Learn About Musician Union Pay in Nashville

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Chris Latham and we're here today at EMI Music Publishing's Nashville recording studio on Music Row with Expert Village. In this segment, we're going to talk about budget planning just a little bit. The musicians that work here are all part of the musicians union and there are different scales of pay that the musicians work under. There's the demo scale which is roughly $190 per musician for a three hour session. But with a demo scale, that doesn't permit you to go out and sell your finished project. So if you're going to be selling this in your community, you're going to be selling it from stage when you play places, you might want to look at the limited pressing scale which is just a little bit more than scale per person. The limited pressing scale allows you to sell up to ten thousand copies before you have to upgrade to master scale. Ten thousand is quite a few copies to sell from stage or out of the trunk of your car. One other scale that you might consider is the low budget scale which allows you to sell unlimited amount of copies but you have to have low budget approval before your session so you have to submit a budget to the musicians union forty-eight hours before your scheduled session in order to qualify for this. It's not much more than limited pressing or demo scale but that way you can go out and sell as many copies as you want of your project. If you'd like to find out more information or the exact numbers of pay scale, check my website, studiogorilla.com and I'll have links to the American Federation of Musicians website so that you can get a little further research on your own."