Memoirs of a Drug Pusher

by Lauren Price

After 15 long years serving time as a pharmaceutical rep, I was happy (understatement) to stop schlepping from office to office and retire my sample bag in favor or a new career.

And what could be more different from calling on doctors than working with musicians and singers? That's what I would have thought.

Ah, but I was wrong!

As a rep - you know, those annoying people who breeze right into the doctor's office while you're cooling your heels in the waiting room reading magazines from the last century - I called on all kinds of specialists. And what became obvious was that, within specialties, practitioners had very similar personality traits. Not only similar, but consistently, predictably, and unerringly the same.

Turns out, it's the same with musical people

For example, take a typical rhythm section. These guys are fun and easygoing but are also great problem solvers. They're way cool, hip and dialed into all the latest trends.

Tell them, "I'm looking for an ethnic Mongolian groove with Afro-funk influences for a Tuvan throat singer" and they nail it by the second take.

Want to hear the latest jokes? Hire horn players! Aside from being fun and boisterous, they exude an aura of macho self-confidence. Who hasn't heard the horn player mantra of, "Ok, let's make it." And if it's not perfect by the second take, it's probably the copyist's fault.

String players. These folks are very particular, precise and focused. They have a very empathetic relationship with their environment - it has to be just right.

But often in the studio world, the music stands are too high or too low, the lights too bright or too dim, the chairs too hard, too soft or too non-ergonomic. And as for the A/C - well, it's never, ever right.

Singers are charming, dramatic and not surprisingly ...very verbal. Oh how they love talking about music. In fact, talking about it is almost a prerequisite to actually singing it. And are they ever versatile.

This is a typical singer comment: "Let me show you what it would sound like if I was born in Finland, studied in South Africa and I was currently living in Tokyo. And it actually does sound exactly like that. Hilarious!

Here's the biggest difference between doctors and musicians

When I was calling on doctors, one of their favorite expressions was, "Sounds good!" Of course, this was usually uttered as they were inching away from me in an attempt to end the conversation. (Even as I was delivering a brilliant discourse on why my drug was the safest, most efficacious, most blah, blah, blahest drug on the market.)

But when a musician says, "Sounds good," it has an entirely different meaning. And, to me, that makes all the difference in the world.