I don’t think some people have any IDEA how much harpists get paid! I have a gig for 2 hours for $75, underpaid but I need the money and I’m only a student.

— Natalie

Even worse, minimum wage for tipped emplyees is 2 something an hour.

I wonder if it is worth trying to educate the potential client about pricing. If I were a working harpist, I think my approach would be to emphasize that TIME IS MONEY. In other words, let the client know that, from the moment that you start loading your equipment into the car for the gig to the moment when you are home again and everything is unloaded, the amount of time involved is____ hours. So it doesn’t matter to you if you have to play one song or the whole service, the time involved is the same.

Maybe the way to price these jobs is to start by telling the client how much time is involved, as described above, and that you charge X dollars per hour. Not per hour of playing time, but per hour of time taken up for the whole gig. And give them a low hourly figure: maybe $45 or $50 per hour. Then, explain that there is an equipment rental fee on top of that. The harp, music stand, bench, amplifier, etc. are charged separately at X dollars for the job. Maybe breaking the whole thing down into smaller bits that they can understand will 1) Make your fee look logical and reasonable, and 2) make their offer of $100 for ‘one song’ look idiotic, without coming out and saying it.

Any

Dwyn- I have to disagree with you on this. Firstly, the vast majority of people(brides) who hire a harpist assume that a harpist is a harpist is a harpist, meaning that they all play exactly the same way. Remember, this is probably the only time any of these people have hired a musician or ever will. Secondly, that two hour gig, under the best of circumstances(the church is 5 minutes from the harpists house) is going to take a total of 4 hours to do. So that harpist is going to earn less than a cleaning lady for the same amount of time, AND, has to lay out money for gas, insurance, upkeep on the harp and car, wardrobe, plus put in extra hours just to be able to play the instrument. So in fact, the harpist who is playing a 2 hour gig for $75 is at best playing for maybe $10 an hour in terms of profit. And once the harpist or harpists in any given area start playing gigs for that money, then that becomes the norm. Everyone will expect to pay that amount. If playing the harp professionally has come to this-$75 for a two hour gig- then it’s time to retrain for some other profession, because anyone doing this to make a living is on a downward economic spiral.