27 tips from a professional musician

A 10 lbs capo...
That would be one heavy capo. :P
Jk. ;)

👍

PAT testing is a UK thing. The reason for PAT goes all the way back to the war and is due to outdated electrical wiring in older british houses.

Thank you. Really useful info.

How do you know when you have enough skill to play music professionally?

Bass player here - the stinking little dot on the Boss tuner has victimized me as well 😠. The lighting was such that I couldn't see the dot 🤦


I'm learning a great deal about theory, song structures, and, now, professionalism. Great content

Just be a multi-instrumentalist, bro! What a tip 😂 I mean you're probably not wrong that it helps, but what an ask!

Guitarist here-
1. Put your alt tunings on backup guitars.
2. Go simple on the pedalboard and mark your settings.
3. If analogue, buy a compact digital modeler that can go DI.
4. Practice with broken e/B strings, a dropped pick, mistakes, etc. Be adaptable.
5. Get a volume pedal! And boost pedals.
6. Learn to sing songs later in your set in case singer loses voice. Choose easy songs and singalongs so audience can help. They will understand.
7. Learn all of your ‘solo’ intros to hi- hat taps.
8. If you screw up… laugh and move on.

I'm generally sceptical when a function/wedding musician gives advice which is going to invariably consumed by young kid who actually want to be the next Nirvana or Taylor Swift, and i'm definitely more worried if the kid in question wants to be the next Stooges or Black Flag, etc. because the worlds are so, so far apart that this isn't going to be helpful.

But about 90% of this (definitely excluding the christmas and new years eve stuff) is transferrable.

Love that shirt!!!!!!!!!! Would ❤️ to know where you bought it!

How do you deal with the earplug situation if you are a singer? Is it just unavoidable getting tinnitus if you need to hear your voice when singing?

This is spot on. I've been gigging on and off for 20 years. One thing I would add is smile, look like your having fun playing. Especially for birthdays, weddings, corprate gig they don't want to see you looking at your feet or frowning. The sleeper hardest this on this list is having a showreel as I can't stand to watch/listen to my own playing. I know it's totally a personal issue it's the same as not liking the sound of your own voice.

drink beer

#1 tip from a hack like myself is .....deodorant 😂

I'd like to see someone play the piano 🎹 and guitar 🎸


at the same time!

Regarding earplugs, I recently found out that some wireless earbuds have a "pass through" feature which uses the earbuds' external microphones to play external audio into your ears.

The pass through feature on my earbuds (Sony wf1000xm4) allows you to reduce the volume coming into your ears - effectively turning the earbuds into earplugs where you can keep the sound quality of unplugged ears, but at a much lower, safer volume. I'd highly recommend this to anyone who's regularly exposed to loud music and who still wants to maintain the music quality whilst protecting their hearing.

27 my fav number

I had the exact same issue with the Boss tuner, I tuned to open G , or so I thought, and I started the song alone....lets just say it abruptly ended after the worst sounding song intro ever

I got a ad with you in it while watching a video with you in it

All very relatable! Wonderwall and one Ed Sheeran numbers are essential for Irish pub gigs for some reason. I play guitar and the hardest shows are the background gigs but they haven't told you before. I'm fine with being background music if that's my job but coming with one expectation and having a different reality presented just throws me off somehow

Know if your pickup has phantom power or not. Apparently it gives sound peeps issues. Have a gig book that you can pull out and play at a moments notice, with different instrumental arrangements. The music for X people is a good resource. Have ear plugs, extra strings (for stringed instruments), pencils, spare bow, etc. Be ready for instrument/equipment failures. Be prepared for outside gigs. They can wreak havoc on your instrument tuning or your bow tension.

Such vast experience distilled into less than 18 minutes. Amazing video, thank-you!

A true guitarist don't need a capo 😝

Great tips, thank you!

best advice😊

12) practice until you can't get it wrong: I've been beating myself because of this. I only play the guitar, it's been 4 years, and I still can't play anything without missing. I still miss the string with my fingers in chords and tapping. It's not common for me to play the wrong frets, but to make a ton of mechanical mistakes in my own songs is what makes me think that I'm much worse than I should be.

It would be good to make a video about taking the next step out of playing in your bedroom and to get in front of people or other musicians. I've played guitar for years but just can't seem to make that next step.

“Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.”

As a professional musican doing work like this, all of this is true, it's an amazing video.

Another tip is to know your worth. Make sure you're charging enough for each gig and you're not selling yourself short. Far too many musicans will do a bar gig for £60 and it ruins the industry for everyone as it teaches venues that they can get away with bad fees.

What does 4 time income mean?

As a longtime rock musician, a lot of this advice doesn’t really apply to me lol.

The little snippet of Taxman at tip 25 is genius

Wear hearing protection! This is the most important point! Human hearing is the most fragile sensory organ of all. Even loud music and musical instruments can damage your hearing forever! It's a shame that most music schools and music lessons don't educate students about the danger! There is a risk of hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). As if that wasn't bad enough, human hearing is the most neglected and ignored sensory organ in medical research. Audiology and otology have made zero progress in recent decades. Given the current circumstances, it is unlikely that we will have a cure within the next years or decades. So protect your hearing at all costs!

I finished the video before I realized he wasn’t a just cap enthusiast while also calling me a hoe

The transpose button thing is so relatable, I was playing a gig for school of rock and I play Ab when the whole band is playing F sharp, and I’m like “oh shit I forgot we’re playing this song 2 semitones lower than the original”

Really good advice and I can resonate with all of these tips! I was particularly interested to see the standard songs that get requested in the UK (assuming you are British) - as an Australian I've played all of those band standards except for 'Hey Ya' which has never come up,

The big requests in Oz are 'The Horses' Darryl Braithwaite, 'Khe Sahn' - Jimmy Barnes, 'The Gambler' Kenny Rogers and anything by ACDC 😂

So many requests for 'pianoman' as a soloist!!

These are GREAT pieces of advice and wisdom, David, and I love how you bring your personal experiences and your personality into this. Your list reminds me in many ways of how whenever I go on hikes (which I love to do—I live in New England, the northeastern-most six states of the U.S., and there are so many great hiking spots in this region) with people, especially if they are new to hiking, I bring extra bars (protein, granola, etc.), water, and rain ponchos in my backpack. Invariably, at least one person has forgotten some or all those. Not much extra effort on my part to help make sure everyone is safe and taken care of.
Same with fellow musicians. Having a few spare things ready to share when needed, etc.

Should’ve titles “tips for gig musician”

I just got a David Bennett ad for a David Bennett video

Nice video, thanks for sharing your experience!

Quarter (not even semi)-pro musician, and these are all great tips. One other thing I did that helped tremendously was create my gig bag and a laminated printed A4 sheet of paper, with a marker, listing the gear that needed to be in there, so I could check it off before and after and know I haven't left any adapters, plugs, cords, pedals etc, anywhere. Also, don't ever be late. Best advice I got was be earlier than you think, so that you can relax and feel the energy of the place you are playing at and have a chance to gauge the sound and set-up. I played so many outside gigs where I found the perfect/ideal spot, both visually and sound-wise, because I could look around and was not rushed to set-up.

Related to the transpose button: I'm not a pro at the slightest, hardly even an amateur, but for a while, a digital keyboard I have at home and sometimes play, played 2 semitones lower than it should. I didn't realize it for weeks until I tried playing along with some recordings and realized the songs are apparently in different keys to what I'm used to. The transpose option was at 0. So what was going on? Turned out that the internal connection to the pitch bend wheel broke and the instrument behaved as if it was stuck at the bottom ;x

The thumbnail made my dyslexic brain think the video was “27 Tips for a Pedestrian Musician”

First aid kit with a pain killer, immodium and a decongestant just in case.

Very important, about #25: this might vary from country to country.
Here in Italy I risked a huge fine because here you have to declare your total income, without removing your expenses.

It sounds absurd, but that's how it is, unless you want to go through a real nightmare, which is to literally fight the state itself with a very good lawyer and you have every single bit of information possible of ALL of the income and expenses and then you MIGHT get away with it (I luckily did it).

My personal advice: do not bother risking it, it's not worth it.
Just declare your whole income without expenses and be done with it.
And, most important, always check with your local authority to make sure of what you have to declare and what not.

One tip from me even though I'm hardly a musician, but a karaoke host but still applies:
(Especially) if you're going to be playing simultaneously with other people in a venue, contact the main sound guys!
What I mean is, I was in this huuuge company party with like 2000 people, and there was the main stage with popular pop singers/bands & their full production and I was playing karaoke in other similiar size room with my one-man production. Obviously my gear could barely keep up when they were playing, but I'm soooo glad I managed to ask for like 10 minutes to do my soundchecks and PA calibration.
When I was doing it, about 5 minutes before showtime a soundguy runs to me and asks if I have wireless microphones. Yep, my microphones were overriding couple of theirs (same bandwidth and they had like 28 mics) so my karaoke would have blasted to the full audience in the other room.
A moment later he returned to me with info of their frequencies, compared them to what my model can choose from and told me which channels to use, and we were good to go.

TL;DR Wireless microphone receivers may pick up other mics (or even radiostations!) with same hz, especially when main mics are powered off, so make sure you're the only one on the frequency!

didnt know there were places people sang stuff at new years

GR8 GR8 LIST AND VIDEO...FANTASTIC...LET ME ADD A FEW THINGS :
IF YOU ARE A GUITARIST AND USE PICKS, BE SURE TO HAVE TONS...
IF YOU EAT OUTSIDE ( AT A RESTAURANT ) ALWAYS PAY FIRST AND TIP WELL...
ALWAYS USE AN AGENDA AND CALENDAR...WRITE EVERYONE'S PHONE NUMBERS...DO NOT USE CHEAP NAPKINS TO TAKE NOTES...IT IS NOT WHAT A PROFESSIONAL SHOULD DO...
REMEMBER BIRTHDAYS AND ALWAYS GIVE GIFTS...THAT'S A BIG MUST...
ATTORNEY...ANOTHER MUST HAVE...ALWAYS WORK WITH A GOOD ATTORNEY AND HAVE YOUR WORKS PROTECTED...GOOD LUCK...

If you’re playing Happy Birthday at an event, what key do you play in? Is it a key you chose for your convenience or because it works well with average crowds’ voices?