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What was a 'gig' prior to the Rock Revolution?


ProfD

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Rock music opened a floodgate of opportunities for musos.

 

What were musos doing before the levee broke and clubs, bars, restaurants, theaters, stadiums, etc., opened up?

 

Did a gig consist of musos merely serving as accompanist to singers and stage productions?

 

Did self-contained bands form and hit the gig circuit playing Pop, Show and Folk tunes i.e. covers?

 

One can imagine live performance prior to a countless number of artists, bands, original songs and major amplification from the 60s to present.

 

Still, it would be good to get a real world perspective from those in the know. Providing that anybody here remembers that era. :laugh::cool:

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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I would imagine most trained musos were in theater productions and big bands. Sight reading a necessity, lot of work for brass and woodwinds. In the heyday of 40's-50's Broadway musicals and 30's-40's swing there must have been a HUGE need for live music.

 

Think about it, no internet, no DJ's, Radio was barely at its beginnings, most people didn't own hifi systems. If you wanted to hear music, you needed go see it performed.

 

There must have also been a plethora of jazz clubs for small combos as well, although I can't imagine an un-amped upright bass and piano being heard in a crowded and noisy bar. They must of only been hearing the sax and drums.

 

Ian Benhamou

Keyboards/Guitar/Vocals

 

[url:https://www.facebook.com/OfficialTheMusicalBox/]The Musical Box[/url]

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I started to type non-Jazz musos since they definitely had gig opportunities. Same goes for the trained musos.

 

Yet, I wonder if musos who couldn't sight-read music still formed bands and had places to play. :cool:

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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My father worked as a projectionist probably back in the 1930's and told me they would have a piano player as the background music during the film.

No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message.

 

In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments.

 

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Prior to rock n roll there was still plenty of music gigs...in fact more gigs and much better paying ones. In the 30's, 40's and early 50's the big bands with up to 20 musicians or more were in their heyday drawing big crowds and making big money. They played clubs and dance halls and private parties, pretty much just like today, only they played and got union scale or better and scale then was a living wage. And get this...the Musicians Union used to put a "number" on every venue that had live music...that number was the minimum number of union musicians that could play the venue. If you wanted to hire a 10 piece band and the union minimum for the venue was 15 players you paid the band their price and then paid the union for 5 musicians who did not play. In those days if you did not belong to the union the venue would not book you or rent to you if you wanted to promote your own gigs...if they did the union would put them on the unfair list and have guys picketing in front of the venue...so the owners went along with the union program. Things pretty much stayed the same even when the early rockers and blues bands came along in the mid to late 50s. It really wasn't until The Beatles that every kid in the world wanted to start a band and be a star. And when that happened the union lost control because they did not understand rock n roll and and looked at the rockers with disdain since most were not trained musicians. The young kids said "screw the union" and started playing for free or for whatever money they could get and that is when the price of live music started getting real cheap. Plus the advent of the disc jockey/karaoke/disco craze just drove the price for live music down even more as many people could hire a DJ for much less than a band..and get any kind of music they wanted for their parties or venues. I think if you asked any of the old time musicians they would tell you that for the average guy things were way better.
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I think if you asked any of the old time musicians they would tell you that for the average guy things were way better.

 

I'm 59 and some might think that not so old. When I was 17 I was playing with guys in their 40's and 50's and we worked just about every weekend. Not only was there more work, you had to to be a good musician just to get through the job. Those guys would call out tunes and you had to know them ... and the key they were in. I'm afraid those days are over.

 

I supported a wife and two kids and went to school while just playing nights in a trio. I probably lived and worked like that for a year and a half or so. It was a very long time ago. I can't imagine doing that today.

 

No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message.

 

In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments.

 

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I played in a popular 5 piece regional rock band back in the early 60s and we never worked local gigs for less than $250 and if we traveled the price was $500 or more plus rooms, etc. When you consider inflation those prices probably would be more like $1500 to $3000 in todays dollars, maybe more. We were doing around 100 gigs a year and the guys in the band also had other jobs or were going to college as we never planned to make music our fulltime careers. When we finally "retired" the band in 1968 everyone went on to their real careers of engineering, sales, small business owner, etc. Two of us still play gigs today partime for fun and profit, the others never picked up an instument after the band ended.
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