An incident at White Springs, at the Florida Folk Festival got me thinking about why amateurs go to such lengths to perform for no pay.

A man walked up to where I was sitting, near the back of the audience for one of the smaller stages and engaged me in conversation. He shared his delight in having been “at the right place, at the right time.” He had been asked to fill in for another performer who sang his voice out the night before during the campground sessions.

I was puzzled by his attitude, even though I have seen it many times, always from amateurs. Pros like to be at the right place at the right time to get a paying gig. My student Bud Green has told me of three times now that his band, the Free Range Roosters, has fallen into a spot at festivals for a paying gig.

Bud is between the amateur and the pro. He has a day business that he is good at doing carpentry. The band activity is a hobby that is now starting to pay off.

This other performer loves to sing his folk songs and strum his guitar for an audience. Maybe it’s the prestige of being a performer that is his payment. Or, possibly he feels so strongly about expressing himself in song, that the opportunity to share his deepest passion is enough compensation.

I really don’t know what motivates amateurs. The closest I can come, in my own experience, to the raison d’etre of the amateur, is the mind set I had in my early years as an improvising fiddler.

I used to look forward eagerly to the chance to show what I could do in my improvised solo. My strategy was to cover a lot of ground as quickly as possible, mixing in some hot licks as I went. When I thought I had done well, which was most of the time, in my opinion then, I had some pride in the notes I had just sprayed from my violin out over the audience.

My attitude is different now. I don’t play as fast. I use more syncopation, more pauses, more ornaments. My mind set is the belief that in any performance there is a solo that I can play that will be most inspiring to the audience. My goal is to play that solo.

That solo is not available to me consciously. I can only be receptive to the music spirit and hope for inspiration to move me in that direction. How can I know how successful I am?

The closer I get to that solo, the better. But, I don’t know what that solo is. And I can’t even know how close I came to playing it. Most of the time I feel that my solo was adequate, or competent. Occasionally, I feel that my solo was inspired. I don’t remember the last time I felt my performance was stellar, sad to say.

The outcome is not something I can control. If I can slip into focused attention to play, that is the main thing. Concentration on what I am doing, without clutching at the result, is the standard.

Now as to playing for no money, I have no attraction to that.

I well remember the first time I got paid for playing. I was in my first year of college. My teacher sent me to play for a social gathering. I played one of the pieces I had studied with her.

The group gave me $10 and a gourmet meal. I hadn’t looked for that. But, somewhere in the back of my mind a door opened. It invited me in, saying, “So this is what it’s all about.”

Within a couple of years I was playing in a symphony orchestra for union pay. I was a card carrying member of the Musician’s Union.

Now I’m in the Fiddle Player’s Union. I have a T-shirt as a credential. It’s more fun, less controlling, and a soft send up of organized labor.

Displaying my credential as Fiddle Player's Union Member

I mean, you have the union movement on one side, which has its share of difficulties with multinational corporations. On the other you have fiddle players. We’re organized differently.

I will wind this discussion of amateurism up with a citation from Wikipedia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateurism]

An amateur (French amateur “lover of”, from Old French and ultimately from Latin amatorem nom. amator, “lover”) is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training.

Amateurism can be seen in both a negative and positive light. Since amateurs often do not have formal training, some amateur work may be sub-par. Amateur dramatics is the performance of plays or musical theater, often to high standards but lacking the budgets of professional West End or Broadway performances.

The reference to amateur performance of musical theater also applies to folk music.

Florida Folk Festival and the Crystal Beach String Band

Here I am playing with my fellow amateurs. We enjoyed it and felt good about our performance.