14. Bandleader Strategies w/ Emmanuel 'Chops' Smith

In this episode, Cinnamon interviews Emmanuel Chops Smith, an accomplished pianist, singer, producer, arranger, and band leader. 

Emmanuel shares his musical journey from playing in church as a child to leading bands and performing across various genres. The discussion delves into the importance of camaraderie, good pay, and quality music in bands, along with key takeaways from Emmanuel's experience as both a successful band member and a leader. 

Chapters

• 5:33 Bandleader Blues
• 8:44 The Importance of Good Pay

Transcript

This is The Music Executive, a show where we talk about gig tips, music, business strategies, songwriting experiences, collabs, and even more with industry professionals. Let's get into it. Hello? Hello, hello. Welcome to the show. My name is Cinnamon Denise. That's. Cinnamon, like the spiced Denise. Like Denise.

And today we have an incredible guest. He is a amazing, amazing musician, and the thing about him is that he's not only a piano player, he's a singer producer, a ranger, a band leader, and we're gonna be talking about. Band Leader Blues. We couldn't come up with a cooler way to say that. So if you think it's corny.

Oh, well, so, so Emmanuel Chop Smith is a piano player who started as a teenager leading a band and doing small club gigs. And now after he's gone to jazz school at Georgia State University, um, he plays all over the southeast with wedding groups and jazz bands, and even books for a few entertainment companies.

Emmanuel Chop Smith. Welcome to Chop. Wow, thank you. If you were suddenly transported to another planet, how would you assess the situation? How would I assess the situation? I'm assuming that you know, like you can breathe and everything and all that you can survive on this planet. Obviously, you would look for the things that you need to survive, but also the things that you miss.

You know your loved ones to your passions. In this case, obviously like music, right? How would I continue to have my passion and my love? I always think about how. The worst thing that could ever possibly happen to a degree would be like music being taken away. So I imagine you, you assess the situation by trying to find, find how you're gonna make it.

How is this going to work? Can I, is this going to work or should, is this over? Is this it? Yeah. So here, so here's the thing, y'all with these questions, y'all know I asked these questions at the beginning of the show. These random. Surprise questions. And it's funny to hear how different people like attack them.

Some are like, if I were transported to another planet, I'd figure out how to plant a tree so I can eat. And you know, they get real technical or they get real. They just start to get real practical. So I love some practical answers and some people are, they just go with it. They're like, interesting. Well, I would try to buy an elephant, of course.

And you're like. Okay, but any who y'all, Emmanuel is an amazing, amazing, I don't wanna pigeonhole him, but he first and foremost is an amazing pianist, musician and person. But Emmanuel is also a singer. So, um, we're gonna, uh, give a little insight to that as well. So, Emmanuel, tell us a little bit about. Your background.

I started playing music when I was really, really young. I was maybe three or so playing in, you know, children's Church and what have you. I'd play Amazing Grace while all the other kids were singing Amazing Grace and instead of singing, I'd be playing. That's really what got me comfortable with the instrument from the jump.

Fast forward a few years, I started taking classical lessons. I was maybe seven or so and not zoomed. I would never say I zoomed through classical lessons because I wouldn't. Say that I ever finished quote unquote classical music, but I went through classical lessons for a good number of years until about, I wanna say the seventh or eighth grade when I started listening to jazz and learned about other, other styles of music from between that 7-year-old year up until the seventh or eighth grade, piano equaled classical music or you know, playing church stuff with the family.

Right? So. It wasn't until maybe seventh or eighth grade when I was literally on the brink, I, I'm tired of classical music. I don't wanna do this anymore. And that, I think it's funny, that's usually when people, people quit. I don't wanna practice. I don't wanna play classical music. I'm done. I don't wanna play anymore.

And my teacher, instead of quitting, I mean, 'cause I did love the piano. I love, I obviously still do, but I loved piano and so she. Introduced me to Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. And I think the idea of this blind person who could play piano was, and it wasn't classical music, really just took me to this next level of intrigue.

Oh wait, that's awesome. Listened to all of their stuff and just opened this whole new world for me. And then eighth grade, seventh, eighth, ninth grade, I discovered, you know, jazz with Ray Charles and whatnot, jumped into jazz music. And, uh, never looked back, for lack of a better term. You know, I started a little band in high school, went to Georgia State for jazz, continued playing and running bands, and playing in other bands as a side band and as a leader, and then found a new love for funk music and party music and reggae music, and the way that piano fits into all these other styles of music.

So, yeah. Long story short, I guess that would be the snippet side of my story. Well, everybody has a different story and it's the, I don't wanna play classical music anymore, either. We're gonna not play classical music or not play this instrument anymore. Is a really common, is a really common progression of how people will start to get into other genres now.

You said that you started, you know, leading a band, you have your own band, you do your own shows and that sort of thing. So we're talking about today, band Leader Blues, right? Mm-hmm. And again, I apologize for the corniest, but y'all will be okay. Like as you get to know me on this show, you know that I'm pretty corny, so I think it's suit to me too.

But I also really don't care. So here we go,

Annie, who be comfortable in your own skin only who you are now. Um, the thing about it is there's so many things to consider when you are leading a band and also when you're part of a band. So the first thing that we think about. When you're playing in a band, is that comradery? Like apart from all things y'all kind of have to like each other like, like real talk.

You're spending all this time together. So talk about the importance of a good hang. Okay, good. Hang. Actually, there's a range for what a good hang could be, but kind of like what you said, where. You almost kind of have to like each other to a degree because you spend so much time together. And playing music and doing music is a very vulnerable experience, depending, you know, if you're doing it to a certain level, it is very connected.

And in order to do this well, we have to play as a team and do this together. Even more so than liking each other. You almost become kind of like a family. Some fam, you know, families have different dynamics where that's different from friendship. You know, I can't stand you, but we're forced to be together.

So I love you, but I can't stand you. Get outta my face. Don't talk to me. But we'll do this 'cause we have to. And I know bands like that too. And they work just as well. As far as good. Hang it, it depends on, uh, whether you feel like a family. Whether you enjoy the company of these people, I always relate playing music.

I used to play basketball when I was younger, so I always relate music and to a degree with basketball where it was more fun when I was playing with people that I liked playing with. And if I liked playing with you, we had a good time and we probably won. And music to me is the exact same way where we are a team here on stage.

Let's have some fun. Let's do this. We're gonna miss a few shots. We're gonna mess some stuff up. Ultimately we're gonna win. This is we're gonna have a good time and we're gonna win. And by winning, we make beautiful music and have a good time. And we get off of stage, or we get off of whatever we are performing on, feeling accomplished and like, this was a good moment.

We shared. This was nice. And you hate that with people, you can't stand, you know? Yeah, yeah. There's, there's, there's levels to this, right? Absolutely. Because there are certain people that you can't stand that you become the best of friends because you both know that you can't stand each other. Exactly.

Yeah. Like family, it's so, yeah. It's so bad. It's so bad that it's funny. Yeah. Like at this point, like I know people who are just like, yeah, when I met. Her or I met him, or I met them, I could not stand them. And now we're best friends. Like, that's my soulmate. You know, so it's, it's real common. So it's okay if you don't like your band members.

There is hope. Now the next thing you know we could talk about is. Good pay. And what does that mean? Um, not necessarily. I don't want you throwing out numbers here. I want you to talk about what that means in context and what makes it worth it. Sure. That's good because I'd always tell this story about an old musician friend of mine who kind of mentored me for a while.

He is, I wanna say 30 or 40 years older than me, like he is an older musician I used to hang around with. So I used to hang around with old heads. He was at, yeah, if you're not making this amount of money, you shouldn't be doing the gig at all. And at the time, that amount of money sounded like. I do, I do a gig for that amount of money.

That sounds normal to me. Why would I not do that gig that you don't, you don't wanna make that kind of money. That's good money, but you know, I think it's conditional on your situation and what makes the gig worth it to you, or what makes the performance worth it to you if you leave feeling like you should have made more money because you didn't enjoy yourself, or everything was awful and I should have gotten paid more to do this.

That's not good pay. If you didn't think anything about the money and you can, you know, you can pay your bills when you go home, or even if you couldn't, you didn't think when you left the gig that I should have made more money for this. That's decent pay. And you know, it, it ties into a handful of factors that are really conditional on you and your situation.

But that also, you know, sometimes the hang and the music and whatnot can tie into whether or not this pays enough. If I'm doing a gig that I hate and don't wanna be here, I wanna make more money for it. But if I, right, if I care for free, anything that you gave me would've been great. I just do it for gas, right?

So, I mean, and all, obviously you have to pay bills and we, we do music because we love it, but we also gotta eat. We gotta pay, we gotta make bread and do what we gotta do. So all of those kind of conditions go into that thought, you know, what makes this, what makes this enough? Paid for me. Right? Yeah. My here's a question for you.

Okay. I have two questions, but the first one is you get paid little to nothing, but it leads to a gig that pays you much to all. Ooh. Is that gig worth it? Yes. The, the, the question or the, the eternal issue is that you don't know if you will get that, that. Everything to all gig. From doing that little to nothing gig, you have no guarantee from that.

It's really just a risk and an investment where I'm going to do this gig because it might give me another gig, and that very much makes gigs worth it. But you do have to decipher whether or not it's worth your risk, and that's where you get into, well, it's the hang good. Is the music good? Is the, is this enough pay?

If I didn't get anything out of this, was this worth it? It depends, right? Yeah, it definitely, you gimme the giving the lawyer answer. It depends how much is my divorce gonna cost? It depends. The last thing, good music. Right? Now what does that even mean? Because that's, I think that's completely subjective.

The, the, the word good is totally subjective anyway. Yes. Absolutely. So what does that mean for you? All of all three of those things are subjective. Like good hang, good pay, good music, right? But good music. Really just comes down to whether this is good for me personally. Do I gain any musical experience from this?

Do I enjoy this experience that we have? Like did I, was this music fun for me to play? Did I learn something from doing this? I played with this one band when I was still in jazz school that helped me fall in love with party music and funk music. And I went into, that band would sit in every week and I didn't make any money and I was trying to play jazz over party stuff and it did not work.

And so I, the pay was not good because I wasn't making any anything. The hang was great because I was hanging with older musicians who were fun to be around and taught me a whole wealth of knowledge and, but the music was also good 'cause I was learning how to play with this band. I was learning how to play this music so that if I ever wanted to play this in the future.

I had that same with the reggae group that I started working with, but I was just sitting in with their band. The pay wasn't great. The hang was okay because I didn't know any of them, but the music was great. I was learning how to play reggae music and in the best possible way. So good music isn't even necessarily, do I like this music?

Do I leave this gig feeling like this was okay? Like this was good. Did I disdain this whole experience? If you did not, if you got something from this positive, you are, you're good. Right? Backtracking a little bit to good pay want to bring to your attention and the audience's attention is that good pay is also, is also related to the level of organization that the band leader has, that the band has.

Like, it can be a good hang, be good music, but if it takes you six hours to get through one song and you have 30 songs, you know, in a rehearsal. That's, that may not be worth any amount of pay. Right, right, right. And that happens a lot. Yeah, for sure. And the thing is, it's not just organization when it comes to rehearsals, it's also, uh, level of doing your homework as far as who the band leader is.

Like, are they reliable? You know, do they put their business in? Do they have their business in order before they start things? Who's calling the shots in the gig? You know, who's making the options? The audibles, like all that stuff is really important. So what is the biggest takeaway that you've gotten from being a band member and from being a band leader?

Either one. Oh, okay. You said something earlier about doing your homework. I think the biggest takeaway or the best thing that you can do as a musician. Is, do your homework, learn your music, do what's been asked of you, show up on time and the rest of your job is easy. You know, we do. We, we do. And oh God, I could talk about this forever.

We do music because we love it, but there's also a business side to what we do. This is also our job. You have to do your job. So we can enjoy, you know, our job. Like we can't have fun until the business gets taken care of until I know that my bread is gonna be on the table when I get home. Like, so we can, we can enjoy ourselves after this is, after we've set this all up.

Do your part as a side, or especially as a side musician, right? Like as a band leader, all I've asked you to do is learn your music. Show up on time. So I'm not stressed out when I have to deal with all the other things that will stress me out as a band leader. Like there are other factors that have nothing to do with us that will inevitably come up.

So the best thing you can do is your job and then you know, there's the, and then there's the occasional like, Hey man, can I help you with anything or can I wrap some cables and stuff? That also goes a really long way, you know, like with good hanging, all that stuff that goes even long way. But bare minimum, learn your homework, learn your music, and show up on time.

That's do your job. Yeah. That will get you rehired more often. Yeah. That will get you paid, you know what I mean? Your table. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, y'all, this is, this has been a lot of fun. This is the music executive and these are the types of things that we talk about. We have so many amazing guests coming, but what you're about to hear is a tune called Canadian Sunset by Jazz pianist, Eddie Haywood.

And Emmanuel Chop Smith is the pianist and the producer, along with Justin Barnes, uh, on drums. He's also the producer with Billy Thornton on Bass and Marlon Patton, who was the mixer, Emmanuel. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. Yes, with love, yoga and music, y'all. Peace.

Don't forget to leave a rating of the show. Helps to make us better. Thanks so much y'all. Take care.