the songs we were playing for just one keyboard so some of the guys asked if anyone knew anybody who could play piano/keyboards to fill in the synth/string parts.
"I do," I said.
So there we have it. I'm going to play the back up board parts while also being the lead singer. This is good because now the pay stays the same having not had to bring in another band member to play the parts.
Then last practice our rhythme guitar player broke the news that because of the prior commitments with other bands he's in he can't fulfill a lot of our dates and it's just too much for him. I certainly understand that. So once again we had a gap to fill. The question came again, who's going to play rhythme?
"Kris you play guitar right?"
"Yeah I can do it."
Now we get paid more individually because we split the money between 5 guys instead of 6.
In The Salesmen, with everyone else already playing an instrument full time the only one left over to fill in any gaps without bringing in a whole new member was me, the singer. So not only was I helping myself get paid more money at the end of the night, but also everyone else in the band.
Another really great example of this is teaching lessons. I teach lessons in a variety of subjects including piano, guitar, voice, music theory, ear training, and music biz consultation. I'll go out on a limb right now and just say, almost every guitar player I teach is actually better at the guitar than I am. I'm serious. But because I know WHY the music works the way it does I have a huge advantage over them and hence can give them valuable information. We jam on soloing techniques and I can give them pointers and tricks on expanding their playing but a lot of the time I have to give them examples on the piano because the concepts are beyond my playing ability on the guitar. But it works, they get a great lesson and most importantly, I eat dinner.
Be a jack of all trades. You'll get the call over other players who might not be as versitile and you just might make an extra buck in the process.
Posts
