I mean, when I started out I was billing per hour, like a shrink because you would sit with somebody and work. But most of it, if it's for a live show it's usually a buy-out. A flat fee.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It pays to be a fee fiend.
At the end of the day, a playback singer has to depend on live shows as their source of income.
If Broadway shows charge preview prices while the cast is in dress rehearsal, why should restaurants charge full price when their dining room and kitchen staffs are still practicing?
You've got to pay the bills, and you want to get your foot in. The great shows usually aren't going to look for somebody completely untested, so you have to kind of get your feet wet doing other shows.
If you become famous and don't have a live show to back it up, they're not going to pay you any money.
From the law firm's perspective, billing by the hour has a certain appeal: it shifts risk from the firm to the client in case the work takes longer than expected. But from a client's perspective, it doesn't work so well. It gives lawyers an incentive to overstaff and to overresearch cases.
You don't get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.
In a way it costs thousands dollars before you could actually go out to put the show on because you'll need equipments, all the lights you know, and that's more just going out and playing you know.
I say that I get paid to travel, and I play the shows for free.
Yeah, well when I first started working, it was $5 a show; it was probably a little higher by the time I got to my own show, but I remember that they put me under contract at $100 a week, which to me was really an astronomical price.