Mixing business with pleasure is a dirty game, isn't it? While necessary, practice spaces exemplify the tension that comes with sharing a small area with a number of personal friends and acquaintances. It's like living in a tiny house with eight other unbalanced roommates. Between paying rent, keeping the space clean and organized, and having to occasionally text a friend and ask them if you can use a guitar strap, there are a multitude of dicey situations you can find yourself in.
To help alleviate some common headaches associated with sharing a space, we've compiled a short guide to help you navigate through some potentially tenuous and troublesome situations with your fellow musicians.
6. There Is Always More Room For More Garbage
Last time you tried to change the garbage, you ended up having to wash your hands. Rather than risk contracting some sort of deadly fungal infection from old beer and fast-food wrappers, you should just take a mic stand and mash the filth further down into the garbage can. This creates more room and thus is an increase in efficiency. Plus, the trash weighs more and is really compacted in there, so the weight should help the dirty mass flop out when someone else decides to take it out. Really, you're doing everyone a favor.
5. Cigarettes Kinda Go Just Anywhere Or Something
The ashtray is full, and you can't empty it into the trash because the trash is also full, and the other band hasn't emptied it yet, but you need to put your cigarettes somewhere. You should absolutely be safe and put your smokes out on a non-flammable surface, like one of those metal boxes with all the knobs that the guitar players in the other band are always messing around with. That way you're sure not to start a fire. Then, take the cigarette butt and leave it on top of someone's amp just in case they happen to show up and desperately need a drag. #DoTheRightThing
4. You Don't Really Have To Pay This Month
I mean, dude, you've only been in there three times in the last month, and everyone else has been in there five or six times. Someone (not you, of course) should just take the rent every single month and create an algorithm that dictates what you pay based on the percentage of time you personally were in the space. It's far more fair than paying the designated amount of rent you agreed to pay every month when you moved in. Besides, remember that time six months ago when you paid an extra $15 because your temporary trumpet player was in Hawaii and didn't have time to drop off a check? Or the time you left those three Miller Lites in the refrigerator? You're totally fine, bro.
Continue to page two.
