The fact you refer to these things as “projects” seems to say to me you’ve already given up on (or maybe just dismissed as obsolete) the notion of a band in the truest sense and now view playing music as being more a participant in a local music service network? As in job shopping?
Again, I have no quarrel with people doing whatever they feel they need to do to stay as “busy” as they need. But I still think it fosters an image of musicians as ”Interchangeable Emmas” and the belief among those paying our check that if not us, then pretty much anyone else will do equally well. That’s called “commoditization of labor.” And it results in pay spiraling downwards as increasingly desperate musicians enter into a “race to the bottom” to see who will accept the lowest possible compensation.
And lest you think “free” or zero dollars is as low as it could go, with ‘pay to play’ arrangements - and with even small venues increasingly skimming the band’s merch tables - it’s dropped into negative territory with some bands operating (or willing to chance operating) at a loss - ostensibly for “exposure.”
Good article on what that means
here. Quoting from it:
So musicians are moving back and forth among numerous “projects“ that perform in public. Sound like we’ve set the stage for being seen as largely undifferentiated interchangeable people in the process. And using (foe example) back up tracks instead of singers or a horn section? Guess a fair number of musicians are also starting to be seen as being interchangeable with a machine performing the same role.
Like it or not, we’ve become largely commoditized as far as local performance goes. And it’s mostly by our own doing.
That’s a hard pill to swallow. But either way, we got the music future we allowed to be brought into being. Good luck rolling that clock back.
