Strap in kids, this is gonna be a doozy.
This is the first real item of The List. It was one I thought I would figure out towards the end of my hiatus journey (sigh), but I starting thinking about other items on The List and they kept leading me back to this one most basic question: how much value does my labor have? Turns out, really complicated question.
I started with what my labor means. For me, there’s three kinds: mental labor, physical labor, and emotional labor.
Mental labor is the hardest to evaluate, but we’ll call it The Act of Composition. I’m gonna go into much more detail about it later on.
Physical labor is easiest to evaluate. There’s not a whole lot of it in my practice, and what there is of it is more logistical. For me, physical labor is things like orchestration, making parts, web design, communications, private lessons, and social media. I feel this kind of labor in my body. I have some of the components accounted for in my commissioning contracts and musical services, but it would do me good to formalize them a little more.
Emotional labor is weird, and it hasn’t come into play on a lot of projects until recently for me. The most emotional labor I do is connected to project that include narration, most notably on projects like Three Aviaries and The Grind. This could be better accounted for in my narration fee, which I honestly have not evaluated in a transparent way. This needs work.
I think I’ve come up with something that works for me and is more equitable to myself and my future collaborators. This is how I’m going to work from now on.
mental labor (the act of composition)
Here are some of the questions I’ve been asking myself in evaluating my mental labor.
How much is one minute of writing music worth to me? How much energy do I expend writing a minute of music? Does it change if that minute of music is fast versus if it is slow? Does the energy expenditure change depending on the size of ensemble?
For me, writing one minute of music for any size ensemble is worth $750. It is $750 of my energy to write one minute of music regardless of how fast or slow it is, regardless of how many instruments it is for, and regardless of how much goes into that minute of music itself.
To calculate this number, I first took a look at my most recent commissioning rates, which were on a sliding scale based on the number of instruments. I calculated how much a minute of music would cost for ensembles comprising one to twelve instruments, then numbers for small band (grade 3ish), small orchestra, large band (grade 5ish), and large orchestra. The average for this collection of numbers came out to $557.50, and the median for these numbers was $435. The average of those two numbers was $496.25. Let’s round that up to $500.
To be honest, that number seems low to me. Up to this point, my commissioning rates have been significantly lower than a lot of my colleagues with similar professional backgrounds. I rationalized charging less that them because I thought that my work was worth less than theirs. Well, that’s just not true. When you commission a Kincaid Rabb work, there’s a certain quality you can expect. That work is a speciality product that only I can create. My work is worth (at least) $750 a minute. It feels better and more authentic to charge $750 per minute for a work product a special as mine. That is how much effort and detail I put into my music.
What I realized when I sat down to think about how I expend energy when I write music was that the ensemble really doesn’t matter when I actually do The Act of Composition. The reality is the that, whenever there’s more than about two staves of instruments, my brain automatically switches the writing process to short score, and then the ensemble can be anything. I might make notes about what timbral colors I’d like to use when I arrange the score for the instrumentation I’ve been commissioned to write for, but the primary Act of Composition work I do is almost always done in short score. Here’s what that might look like:
One of the things that I am doing in my creative practice is separating The Act of Composition (mental labor) from orchestrating or arranging (physical labor). I think if I create music without immediately assigning parts of it to individual instruments, I will give myself a lot of unexplored creative freedom and give myself the opportunity to create less rigidly. This separation of mental and physical labor also creates much more transparency in my workflow.
physical labor
A few months ago, when New Music Twitter was still thriving before Twitter became a significantly more hostile platform, I posed a question regarding whether arrangement or orchestration was composition or not. I am delighted to inform you all that posting that to Twitter resolved the question once and for all. produced mixed results.
Personally, I separate arrangement or orchestration from The Act of Composition. Because I write most things in short score, arrangement/orchestration is a completely different step in the process of completing a work. For me, the arrangement/orchestration phase of a project is something I feel much more in my body than I do in my mind. It’s not exactly The Act of Composition for me. It’s definitely still work, but it’s not the same work as composition, and it gets harder for me based on the instruments I’m being asked use in an arrangement or orchestration.
So here’s what my orchestration/arrangement services are worth per minute based on the kinds of instruments involved. It is these amounts of my energy to arrange or orchestrate for each minute of composed music.
Percussion: $150/minute
Strings: $120/minute
Piano: $100/minute
Brass: $75/minute
Harp: $60/minute
Woodwinds: $50/minute
(Instruments not listed here: Price on Request)
The way that you calculate my total orchestration/arrangement fee for a project is that you take each instrument involved in the ensemble for which you are commissioning and you average them together, then multiply that by the number of minutes of composed music. For example, a five minute Pierrot+percussion ensemble work in one movement would break down thus: 1 percussion ($150), 2 strings ($240), 1 piano ($100), and 2 woodwinds ($100), for an average of $98/minute. Multiply that by five minutes, and you have a total of $490 for orchestration/arrangement, in addition to the $3,750 ($750 per minute) of music. A subtotal of $4,240.
The other component of physical labor for me is partmaking. I charge $20 per part, per movement to create the parts for a work. For a five minute pierrot ensemble in one movement, these parts would be a total of $120.
After considering mental and physical labor, the subtotal for the Pierrot ensemble work would be $4,360. For me, this is okay. That’s a number that reflects the amount of energy expenditure I would put into that work based on how I do mental and physical labor.
emotional labor
If you are asking me to do emotional labor in writing the narration for a work of narrated music, I should be compensated for that. For me, writing the narration for narrated music is worth $375 per minute. It is $375 of my energy to write narrated text alongside music per minute of narrated music.
When I wrote Three Aviaries, I did not feel adequately compensated because of the emotional labor required to bring that work to life. At the time, I rationalized the composition of the work as a personal experiment and with the fact that it was going to be performed at an international conference, but I came to realize that the work I was being asked to do was emotional labor, and I had never engaged with emotional labor in my music before. Three Aviaries was hugely educational on the value of my emotional labor. In no way was this the fault of my collaborators (the emotional core of Three Aviaries was completely on me), but the position I put myself in was very, very revealing.
I cannot afford to be emotionally compromised by a narrated work again. I’ve been fairly careful about it in other subsequent narrated works, but these works simply have more weight attached to them. When I compose a narrated work that I’m also writing the narration for, I feel like I’m putting in 150% of the effort on one work. That’s why the emotional labor of writing narration for narrated music is half my composition rate.
the subtotal
After you combine all the elements from the way I have evaluated my mental, physical, and emotional labor, you come up with the subtotal for a commission. After that, you can choose if you would like to opt into optional deductions to the subtotal commissioning rate based on services and labor that you can provide as a collaborator.
deductions
(This is new.)
A lot of composers have an “ I’ll have my cake and eat it too” attitude when it comes to working with performers and other collaborators. This section is going to piss off those composers, because I don’t think that’s fair or equitable to our collaborators, to the fact that our collaborators incur costs related to our music, or the fact that our collaborators expend energy on the practice and performance of our works.
What I’ve come up with is a new system to formalize the way composers discount of music within my own creative practice. It’s kind of saying the quiet part out loud on how composers charge differently based on their collaborators on a case by case basis. Usually, composers offer different rates based on many different attributes of a project, including things like documentation and proliferation of a work. I’ve even seen established composers discount a commission for friends or because they’re more excited about a work. I’m not doing that anymore, but I know a lot of composers who do.
I have created a system that I think works to be more transparent about how projects are funded. Through a series of optional deductions, I think I have created something that enables more projects to happen and pays more attention and deference to the labor that my collaborators put into bringing my music to life.
Before I list the possible deductions, I want to set down some ground rules.
First, I have a reserve, a minimum amount that I need to be paid in real money. That reserve for any size project is $150 per minute of music. You also can’t apply these deductions to orchestration/arrangement fees or partmaking fees. These deductions can only be applied to mental and emotional labor charges. I do actually have to make at least some money due to an unfortunate need to eat.
Second, I want to make clear that all deductions will have deadlines, and that if the stipulation of the deduction is not met by the deadline, a commissioner would be responsible for the financial value of the deduction. I am firm on the deadlines listed below for these deductions.
Third, these deductions are optional. You do not have to opt in to these deductions, even if you intend to do what they stipulate. If you want to pay me what I’m worth without considering my offer of optional deductions in recognition of your labor, you’re welcome to do that. If you want to take every deduction you can and expand the work’s scope to take even more, you’re welcome to do that. This model of commissioning offers a lot of freedom regarding how you want to compensate me.
Here the possible optional deductions that could be made to account for the work of my collaborators in a commissioned work:
professional Live Recording of the commissioned work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $750
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $1500
“ A professional quality live recording of the commissioned work by the commissioner or a designated ensemble of the commissioner’s choice shall be made within a period of one year following the world premiere. The live recording shall be made available to the composer for noncommercial public use.”
professional Live video Recording of the work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $1500
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $3000
“ A professional quality live video recording of the commissioned work by the commissioner or a designated ensemble of the commissioner’s choice shall be made within a period of one year following the world premiere. The live video recording shall be made available to the composer for noncommercial public use.”
professional studio Recording of the work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $2250
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $4500
“ A professional quality studio recording of the commissioned work by the commissioner or a designated ensemble of the commissioner’s choice shall be made within a period of two years following the world premiere. The studio recording of the commissioned work shall be mixed, mastered, and be made commercially available by the commissioner within six months of its creation.”
repeat performances of the commissioned work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $150/performance
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $300/performance
“ The commissioner or a designated ensemble of the commissioner’s choice shall commit to a least _______ public performances during the exclusivity period, not including the world premiere. The commissioner shall provide PDF documentation of each performance within two weeks following each performance.”
international performance of the commissioned work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $375
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $750
“ The commissioner or a designated ensemble of the commissioner’s choice shall commit to performing the work outside the United States of America at least once during the exclusivity period. The commissioner shall provide PDF documentation of the performance within two weeks following the performance.”
recruiting performers for the commissioned work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $150/performer
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $300/performer
“ The commissioner shall commit to recruiting additional performers or ensembles to perform the work after the conclusion of the exclusivity period. The commissioner shall provide PDF documentation of each additional performer’s or ensemble’s commitment to perform the work at least once within one year of the exclusivity period’s end.”
conference performance of the commissioned work:
For chamber music (1-7 performers): $1500
For large ensemble music (8+ performers): $2250
“ The commissioner or a designated ensemble of the commissioner’s choice shall commit to performing the work at an officially sanctioned conference or festival sponsored by a professional organization during the exclusivity period. The commissioner shall provide PDF documentation of the performance within two weeks following the performance.”
There may be more possible deductions and I may add to them as I think of them, but I like this as a starting place. These deductions don’t devalue what I do or how I do it; they actually provide me with valuable assets and more opportunities for my work. The deductions incentivize people to commission me and perform my work, and they allow people to shape their commission with me to include more of what they can bring to the table.
I’m into that. I like that.
I want people to perform my music. I want people to commission me to make more of it. And I want people to get to know how awesome I am and how cool my music is. This seems like a good way of doing it.