Module 15: Professional skillsLesson 5professional⏱ 90 min + an hour of admin a week

The business of music

Set rates, agree terms in writing, invoice and get paid, keep the records a tax authority expects, promote yourself without embarrassment, behave like a professional, and understand what unions and rights organisations do for you, in general terms that apply in any country.

Why the admin is part of the job

A freelance musician is a small business whether they like it or not. The business has one product (you), several customers (venues, leaders, clients, students, publishers), and all the obligations of any other trade: quoting, contracting, invoicing, record-keeping, tax, insurance and marketing. Players who ignore this do not escape it; they simply do it badly, get paid late, lose work to people who answer emails, and get a shock at tax time. The good news is that the admin of a musician's business fits in an hour a week once it is set up. This lesson sets it up.

Everything here is general practice that applies broadly. Rules, rates, tax thresholds and the names of organisations differ by country and change over time; where a decision has legal or tax consequences, confirm the specifics for your country with an accountant, your union or the relevant authority. That is not a disclaimer; it is step one of the process.

Rates

What to charge

There is no universal rate. There is a local going rate for each kind of work (a jazz club trio gig, a wedding, a corporate function, a theatre show, a recording session, an hour of teaching, a chart), and your job is to find it and position yourself within it. Sources: your union's published minimums or recommendations, other professionals (ask directly; most will tell you), and the fees you are offered by leaders who hire regularly. Start at the going rate for your experience and raise it as your calendar fills; a full diary is the signal to raise prices, an empty one is the signal to improve, not to discount.

Quote per engagement with everything included unless the client wants a breakdown. A quote for a wedding covers the performance, the travel, the set-up and soundcheck time, the waiting around (a four-hour call for one hour of music is a four-hour job), the gear, the preparation of special requests and the admin. Clients compare the total; what matters is that you know what is inside it.

Charge extra for what costs you extra: travel beyond a set radius, overnight stays, learning a book of unfamiliar material, extra sets, providing a PA, late finishes, short-notice bookings, and anything that keeps you from taking another booking (a two-hour afternoon rehearsal on a Saturday is a cancelled Saturday gig).

Deposits and cancellation

For private clients (weddings, parties), take a deposit at booking (a fixed sum or a percentage), non-refundable, with the balance due before or on the day. Write a cancellation scale into the terms: full refund of the balance beyond a certain notice period, partial inside it, nothing inside a short window. For bandleaders and venues, the convention is usually trust plus a short written confirmation; but confirm every gig in writing (an email with date, time, venue, fee, dress and line-up is enough) and keep the message.

Contracts and agreements

A contract is not a weapon; it is a shared memory. The simplest usable agreement for a gig is a one-page confirmation that states:

• the parties (who is hiring, who is playing),
• the date, the call time, the start and finish times, the number and length of sets,
• the venue and any access or parking details,
• the fee, the deposit, when the balance is due, and how it is paid,
• what is included (PA, lighting, travel, learning requests) and what is not,
• the cancellation terms for both sides,
• any specifics: dress, break arrangements, meal, a safe place for gear, who provides the backline.

For bigger engagements (residencies, tours, recordings, commissions, teaching for an institution) use a proper contract, and read it before signing: who owns the recording, whether you are being paid a fee or a share, whether exclusivity is being asked for, what happens if the event is cancelled by circumstances beyond anyone's control. If a contract has terms you do not understand, ask the union or a lawyer. Never sign away rights to your own compositions or recordings in exchange for a gig fee; those are separate transactions.

As a bandleader you are the contracting party for your players. Pay them what you agreed, on the day or within the week, whether or not the client has paid you. Your reputation with musicians is the only thing that gets a band together on a Tuesday night in winter.

Invoicing and getting paid

An invoice is a request for money with enough information that the client's accounts person can pay it without emailing you. It contains: your name and business name, address and contact details, any tax or business registration number your country requires; the client's name and address; a unique invoice number; the date; a description of the service ("Jazz trio, cocktail hour and dinner, 14 June, 18:00–22:00"); the fee, any tax that must be added or shown, and the total; the payment terms (due date); and your bank or payment details. Send it as a PDF, the day after the engagement or with the confirmation if payment is in advance.

Habits that make you get paid:

• Number invoices sequentially and keep a list with status (sent, paid, overdue).
• Chase politely at the due date and again a week later. Most late payment is forgetfulness; a short reminder with the invoice attached fixes it.
• Know who pays. For corporate events it is often an agency or the company's accounts department, not the person who booked you. Ask at booking.
• Keep the record. Every invoice, every payment received, every receipt for a business expense, filed by year. A spreadsheet is enough to begin with; a simple accounting app is better and usually produces your tax figures automatically.

Tax basics

In nearly every country, income from playing, teaching and writing is taxable, and a self-employed musician is responsible for declaring it. The general shape of the obligations:

• Register as self-employed (or as a sole trader, freelancer or equivalent) when required, and learn whether and when you must register for sales or value-added tax; the threshold and the rules are specific to your country.
• Keep records of all income (invoices, cash, teaching fees, royalties, streaming) and of all expenses that are legitimately for the business: instruments and gear, strings and repairs, travel to engagements, a proportion of home costs if you teach or write there, software, lessons you take, professional memberships, promotion. Keep the receipts.
• Put money aside for tax from every payment: a fixed percentage into a separate account, so that the tax bill is already paid when it arrives. This single habit separates musicians who are solvent from those who are not.
• File on time. Late filing penalties are pure waste.
• Use an accountant who works with musicians or other freelancers, at least in the first year and whenever your situation changes (a big year, work abroad, a company structure, royalties). The fee is itself an expense, and a good accountant typically saves more than they cost.

If you work in more than one country, or receive royalties from abroad, the rules get complicated quickly (withholding, double taxation treaties, currency). That is precisely when to pay for advice rather than guess.

Promotion and networking

Promotion for a working musician is the quiet, continuous work of making it easy for people to find you, trust you and book you. In jazz the most effective promotion is still word of mouth from other musicians: the leaders and players who hire you because you played well, were easy to work with and turned up on time. The rest supports that.

• A one-page biography in three lengths (fifty words, a hundred and fifty, three hundred), in the third person, with what you do, who you have worked with, where you are based, and what you offer (trio for events, duo for restaurants, lessons). Keep it current.
• Photographs that look like you on a gig, not like a stock image: a good headshot and a live shot, both high resolution. Pay a photographer once.
• Audio and video: two or three short clips (one to two minutes) of you playing the kind of music clients book, well recorded, with the band sounding good. A live function clip sells more function gigs than a studio recording of your original music. The four-bar example below is the sort of thing a demo clip should contain in its first ten seconds: time, a clear sound, chords and a line, no warm-up.
• A web presence (next section).
• Direct relationships: venues, agencies, event planners, hotels, wedding coordinators, schools, other bandleaders. A short, polite email with your one-paragraph bio, a link and a clear offer ("I run a jazz trio available for dinners and receptions; here is a clip; here are our rates") sent to twenty planners is worth more than a month of social media.
• Go to things: sessions, other people's gigs, workshops. Musicians hire the people they see.

\tempo 132
.
\ts 4 4
:2 (3.5 5.4 4.3 5.2){ch "Cmaj7"} :8 9.3 8.2 7.1 8.1 | :4 (5.6 5.4 5.3){ch "Am7"} :8 r 5.1 :4 8.1 :8 5.2 8.2 | :4 (5.5 5.3 6.2){d ch "Dm7"} :8 (5.5 5.3 6.2) :4 (-.5 -.3 -.2) :8 6.2 5.1 | :8 8.2{ch "G7"} 6.2 3.2 0.2 :2 (3.6 3.4 4.3) |

Online presence

A working musician needs exactly enough online presence to be found and trusted; more than that is a second job that pays nothing. The minimum:

• One website (a single page is fine) with: who you are, what you offer, two clips, three photos, a short bio, how to contact you, and your rates or "enquire for a quote". Your name as the address if you can get it. Check it on a phone, because that is where clients look.
• One directory listing where clients in your field search (event-musician directories, teacher directories) with the same clips and photos.
• Social media only as much as you can sustain: a post a week of a clip, a gig announcement or a lesson tip. Consistency beats volume. Never post a complaint about a client, a venue or a musician; it will be read by the next person who was going to hire you.
• A professional email address and a voicemail that says your name. Reply to enquiries within a day; a prompt reply wins bookings over a better player who replies in a week.
• Streaming and distribution for your own recordings if you make them, with the rights registered (next section), understanding that the income is usually small and the promotional value is what you are after.

Keep a document with every login, every listing and the date it was last updated. Review it twice a year.

Professional etiquette

The rules are simple and they decide your career:

• Be early. Call time means set up and ready at call time, not arriving at it.
• Be prepared. Know the material, bring the charts, have the gear working (Gigging and bandleading).
• Dress as asked, and if not asked, ask.
• Play for the gig, not for yourself. Volume, song choice, solo length and stage behaviour serve the client's event.
• Do not criticise other musicians on or off stage, in person or online. Praise freely, keep complaints for the people who can fix them, and keep them private.
• Answer messages, confirm bookings, and say no clearly and early if you cannot do something.
• Recommend others when you cannot do a gig; the favour returns.
• Thank people. The client, the engineer, the venue staff, the leader. By message the next day if it was a good one.
• Keep confidences. What was said in the van or the green room stays there.
• Handle money cleanly: agree it before, pay sidemen promptly, never renegotiate on the night.

Unions and rights organisations

Two kinds of organisation exist in most countries to protect musicians' income, and every professional should understand what they do.

Musicians' unions (or professional associations where there is no union) typically offer: recommended or minimum rates and standard contracts; advice on agreements, disputes and non-payment; public liability and instrument insurance at member rates; legal and tax guidance; and, in some countries, collective agreements with broadcasters, theatres and orchestras. Membership costs money and is usually worth it from the moment you are working regularly, if only for the insurance and the contract advice. Find your country's organisation and read what it offers.

Rights organisations collect money that is owed to the creators and performers of music when it is used:

• Performing rights organisations (also called collecting societies) collect royalties when compositions are performed in public, broadcast or streamed, and pay them to the composers and publishers. If you write music that is played anywhere, including by your own band in a venue that holds a licence, register the works, and register as a member. The amounts for jazz are modest but real, and they accumulate.
• Mechanical rights organisations collect royalties when compositions are reproduced (recordings, downloads), often combined with the performing rights body.
• Performers' rights organisations (neighbouring rights) collect royalties for the performers on recordings when those recordings are broadcast or played in public, separately from the composer's share. If you have played on commercially released recordings, you may be owed money you have never claimed; register, and list the recordings.

The practical rule: register every original composition you release or perform, register as a performer on every commercial recording you play on, and keep a list of both. The forms take an hour; the income arrives for decades. For anything beyond this (publishing deals, sync licences for film or advertising, sampling), take advice from the organisation or a music lawyer before signing.

The weekly hour

Everything in this lesson fits in one scheduled hour a week:

1. Invoices sent for last week's work, overdue invoices chased (10 min).
2. Income and expenses entered, receipts filed, tax percentage moved to the tax account (10 min).
3. Enquiries answered, bookings confirmed in writing, the diary updated (15 min).
4. One promotional action: a clip posted, three planners emailed, the website checked (15 min).
5. Rights and union admin as it arises: a new composition registered, a recording listed (10 min).

Put it in the calendar like a gig. It is one.

Exercises

1. Rate card. Write your rates for six kinds of work (club gig, wedding, corporate function, session hour, lesson, chord chart) based on local going rates you have actually found out. Note what is included and what costs extra.
2. Confirmation template. Write a one-page gig confirmation and a one-page teaching policy, using the lists above. Send them to a musician friend to find the gaps.
3. Invoice. Produce an invoice for an imaginary wedding using the required contents, as a PDF, numbered, with payment terms.
4. Promotion kit. Write your three bios; record a ninety-second clip that opens as the example suggests; put both on a one-page site or document.
5. Rights audit. List every original tune you have written and every released recording you have played on; find your country's performing-rights and performers'-rights organisations and read their registration pages.

Quiz