Opportunity Won't Come to You: Iqui Vinculado on Classical Guitar, Teaching Rates, and Building a Career from Manila

MoneyGigs is supported by Trifloral.com T-R-Y-F L O-R-A-L.com TheMoneyGigs to get your discount. Trifloral produces THC beverages. They come in 2.55 and 10 milligram varieties in all sorts of flavors. I have one prior to my gig and everything is so smooth. Visit T-R-Y-F l O-R-A l.com themoneygigs that's trifloral.com themoneygigs and get your discount. I want to ask a favor before you start listening to this wonderful PODC episode we have today. Go get the app if you don't have it already. There's an invite code in the description you can use to gain access to the venue database. And as you're listening, think about finding three to five venues that you've played and providing ratings and comments. It's like the green book for musicians. I have to give credit to Max Guy. He's a Cincinnati guitarist who gave me that phrase because he's right. That's what it's supposed to be. So as you're listening, you can go about provide ratings and comments and help other musicians arrive prepared for the gig. What drives everything you do, folks? My guest today is Iqui Vinculado, a classical guitarist from Manila, Philippines, who made history as the first female classical guitar graduate from the University of Santo Tomas, an institution founded in 1611. She tours internationally, performs with the Pima Guitar Quartet, and has built a career in a country where, as she'll tell you herself, classical music is not really a thing. We talked about money, the gender pay gap, AI, the pandemic, and the single belief that drives everything she does. Super talented. Iqui Vinculado. This is the Money Gigs podcast. I'm Cliff Adams. Good. Good evening. How are you?

Good, good.

I'm just honored that you're joining me. So let's jump in. First female classical guitar graduate from ust, which is the University of Santo Tomas, which was founded in 1611. It's the Philippines premier Catholic institution. So that's a real barrier broken. Congratulations. So who is Iqui Vinculado and how did you end up on this path?

My first love for playing the guitar is when I was in high school. I just loved Michelle Branch's music. She's the reason why I played the guitar in the first place. And I got influenced by my sister, my older sister at first. So she. She bought her guitar and I borrowed. I was borrowing her. Her guitar as well. So we're both learning on our own. So do you know those like books, chord books?

Yes.

So we use that. And then planning on getting to college. I. I did not want to like take nursing course.

Right.

That's three. A really famous course here to take in the Philippines. And I do not want accountancy. I. I don't want anything but music. But I didn't know any like background from anybody. I do not have formal lesson back then I was a self taught.

How long did you self teach? I'm assuming you got lessons at some point.

No, my formal lesson was in college when I got into USC Conservatory music. But in USC they have like a pre. Call that like a pre class rudiments before you really go to college.

Yeah, we have that here. University of Cincinnati where I am, they have a college preparatory conservatory. It's a college conservatory of music. It's preparatory and I did that as well from. From a very young age.

So yeah, we all had that because this USD they take students who don't really like play formally or professionally with some college like in University of the Philippines they. They have that level, standard level that you have to have before getting in. So in USC they take students doesn't know how to read notes. So I was one of them and yeah, and I. We were introduced to classical music and I fell in love with classical guitar.

You picked it up because of Michelle Branch, the. I remember the tune with Santana, Game of Love. Right, Barry. A lot of gumption, a lot of confidence, a lot of strength in that performance. And so I get that. But did you pick up the guitar and pick out that tune and play it yourself? Did you teach yourself that tune?

Actually her first single everywhere.

Oh, okay.

I learned.

Do you have perfect pitch?

I don't have perfect pitch. All hard work.

Well, it served you well. Looking at your material on YouTube. You play a lot of deep things, a lot of good pieces and it's all incredibly calming and you approach the instrument and approach the performance. It feels like in a very honorable way. Classical training is hard and I imagine there it's also prestigious. How does that world translate when you're actually trying to make a living? Is the conservatory preparing you for the real gig economy or not?

Well, in the conservatory you don't really learn how to live in the real world. So in the conservatory you just practice and improve your craft preparing you to the real world. You just. I had to go out there and experience everything.

Definitely when we get out of college here in the States, we are in debt and then you have your gig economy. Is it the same way there?

Thankfully, no debt, no school debt, no loan. My parents took care of my school, my college. But in my later years, like two years or three years, I had scholarship and then for. I had to teach on the side for my allowances weekly.

What kind of money are you making teaching? Like, what's a half hour here is about 35, $40 in the States. What are the rates like there?

An hour here is like $8 an hour.

$8 US yeah. I'm coming to the Philippines to get classical guitar lessons from you. I want to go back to the parents because they seemed really supportive. Why don't you talk to me about that?

Well, I fought. I fought for. I really fought for it. He had no choice because I took it for college. And they just realized like two years or three years. So I think she's doing well and she'll do great here. I think they realized that I invite them with my performances there and I was one top of my classes, so I really studied hard.

Well, let's talk about that for a second. Let's bring that full circle. So you're the first female classical guitar graduate from ust and were your parents, I am assuming, there for that moment. And how did they receive that when that happened?

I graduated with Latin honors, and that was new for me. I graduated cum laude back in high school. I was not in top 10 even. But yeah, in my college, I graduated with honors. So they were really proud.

They should be practicing and working. Were there any moments that. I mean, I'm sure you enjoyed moments of that process, but what were the enjoyable moments or what caused you to keep going?

The love for music, that what's kept me going. The love for playing the classical guitar, it kept me going. It took me seven years to finish my bachelor's degree.

So you're touring internationally now, right? Yep, Teaching, performing with ensembles, doing lots of brand work. I see you do lots of stuff on the web. How do you manage the business across different countries? Currencies and venue cultures, you know? Is a gig in Manila fundamentally different than a gig in the United States?

Well, I haven't been to the US But I think when a musician is from here, you'll be ready and prepared for everything.

They say that about New York. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But you would say it's the Philippines. Yeah. Wow.

Because classical music is not really a thing here.

So do you have things like can you do busking? Like go out with your guitar on a sidewalk and put a cup down and make money that way. How do performance opportunities come to you?

I don't do busking here.

Sure.

Well, through teaching. So for barrels. And I get to play for birthdays. Wedding. That. That's where you hear classical music most of the time, especially weddings. Private events. If they have like Spanish themed. Spanish theme. So they need a classical guitar. So they'll get a guitarist. Classical guitar. So that's where I play. Private events. More on private events, private gigs, corporate.

And those are achieved sort of like you said, through networking, through your teaching.

Sometimes I play in hotels, so yeah, for weekly I play in Hyatt sometimes that's where I get clients.

Okay, so there's a lot of tourism then, I would imagine. And so what have your experience has been like that in that regard? Are you off to the side playing all the time. Do you ever interact with folks that are coming through the hotel? What's your experience been playing hotels in Manila?

Sometimes they approach me and get my contact details and sometimes they just approach me just to say, I liked what you're doing, I like what you did. Or can you play this? Yeah, that's it.

Cool. Have you built a network that way? I know I put up a QR code both for tips and for my contact info. Have you done something similar and built a network?

Yeah, yeah. And posting in social media really helps.

Okay. I have mixed experiences here in Cincinnati. We have lots of musicians and so everybody is posting on Facebook, Instagram, and so it's kind of a signal to noise problems. There's lots of noise, so it's hard to stand out. And I just find there's a lot of creative energy that you have to put toward doing that. Like you said at ust, they didn't teach you about these things. You're just learning about it through experience. What are the obstacles? Like what is the hard part about getting people to your gig and promoting?

The hardest, if people will gonna come. You just gotta trust that process. And whether one person will just watch or 10 person will watch, you just gotta give it all.

And there's things that are outside of your control as well. And you talked about those in the questions I asked in the calendar invite. You may have forgotten them, but you said your number one pain point is the sound system at the venue oftentimes and you know, you bother to get people there and 20, 30 people show up and now the sound system's wrong and they're not going to blame the venue. They're going to blame you and it's not your thing. So it sounds like you've had some difficulties at times getting good venue sound systems to work. Can you talk about that?

So here in the Philippines, we don't have that much like good concert venues and guitar is one of the softest instruments. And when you play like in a restaurant or in a bar or in the concert venue, that's not acoustically good. You. We really need sound system, just a microphone. But when you're in that position, people will really cooperate. They will stop whatever they're doing. They will be quiet and just pay attention to you. That's a magic thing happened.

That is a magic thing. Yeah. Yeah. Want to talk about you being the first woman in your program? Did that come with challenges in gigging and getting opportunities? Like how venues treat you, how you negotiate, how you're perceived? You know, that's always a thing. Here we call it the gender pay gap where men are getting paid more than women. Is that a thing as well in Philippines and have you encountered that challenge?

Well, I think being a woman and who plays the guitar here, I think it's more, I experience more advantages. Like some, like some men come, not really complain, but they will always try to say like it's good that we have like a woman around because they will treat us better because there's a woman around and there's. Yeah, there's me. So they have to take care of the musicians, the artists rather than when there's all men, they just put you somewhere and just okay, you'll be okay.

Right, right. Sort of discounted. So has that ever affected, you know, how do you go about in Manila negotiating rates with venues? Like when you go to a venue and how do you achieve a gig there? Here I might go to a restaurant and say, you know, I play live music. I kind of have a bottom rate. This is what I want to charge. What's the experience like there here?

It depends because for me if you play in the hotel, they really need to have that lower rate. Especially when you play like weekly or twice a week, you really get the rate low.

It's. It's a flat rate, non negotiable.

And like for private events I, I get to like offer the. My real rate. Yeah. And then there's no like difference between female or male performers. Yeah. And sometimes they just look for a female performer just to look like visually it's will look better.

Okay, well that's encouraging. Then it Sounds like that's not been an obstacle for you. How many gigs are you playing? Let's say a month or a week?

Well, for example, like the past few months, no gigs or just private events? I don't really have like a regular gig. I focus more on teaching and private events. I try to manage my teaching because teaching is my like the consistent thing, consistent payroll.

So because you're teaching and you have that stable income source, you can choose which gigs you want to play. And you probably don't want to play a bar or a cheap hotel. You probably want to with a cheap rate. You probably want to be selective and play those upscale corporate gigs. So that's great. One of the things also outside of your control that you mentioned in the questions was weather. How hot does it get there?

If it's really humid, like right now my hands will really get slippery. Yeah. And my hands is. What do you call that?

Sweaty.

Yes, sweaty. I have sweaty hands. But it's humid and it's hot doesn't really help.

It's a challenge. We have a concept in the States called. I mean it's global climate change. Right. So do you think the climate has changed over the past 15 years? Is it getting hotter or and more difficult or do you see a change?

Well, yeah, I do. I do feel the change. And right now it's summer, so it's really hot. But when January and Feb. When it's January and February, it's really cold here. Not really like for us it's cold, air conditioned weather.

Yeah, I'm just looking it up right now for listeners. By the way, this is video. Video won't happen. This is audio only. But right now it is 10:25pm where you are, it's 86 degrees. The humidity is 71% and your highs roughly around 94, 93. Occasionally you get some thunderstorms which I hope help but I don't know. So that's a real challenge though, especially for classical guitarists. Do you do a lot of outdoor venues or are you mostly playing inside?

Sometimes we have like outdoor venues and sometimes we have indoor, which is better.

Are you saying we in the Philippines or do you play with a group of people? I've noticed in some of your videos you have a singer and some other musicians.

Oh, I play with a guitar quartet. We are called Pima Inter Quartet and sometimes I play solo, sometimes I play with a singer. I love collaboration, so that's where I'm focused at.

You know one thing I took away watching some of your solo videos, though, is, you know, it's a very chaotic world and some of that is brought upon by ourselves. We have these phones now and so we can always do things to stimulate our minds. And sometimes I feel like simplicity is what's needed. And when you do your solo stuff, that's what I get from that. It's a moment to put the phone away, relax, be calm, and just notice the nuances you're playing. Especially classically is extremely nuanced and very expressive. You're not just playing the notes, you are really emotionally phrasing. It's wonderful to hear. And that leads me into a very opposite topic you posted recently. Is this song AI? I'm not sure, but this is not AI. I love that. How real is that threat to you, to what you do? What's your honest take on where classical performance sits in the AI world?

Well, my take is AI. AI music is okay. Sometimes. Some, yeah, it helps, like non musicians especially, or it helps a company, like make jingles and they don't have to pay someone. And it's convenient and effective and efficient. But the live music is more important and AI can't. Can't really imitate that. So I'm not really scared of AI music because we can always play live music and they can't really copy that.

I'm wondering, when you're on a gig, when you're playing a performance, do you make any sort of effort to connect with the people that are there?

Well, sometimes when they react like, oh, they know the song, I know they know the song and just. And I just smile at them. And then I try to like mimic or sing, hum the lyrics of the song. And that's how I connect to the audiences.

Excellent. Well, you've had people come up during your performances and so obviously that's a connection moment as well. I say, on my breaks, I'm not on break, I'm at work. A different type of work. I usually go to tables or I'll go to the bar and talk to people to try to. What has been impressed upon me is that we are rock stars. To them, we are magicians. And so there's a value in just trying to connect with audience members, say hello, just to make sure that they understand that we are human and not AI. So good. I like how you said AI is okay. And I think that's perfect because if we think about judging music, if somebody said your music is okay, it's not excellent, it's not superior. Right. It's just okay. I think you're spot on with that. So you've. Where have you toured internationally? I mentioned that before. And you haven't been to the States? I misread that. I just assumed. Where have you been?

I've been to some parts of Asia. I've been to Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei. I've been to Europe, Netherlands, France, Germany, Turkey, Spain and North America. Canada.

How did you get all this opportunity?

Well, after college, I was invited to join a trio, a group of female guitarists. And then we formed a group called Triple Threat. And then from there we played concerts in Asia and in Europe and I got connections from there. And then in 2017, I focused on my solo. So my sister lives in Canada. So every time I go there, every time I go to a country, I try to connect to guitarist, classical guitarist. Because we're. We're that like there's a. We have small community.

A network.

Yeah, small network. And we're all connected instagram. So I just have. I. I just message them. If, like in Winnipeg, where my sister is at, I just messaged the Winnipeg Classical Guitar Society and they were really welcoming and they just organized a concert and knowing that I'm Filipino and Winnipeg has like many Filipinos, so it's a new, new audience for them. It's new audience, new people, new connection. So. Yeah, and then I try to connect and play something from here, from the Philippines, and share something about my culture.

Yeah, that's great. You were able to network. It seems like you have that as a natural instinct. How did it come to you to decide, oh, I'm going to reach out. Are you seeking opportunity? You just want to play more and as a result, you think you are motivated to connect with people. Like what goes on in your mind when you're in Winnipeg and you think, I need to connect with people,.

Opportunity will not come to me. So I just, I have to go out there and, you know, email and just message, just try. And if they answer, then good. If not, then it's okay.

I almost want to talk to your parents because I almost want to know if you have always been that way. Self driven, let's say, you know, not someone to wait and see. If things come, you go out and get things. Have you always been that way?

I think it's being Filipino.

Oh, okay.

I grew up here and I took classical music and it's not really a thing here. Yeah, you really have to be driven and you really have to persevere and be Determined.

I heard you named your band as you were traveling. Triple Threat. Who came up with that name?

Well, my friend Marga Abejo, she came up with that name because of Triple Threat. It's just like a word play. Triple Threat.

Triple Threat. That's awesome. Obviously, you're bringing the goods. Really good product musically. So you've broken barriers, you've toured internationally, you've built a brand. If you could talk to your younger self in high school or college, as you're training, if you could go back in time and go into one of the practice rooms and you're sitting there as your younger self, what is something you would say to that person?

You're doing great. It's okay. Just keep on doing what you love.

Were there really hard moments? Like very hard self doubt? Am I doing the right thing? Is this going to work out? Should I give up? Did you ever consider giving up?

Yeah. Yeah, I did. Especially during Pandemic when the world stopped, right? So there were no entertainment, no performers, no life performances. And I really did stop. I got into music production, so editing, recording, mixing. So it's still music. So I got into that during Pandemic.

And then what brought you back to the guitar again?

Because of there's live performances again. And my other guitar friends invited me to join the group, the Pima Guitar Quartet.

It's good to have friends once again. Friendship so important. So I'll describe my first experience coming out of COVID I was at the grocery store, and they decided they wanted to play, have music, live music at the grocery store. And they have a bar. You can get wine and beer. And I was just sitting there drinking beer, and a friend of mine said, cliff, do you want to go get your keyboard? We're gonna have live music. You're gonna be the first one. So I went and I got my keyboard, I set it up, and I put a tip jar, and I started playing Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles. It was like the first time people had ever heard music coming out of COVID Do you remember the first time you played after Covid in front of people?

Yeah, I was asked to play in a hotel lobby. That was my first live performance after Covid.

How'd it go?

It was great.

Yeah. Thank you for talking with me today. It's been a true honor to meet you. Do you have any plans to come to the States?

No plans yet. I'm going this September.

Oh, really?

Yeah. I don't. I don't have a US Visa, so I don't see my brother that much. So he just comes here or just visit Canada.

So Winnipeg, you said it's kind of like a mini Philippines. There's lots of Filipinos there.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you go to grocery if you just hear your language.

Huh. I look forward to hearing more from you and seeing more from you on YouTube and following you. But thank you so much for talking with me.

Thank you.

I want to sit with something Iqui said for a second before I let you go. When I asked how she built her international network, Japan, Europe, Canada, she said she just messages people cold every time because opportunity won't come to her. She has to go get it. And she said it like it was obvious that there was no other option. I'm going through that too. Organic outreach is something I like to procrastinate about because I think the product I'm making either my music or my app is going to be enough. It's not. And this goes for every musician. You have to engage people. I think about the version of myself that stepped away from gigging for 10 years. I told myself a lot of stories about why. And here's this woman in Manila where classical music by her own description is not really a thing. Seven years to finish a degree. First female graduate in the program's history. Touring internationally, building a career one cold message at a time. She didn't wait for permission. There wasn't any permission to wait for the other thing I keep coming back to. She uses teaching as her financial foundation, specifically so she can stay selective about gigs. We've heard that one before. She knows what her time is worth. Clarity. Knowing your number, knowing when to say no. That's not something the conservatory tells taught her. She figured it out herself the hard way. Same way most of us do. That's what this show is about. Not the highlight reel. The real math. The sweaty hands at 86 degrees. The hotel weekly with the non negotiable flat rate. The magic that happens when a room goes quiet for a classical guitar. Find Iqui on YouTube and Instagram links in the show notes. Go watch her play. I'll see you next episode.