Even DIY artists can’t do everything themselves and expect to stay sane, happy, and healthy. It takes a village to break a band, as Hillary Clinton said.

So next time you need help putting up tour posters, mailing CDs, assembling press kits, designing props for your stage show, or doing anything else that requires a little bit of old fashioned hands-on work, just mozie on down to your local time bank and make a withdrawal.

 What is Time Banking?

Wikipedia says it best:

Time banking is a pattern of reciprocal service exchange that uses units of time as currency. It is an example of an alternative monetary system. A time bank, also known as a service exchange, is a community that practices time banking. The unit of currency, always valued at an hour’s worth of any person’s labor, used by these groups has various names, but is generally known as a time dollar in the U.S. and a time credit in the U.K.

More time dollars = less tedious tasks

So how would this work for musicians? Well, you could donate a bit of your time to someone else’s cause when it’s convenient for you (maybe in between tours or recording sessions). Then when you’re strapped for time, cash in your credits and spend those time dollars enlisting other folks to help you with the unglamorous work behind any successful music career.

Many time banks focus on services that go into improving communities, raising families, enacting social justice, supporting ecological sustainability, etc. Not all time banks will accommodate something as self-serving and capitalist as, say, promoting your band. But if you can’t find the right service-exchange through an official time bank, you can always create your own system amongst local bands and help one another out.

Also, if you ever perform at or produce a benefit concert, time banking can be a great way to promote that show.

Check out http://timebanks.org/ for more information.

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[Hourglass image from Shutterstock.]