Buttwinick Musical Services

As a supplement to the large bodies of valuable information available, these lists of “Pro Musicians’ Tip” has been compiled from years of personal experience, observing others and by personal survey of about a dozen working professionals spanning all echelons of the business from local clubs to major-venue players and stage hands. In my book, How To Make A Living as a Musician, these were listed as appendix material, called “Miscellaneous Tips & Advices.” These tips represent dues well paid over many, many, years. Though this is a hefty list, there are hundreds of other tips around to be discovered. Use them to enhance your prosperity as a musician!

1. It can be helpful to have a checklist of gear, especially when having different set-ups. When in a hurry it can be easy to leave something behind.
2. Wear earplugs when playing or listening to extremely loud music. High volumes can permanently damage your ears. There are different kinds of earplugs available.
3. Wearing gloves when moving equipment and when it’s cold can protect your hands and prevent stiffness which makes playing difficult.
4. It’s wise to keep a nail clipper handy. Long nails prevent chords from being played, piano technique suffers, and round bass guitar notes sound like they are being played with a pick. There are techniques for playing bass both with your nails and with picks, but when you want a finger sound, long nails get in the way.
5. If you need to lay an amp flat when transporting equipment, keep the speakers facing down. When a speaker is face up, its weight pulls on the screws, and after a while the screws can weaken and become loose. This won’t happen overnight, but it’s a good preventive maintenance measure.
6. When your hands are too cold to play, running hot water on them will warm them up.
7. Pony tail bands are great for tying up instrument cables. You take one of the loops and loop it around the cord securing it with the little ball. When you wind up the cable, just stretch the other loop around the cable and wrap it around the little ball. You gotta try it.
8. If you don’t like your gear, you’ll tend not to play.
9. Keep your music stand where it is least likely to be knocked over by dancing people, band members, food servers and people walking. Places of possible “disaster” are: the front of the band area where it meets the dance floor; aisles where people walk and anywhere else that seems likely at the time. I’ve seen a music stand get knocked over and hundreds of pages of music go flying in the air. Although this can be humorous at the time and for years after, it’s no fun putting things back together when it happens.
10. Watch what you put on cords that are running across the stage. A heavy amp will restrict its movement; a sharp edge can break its wires; and if you put something light or unstable on a cord, like a horn- or mic-stand, it can topple over if the cord gets yanked. Though some objects will occasionally wind up on a cord, you need you watch it.
11. Never put anything on cords in the recording studio. When the engineer needs to move cords, mics and isolation baffles around he needs to be unrestricted.