Sharing Charts / Arrangements With Your Replacement

[Cabo]

This has come up a few times for me -- and I'm wondering how others have handled it?

 

I'm going to be leaving a band and I get a request to share my charts / arrangements with the replacement.  I'm NOT talking about simple lead sheets (lyrics + chords), but rather written out arrangements I created myself with keyboard parts notated and detailed solos.  How would you handle?

[Stokely]

I haven't been in that situation--bands I've left were generally falling apart anyway--but the main thing is, I've never gotten anyone to get excited about my charts, which I've offered up and shared with members of every band I've been in.  Granted, those were not keyboard players but they still had some useful things, like how many measures for the bridge, where any stops are etc.   My charts are not nearly  as detailed as yours though.

Anyway, I guess I'd share....it's not like sharing means I can't continue to use them    My charts begin life as google docs so sharing is simple--if yours are handwritten then I think the onus would be on the share-ee to copy them.   If there's any bad blood in your leaving, I might not hand them over though.

As the incoming person, I'd want to come up with my own parts in any case--making my charts really helps me learn the songs initially-- though notes of any custom arrangements of songs would be handy.

[SteveNathan]

If leaving the band was your choice, refusing to help your replacement looks petty & selfish. If you were fired, refusing to help out the new guy looks petty & selfish. 

[BluMunk]

If I was feeling one with humanity I would share them. Maybe. Probably.

 

However, if the band was a real money-making endeavor, I might consider offering the charts to the band for a fee. 

 

I also might consider that if my arrangements were truly unique and part of the 'special sauce' I bring to a band, I might feel resistant to helping other people sound just like me. Notated solos you say? I'm all for us all being in this music thing together, but that just feels off somehow. I highly doubt that guitar players would look to their predecessor in a band to give them instructions on how to solo over specific songs. Maybe. 

 

I may be overly negative on this, but in a world where every musical sub-task seems to be an avenue for revenue for someone, handing a book of my own hard-worked charts over to someone for free just because they're playing in a band I used to play with feels like I'm being taken advantage of. 

 

That said, in my corner of the musical world I've been providing at zero cost laptops and audio interfaces and tech support and hands-on instruction for fellow pit musicians who haven't decided to learn how to use or invest in Mainstage yet (and they probably never will). It's easy to start to feel like other people are finding success on the back of your own unpaid labor and good will. But also, what does it matter? It doesn't detract from my success, though it does make each show a heavier lift for me.

 

... kind of rambly, but my tl;dr is: you're being asked for unpaid labor. You are welcome to give it, but you should resist the pressure to feel like you are a bad person for not giving it.

[eric]

I like BluMunk's answer and if I was in the same situation, my reaction would depend on the dynamics of the band and my departure. I'd most likely be ok with sharing unless there was any drama or bad feelings involved...or if the replacement player was really unprepared and my charts would be doing all their work for them. It's a slippery slope.

 

It kind of reminds me of sharing programs for keyboards, which I've done on various forums (mostly Nord) for many years...which is in a way me doing free work for others...while some people monetize the heck out of custom programs. I think I'll start a separate thread on this topic!

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

If I was fired, there's no way I'd share them.  That's their problem, not mine.

[16251]

Most of wedding/general business bands which I made a living at were run by people that never valued the work I did at home gathering the 45's, transcribing, etc. (this was before computers,) never gave me charts when I joined and always nickel and dimed me for ceremonies/cocktail hour pay. Anyway, one time this band I was in for over 10 years had two female vocalists, after one left the other got her friend in the band and a power struggle between them and the leader resulted in me getting fired.  The leader asked me to stay until end of month and help new keyboard player learn tunes. I of course quit immediately with my charts. Certainly don't think I was selfish.

[Delaware Dave]

I know of a situation in a pink floyd tribute band where the kb had all the sound effect samples in a roland 404 format and shared them with the next kb player.  It would have been lots of work if the next player had to recreate all of those sound effects.

 

If i were fired i would not share; if i left i would.  Imagine being at a career job and you got fired, then the company calls you months later to help out your replacement, you might not have found a new job yet.  How receptive would you be to helping out the old company that fired you?

[Stokely]

Not very.   I would give them my (very high) hourly rate for contracting along with a minimum number of hours and a stipulation that I get paid up front.    

But that's pretty much the key--if they let me know, especially for nothing rotten I did, they get nothing.   If I left, I'd pass along knowledge.

[MAJUSCULE]

I'm all for giving tip and tricks and even meeting up in person for a session to go over some things. The charts are the bandleader's responsibility; if I had to chart things out myself, I'm not sure I'd want to hand them over for free. I don't look at it as being petty towards the new player, I look at it as holding the bandleader accountable for the things they should be taking care of.

 

For context, I would only be charting something out if it was complex and therefore would take me some time and energy on my part. If it's a simple tune I rarely chart things out and would just be surprised the new player would need a chart for a three chord song.

[JoJoB3]

3 hours ago, SteveNathan said:

If leaving the band was your choice, refusing to help your replacement looks petty & selfish. If you were fired, refusing to help out the new guy looks petty & selfish. 

Must disagree.  No matter how it was severed It's not his job to then provide the time and materials to educate a replacement that should know how to do the work to become his own player with the music and band.  In fact it's better for the new person to do this work. It's nothing personal it's just what is.

[Iconoclast]

Turn this question around:

If you were replacing someone in a band and the former keyboard player provided you with his own transcriptions of the music, and his own programs and samples, would you EXPECT to get that for FREE?

Or would you do him a solid and pay him for his effort and for making your life so much easier.

(Pretty obvious where I fall in this argument)

[Piktor]

Be judicious. There are times when generosity doesn’t hurt the generous, but sometimes it can bite you in the ass. 
 

When I left teaching (at the same school for over thirty years), I made sure that everything was left in order. I met with my replacement to let him know where all of the bodies were buried and also left my contact information so that he could call me at anytime. I wished him success. On the school’s common drive, I left all the teaching materials that I had spent hours and hours and hours creating and refining. I did not leave my original jazz combo pieces. The reward for that was just the feeling that I had done my best to look after the interests of my former colleagues and students that I cared about. Good enough for me. 

When I was young, I had a situation where I was leaving one band for another that had a more steady working schedule. Because I had not left a lot of lead time and did not want to leave my bros in the lurch, I took pains to write several charts (Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, etc. tunes) before I left. It turned out thatI should have checked. The new guy wasn’t much of a reader. 
 

Sometimes, when there was limited rehearsal time, I would write charts as I learned tunes in order to get myself together quickly. When I was young and naive, I got myself into a gig with some less than congenial folks who turned out to be more mercenary than I had realized. When the band leader noticed my charts he asked if he could borrow them and photocopy them. Stupidly, maybe in hopes of ingratiating myself a bit, I agreed. Soon after (to only MY surprise), with my charts in hand, the band leader replaced me with one of his friends. Lesson learned. 

 

I usually have no problem helping out my friends or other people who have treated me respectfully. Up to a point, I’d rather be generous and considered easy to work with in the future. However, regarding providing your efforts for others’ profit, I would consider each individual situation carefully. As Majuscule suggested, think about how much does a replacement really need, or even want? Have the musicians that you are leaving previously extended consideration or generosity? Is there a chance that they might use you again or recommend you to someone else? In some circumstances, I would think that asking for even a token fee for your extra work is not out of line. 

[MathOfInsects]

If someone is subbing for me, and I'm the reason they are needed, I will give them everything I have.

If a BL is using my (sometimes hours and hours of) time to sweeten the deal for someone else or save him-/herself time and/or money, I'm usually leaning no on that. That's a service we'd be paid for under any other circumstance.

If a BL is using someone to sub for another instrument, like bass or guitar, and those people are friends of mine, they can have my charts for sure. Same deal, though: if it's a random sub in that other chair, I'm not in a big rush to give up all that work for free. In most cases I was likely a sub first, too, and making those charts was the cost of my audition. It's one of the couple of areas that I feel that way about. If you, random sub, don't have time to make the charts, and you, Bandleader don't have time to have them made, how is that up to my sunk cost time to pay for?

 

 

[zephonic]

5 hours ago, Cabo said:

This has come up a few times for me -- and I'm wondering how others have handled it?

 

I'm going to be leaving a band and I get a request to share my charts / arrangements with the replacement.  I'm NOT talking about simple lead sheets (lyrics + chords), but rather written out arrangements I created myself with keyboard parts notated and detailed solos.  How would you handle?

 

Not for replacements but for subs, I have sold my charts to two tribute bands at $150 each.

[ProfD]

Only give away that which you can afford to give without any type of reward on the front or back end.  Let conscience be your guide.😎

[Brad Kaenel]

4 hours ago, SteveNathan said:

If leaving the band was your choice, refusing to help your replacement looks petty & selfish. If you were fired, refusing to help out the new guy looks petty & selfish. 

Bands are often not run like businesses, I get that.  But as a software developer, for example, everything I create for the business belongs to the business, not to me.  Even if I get fired, I have no claim to my source code.  I'm with Steve on this one; my advice is graciousness to your successor.  You *did* get paid for your work, yes?

[jerrythek]

7 minutes ago, Brad Kaenel said:

Bands are often not run like businesses, I get that.  But as a software developer, for example, everything I create for the business belongs to the business, not to me.  Even if I get fired, I have no claim to my source code. 

I don't think this is an apples to apples comparison. In your software gig, everything you did was done on company time. Of course they should own the results. But for a band, no one is covering the often significant time you spent to chart the tunes, learn them etc. Yes, your gigs will somewhat pay you back, but considering the often poor pay for gigs, it takes a long time to earn back the hours you have invested. If I were fired I would feel no obligation to share my "assets" (charts, sounds etc) with the bandleader, for example. It's not like he paid you for your time to do the work in the first place, right?

 

If the person coming in was a friend of mine I might share them, or give them a steeply discounted price. other than that, I say go do the work that I had to do for yourself.

[Delaware Dave]

1 hour ago, MAJUSCULE said:

I'm all for giving tip and tricks and even meeting up in person for a session to go over some things. The charts are the bandleader's responsibility; if I had to chart things out myself, I'm not sure I'd want to hand them over for free. I don't look at it as being petty towards the new player, I look at it as holding the bandleader accountable for the things they should be taking care of.

 

For context, I would only be charting something out if it was complex and therefore would take me some time and energy on my part. If it's a simple tune I rarely chart things out and would just be surprised the new player would need a chart for a three chord song.

 

Slightly disagree here. I dont think it is the bandleaders responsibility to chart out every musicians chart. the piano parts can be significantly different than the horn players parts.  I believe it is the players responsibility to know their parts. I probably have close to 1000 songs in my repetoire, having played in about 30 bands or more over the years, and i have zero charts. Everything is memorized from repetitive practicing/learning the songs.  I have a photographic memory with music for some reason.  I charted out the "pick up the pieces" horn lead about 30 years ago and then memorized the lead. 6 months ago we decided in a practice to do the song and the guitar player asked if i was comfortable learning the lead. I told him i knew it already; we decided to try the song and i nailed the lead (on my keys using a sax patch) after not having played it for 30 years. He asked me how i remembered it, i said "I don't know" ....

[Brad Kaenel]

18 minutes ago, jerrythek said:

I don't think this is an apples to apples comparison. In your software gig, everything you did was done on company time. Of course they should own the results. But for a band, no one is covering the often significant time you spent to chart the tunes, learn them etc. Yes, your gigs will somewhat pay you back, but considering the often poor pay for gigs, it takes a long time to earn back the hours you have invested. If I were fired I would feel no obligation to share my "assets" (charts, sounds etc) with the bandleader, for example. It's not like he paid you for your time to do the work in the first place, right?

 

If the person coming in was a friend of mine I might share them, or give them a steeply discounted price. other than that, I say go do the work that I had to do for yourself.

OK, I can see that, you're right. On the other hand, if I wrote a tool on my own time and used it during work time to make my job easier, do I give that tool to my successor, or say "go write your own tool"? Does the tool belong to me? Yah, it probably does -- but I probably also over-value it because *I* wrote it. I would still give it to the new guy, and who knows? -- he might not even use it, or need it.

[CHarrell]

Lots of great answers here touching on the sometimes complex nuances of band dynamics. When I left my last band, I had the spirit of really wanting to see it progress and thrive past my own individual involvement, so I felt like my tunes and arrangements--which frankly were a bedrock of the band's musical personality--were all open for them to use. From there, it'd be incumbent upon them to establish a musical identity of their own that moves past the mark I left.

 

The only thing I asked is that the bandleader continually sends me their setlists and performances, so I can log those with ASCAP and get royalties for the original tunes that I wrote (with the spillover effect of the original writers of cover tunes getting royalties too, since I report the entire setlist).

[SteveNathan]

Word of the day is magnanimous 😏

 

[ElmerJFudd]

Hmm, yeah I get it.  The charts took you time and effort.  The replacement walks in a benefits from your work.  I wouldn’t think twice about leaving them for a sub if I wasn’t able to make a date.  If it’s your choice and you’re not being let go, help them all out by getting the new guy up to speed quickly. 

[RABid]

The only time I had more than just a set list with a few chords written for each song is when I did a LOT of MIDI programming to cover drum, bass, and extra synth parts. If I was being replaced I would not just hand that over to the next person. That took a lot of hours of extra work that no one else had to do. If you did not pay me for all the extra time I put in, don't expect me to hand it over for free.

[zephonic]

4 hours ago, MAJUSCULE said:

For context, I would only be charting something out if it was complex and therefore would take me some time and energy on my part. If it's a simple tune I rarely chart things out and would just be surprised the new player would need a chart for a three chord song.

 

That makes sense.

 

But frankly, these days I chart out even simple tunes because I just forget what is what. Bandleader calls out a tune and I can't remember which one that is, especially if it is simple and sounds a lot like other songs, and was part of a whole bunch of new tunes I had to learn. Like 'Sugar' (Maroon 5), I just have a four bar chord chart to remind me what it is, and it what key.

 

So a lot of these are not actual charts, the songs don't require that, but the music equivalent of sticky notes, I guess.

[b3plyr]

7 hours ago, SteveNathan said:

If leaving the band was your choice, refusing to help your replacement looks petty & selfish. If you were fired, refusing to help out the new guy looks petty & selfish. 

Absolutely agree with this. Refusing is like leaving a job and failing to help train your replacement. Good advice, Steve.

[obxa]

 

2 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

 I wouldn’t think twice about leaving them for a sub if I wasn’t able to make a date.

 

I think sometimes your rep is everything.  Had that situation:  got Covid two days before a slew of gigs.  Nice theaters & concert series with a  younger artist who does half originals and Garcia/Dead stuff.   The Dead stuff was not something I usually do (or listen to..) so had it and  his stuff charted full hog in Finale.  They didn't ask, but sent everything to the guy who covered for me.  He already knew a bunch of the Dead stuff, but not the originals.  He was super appreciative.  Would of liked to have been compensated, but felt greater need to not screw over the artist.  That guy who covered for me has since sent some nice referrals and has  been a good contact.  Artist has continued to call for more gigs.  So that was the right thing to do.

 

On the other side-do fair amount of gigs in Legacy/Oldies circuit,  which are notorious for using pickup bands, and having horrible charts.  Couple of resident MDs have asked if they could have my charts.  Feels dickish,  but unless artist asks personally - usually just say they're for sale.   When I'm MD- feel it's part of the job to make sure band is set up for success, including making sure charts are good.

[Reezekeys]

I'm with Chris - there's some gray area here. A lot depends on the situation, the bandleader, the person who will use your charts, etc. The ability to transcribe, then distill a song into a compact, clear, consise, and correct chart is a valuable skill that many other musicians may not have. Generally these kinds of charts can take time to do. If you're the person using these charts, it's valuable in that it saves you time - all you have to do to play the song is read the chart - no "learning it."

 

I've done some chord charts for loose jazz-type gigs and handed out copies to the players for them to keep (or toss after the gig!). I also did all my charts for my old wedding band (just the keyboard parts I mean) because part of the deal of being in the band was being responsible for maintaining our individual books, in case we needed to sub the gig. After a change in leadership I got fired from that band (the new leader wanted his buddy in the chair - I found out by going to the band website and seeing his picture instead of mine!). You better believe I didn't hand over my book - with probably a few hundred hand-written charts I did over a period of at least 15 years – to someone who I had worked with for years, who did that to me!

[jerrythek]

4 hours ago, Brad Kaenel said:

... if I wrote a tool on my own time and used it during work time to make my job easier, do I give that tool to my successor, or say "go write your own tool"? Does the tool belong to me? Yah, it probably does -- but I probably also over-value it because *I* wrote it. I would still give it to the new guy, and who knows? -- he might not even use it, or need it.

If it were on your own time, it's yours to do what you want with it.

[Rodan88]

Greeting from NYC, folks.  The below pertains to professionals; if you're more of a hobbyist, whatever.  But......

 

You're talking about my religion here.  We make our living as musicians, and our work has value.

 

In my very strong opinion - the charts are: 1) The fruit of hard labor on your part, as well as 2) highly-developed computer notation skills (I presume.)

 

They're also 3) the product of deeply caring about the gig, your band and your own performance.

 

My charts fit all 3 criteria above, and custom-writing charts for others is a significant part of my income.

 

As far as writing charts for my own freelance gigs - I do what needs to be done, without having to be asked.  This might be in a situation where I'm subbing once for a band that I might never play with again.  This can possibly be - and often has been - a ton of work.  We all know people who get by with none of the above - with varying levels of success.  However, I accepted the gig, and just because the bandleader and/or musician I'm subbing for have been too shortsighted  - and ignorant - and lazy - AND CHEAP -to realize that, above all, high-quality charts aren't for the guy that already knows the book - they're for subs, new hires and emergency situations - notwithstanding that, I do the work.  I know - having a work ethic is almost unheard of these days, but that's what a professional does.  (Of course, I don't accept every gig, and it makes sense for all of us to turn something down if it seems like a chartless trainwreck-to-be.)

 

By the way - clean, accurate charts (which in most cases don't have to be extremely complicated, and don't require covering the page in flyshit) also come in handy when going out of town, hiring local musicians etc.  Get some good readers/players, and watch how smooth and quick the rehearsal process is.  Don't do that, and face the consequences.  There's nothing worse than wasting time in rehearsals deciphering shitty charts.  Henry Mancini could rehearse a 75-minute symphony show in 40 minutes.  Sure, Hank had excellent readers at his disposal, not to mention top-tier arrangements and copywork..  But excellent readers can't overcome low-quality charts.  And if the charts DO require flyshit, put on your grownup pants, buy some more toner for your printer, and get writing, kids.

 

So, guess  which side of the argument I fall on folks?  Your work has great value, even if others don't respect it.  Sell it for an appropriate price (if you wish).  Do not undercharge.

 

For those who think I'm the reincarnation of the Grinch (wait, I think he's still alive) - of course, to get through a gig, I'm happy to let someone read over my shoulder.  But GIVE THE CHARTS AWAY?  No way.  People think nothing of asking me to give them not a single chart, but their band's whole book, etc.  Clueless.  I abhor musical laziness.

 

2 more points:

 

1) My son, an up-and-coming keyboardist on the scene here, gets anything he wants, of course.  But he's been well-trained to not share the wealth.

 

2) In this day and age, when letting anything escape from your control means it will crisscross the internet/world instantly, it's even more foolish to give your work away.

 

I feel better now.  Maybe this weekend, they'll let me leave the asylum.