I’m trying to educate myself more about the business, and have general questions about hiring musicians. I realize this is a very broad question and mileage varies from region to region. And I have no immediate plans to do any musician-hiring, either for recording or for performing; but I want to continue to build my knowledge base so that should I want to do anything a year or more in the future, I have some idea what I’m talking about.

I saw on another thread that someone was offering $50 for a guitarist for a gig, and that prompted a bunch of questions in my mind.

If you hire a couple musicians for a gig (say a guitar and drums), what are their expectations? What is a reasonable offer? What do you need to have on hand in terms of music? How much prep time (running through the music) would you expect?

What if the idea was to hire them for a series of gigs in the region, as an ad hoc band?

How about hiring musicians for a recording session? Is it a flat fee for the session, or is it by the hour? Do you ask them to sign work-for-hire agreements, or is it assumed?

I’m sure that the answer is “it depends…..” – I’d like to know what sorts of factors there are, and what musicians’ expectations are in these sorts of situations. Consider this a 101 thread for some basic ideas.

ZMULLS.COM
My Soundclick

2007 Grand Prize Winner International Songwriting Competition

Avatar Photo by Diana (used with permission)