Musician Tip #4: Community Gear

As a musician, you will very likely come into a situation where you're playing a show with gear, often owned by the venue or sound company, which is used by other musicians. Your treatment of this equipment is directly related to how much of an inbred ditch pig other musicians consider you to be.

If you were paying attention in Kindergarten, you understand that you should put things back in their place when you're done with them. You should also take care of other people's things as if they were your own. Though if you are a slobby-slob and, let's face it, as a musician... you probably are, you should treat other people's things as if said people have the ability to psychically flip your nipples inside-out at will.

So you broke a guitar string and had to do a lightning-fast restring on the spot? That happens. But the sin of leaving your left-over string clippings on the stage is cardinal. You would understand this if you've ever innocently reached down to pick up a cable on a dark stage only to have the needle-sharp end of a high E string stab an inch deep into the skin underneath your fingernail.

To the gents who feel the need to tighten the joints on an ADJUSTABLE microphone stand to somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 ft-lbs of torque: not a single person is impressed with your strength. It's not terribly difficult to lock those stands up. It is, however, difficult to not be considered a raging twit for ruining the very feature that made that stand an attractive purchase in the first place. Also, the carpal tunnel fairy will be visiting you soon.

On a somewhat related note, don't touch that button on the mixer marked "phantom power" unless you actually know what it does. There's a 99% chance you're singing/playing into a Shure SM-58 or SM-57, both of which are dynamic mics. Don't know the difference between a dynamic or condenser mic? Leave the phantom power button alone. You can even damage certain types of mics by engaging the phantom power. So unless you want the next act who takes the stage to realize what a total noob you are, no touchy.

So do everyone (including yourself) a favor and be kind to the equipment on stage. The next guy on stage after you just might be me...