In this episode, Jared reflects on a unique acoustic wedding gig at the Denver Botanic Gardens—and how it exposed both the raw vulnerability of playing unplugged and the mindset traps musicians face around money. He opens up about his own struggles with limiting beliefs around pricing, shares what it takes to justify high fees, and challenges you to rethink your worth as a performer. If you've ever felt guilty about raising your prices, this episode is your nudge to level up.

"There is no strategic benefit to being a broke musician. The more you charge—and deliver—the more people you can help with your music."

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What's up, Renegade musicians? It's Jared Judge. Welcome back to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

It is Saturday, no, Friday, May 30th, 2025. And on my way home from the Denver Botanic Gardens, I just played a three hour wedding there. Very interesting gig because they hired me as a solo acoustic violinist, which, as you know, I am normally an electric violinist.

However, the Denver Botanic Gardens is basically right in downtown Denver in a very residential area. And the Botanic Gardens, it's gorgeous. It's like this oasis in the middle of a city where they've got tons of plants and different areas for different ecosystems.

That's their main thing with the gardens is they've got a desert area and they've got a Japanese tea garden and all these other really cool spots.

But because it is such a residential area around, there is a noise ordinance where the rules of the Botanic Gardens to prevent the noise ordinance from becoming an issue, the rules are you may not use amplified instruments.

So all of the music has to be acoustic. And so this couple hired me for three hours to play acoustic violin, which is very different than my typical setup.

I charged $1,000 for it and then I got a $50 tip on top of it, which was nice. And yeah, it was kind of a tough gig. I'm gonna be honest with you. I think I sounded pretty good.

In fact, I got lots of compliments afterwards. But, you know, just playing solo violin, in my opinion, does sound very thin, very empty.

I played a lot of the tunes that are on my playlist when I do electric gigs. and it actually really was helpful that I have played those tunes so many times with backing tracks because I was basically just imagining the backing tracks in my mind and playing along with them.

But I don't know, the other thing about, like, acoustic gigs is that playing on an acoustic instrument is a very real litmus test to how good you sound, because electric instruments with all of their tone production and Reverb and effects that you can add you can really mask mediocre play.

Not to say that I played mediocrely, but it's humbling to hear that my rhythms aren't always as precise as I think they are, especially when the backing track is basically a metronome. And it's also humbling to hear, like, oh, I'm not holding notes that long.

I'm actually relying on the reverb to take me the rest of the way there. and so my note length was not always what I wanted it to be tonight. But that's okay.

I still think I sounded good and I got plenty of compliments. The bride and groom were very happy with the performance, which that's what it's all about. If the bride and groom are happy, then you've done your job.

And yeah, so that was it. I wanted to address a false belief that, you know, I think has been cropping up for some musicians, and, you know, even a little bit myself too, which is like this whole idea of charging a lot for your services, which, you know, we musicians, we're kind of, it's not like we're born this way, but as we grow up around other musicians who have money issues, we kind of adapt those mindsets.

We start to believe like, oh, money is not a thing for us. Money is something that non-artists have, and we must be, in order to be the best artists we can be, we have to not have a lot of money. And then there becomes a little bit of a resentment towards those who have it, and even a resentment towards musicians who charge a lot for their services.

Like some people think, wow, how dare he charge $1,000 for one gig as a soloist? like what makes him so special. But the idea here is that, well, there are a couple things.

One, these high-end gigs is not just about the music. That was kind of one of the first big lessons I had when I, you know, started to do this was it's not just about the music, it's about the customer service.

It's about making sure the planning process with the bride and groom is super smooth and seamless. and they really find you easy to work with.

And that, you know, when you're at the gig, you have great equipment that sounds really good, is 100% reliable, and you have backup equipment in case anything goes wrong, and all those other things.

Like even just in order to get these gigs, you have to spend some money on marketing and selling yourself. And so there really is no strategic benefit to being broke.

And the other thing is, like, the more money you make with your music, the more you can afford to invest in all of those things that I talked about and provide a better product and be able to serve more people with your music.

And this was something I learned from one of my, my current mentors.

His name is Matt, and, you know, he talks about if you truly have a desire to serve as many people as possible and help as many people as possible, then you should have a desire to become as wealthy as possible because you know, you're, the amount of money you make is in direct proportion to how effectively you help people.

For example, if you, if you charged, you know, a thousand bucks a gig, which, by the way, I charge more than a thousand now.

Like, I'm now reaping, I'm now harvesting the seeds that I've sown months ago. So my rates now are more than that for an hour of my time.

But the point being, if you charge at least a thousand bucks per gig, but then you do a bad job and people really don't like your music or your equipment fails mid-gig or you're kind of a jerk, on the gig and you say, hey, I were to roll my cart over the plants in the Botanic Garden and just be a kind of jerk all around. Well, the marketplace is going to correct for that.

You're going to get bad reviews, you're going to get blacklisted from the venues, you're going to get this reputation as somebody who does not deliver what they serve.

And so that's why, like, know, it's okay to charge that much, but you've got to back it up with good music and also good business skills behind it.

And that's why, like, if getting back to what my mentor says, if you have a desire to help as many people as possible, you should have a desire to be as wealthy as possible because you're going to be charging a lot and you're going to be delivering a great service that truly helps them.

So that's something I'm still like internalizing. I still have like limiting money beliefs myself. I do feel like I could charge more and there's probably some, in some ways I'm probably sabotaging myself because I still hold some of these beliefs about money.

But I'm working on those and I feel like each time I increase my prices, that's me chipping away at these money beliefs.

So I hope that inspires some of you to raise your prices. and if you're still charging like a hundred bucks a gig, obviously, if you're in the bar scene, there's not much you can do.

But if you're in the high end, like weddings and corporate gigs and that kind of scene, and if you're still charging a hundred bucks a man, you gotta, like, at least 10x those prices today. If you're not comfortable with 10x, at least 5x it, because you can.

It's really just as simple as making that decision. But once you make that decision and you start to charge people, it's really going to test those beliefs that you have.

So think about that and try it. Just try it out. Try on those 5x price pants and see what happens. You never know, it may just make your life a lot easier. And that's what it's all about.

Playing some music, having fun, making some good money. So that's all I got for y'all today. Thanks tuning into another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast.

By the way, if you're interested in some strategy talk about how to break into high end gigs, go to my website, fulltimemusicacademy.com/call and book a free 45 minute strategy session where we'll dive deep into your music career and see what's holding you back from those high end gigs.

Maybe it is beliefs about money, maybe it's something else. So fulltimemusicacademy.com/call and we'll chat. Thanks for tuning into another episode.

Remember, "Your music will not market itself!" Bye everybody.