Hi Everyone,

Here it is. June. Wedding month. I'm up to my eyeballs in brides and Pachelbel. Any of you playing weddings this month? Receptions or ceremonies, it doesn't matter. . . I'm looking for good wedding stories from musicians. This should be fun.

Thanks!
Robin

I just played an outdoor ceremony a couple of weeks ago in Dearborn Michigan and forgot to turn the ringer off on my phone...oops! Luckly the ring pitch was somewhat in key:)

I play in a Classic Rock party band and at our last cabaret this past weekend this really drunk blonde chick came onto the stage claiming somebody gave her permission to play the drums. So for the entire duration of Roxanna (The Police), this chick was chirping away in our drummer's ear trying to steal his sticks while saying "I can do that, I can do that". Then he'd do this tight fill and she'd be like "oooohhhh I can't do thaaaaat". It was pretty much hilarious. Small town gigs, man. He had it under control though, lol. Chatted with her to try and distract her until someone ripped her off the stage.

Yes. Wedding parties seem to always include an amateur musician or two. Usually they want to sing. The drummer thing could be downright hazardous.

JPE, love the cell phone during the ceremony! At least you were in the same key. My dad once played a ceremony (this was a million years ago) with a guitarist who was listening to the baseball game through a little transistor radio with an ear phone. The musician in question was (like many club date musicians) half deaf and had the volume turned up way too loud, which resulted in the pianist (leader on the gig) turning to him, during a prayer, and saying "Jesus, turn that damn thing down." These were the famed Dilernia Brothers of Pittsburgh—Albert and Alfred (Al and Al) both of whom have passed on to that big wedding in the sky.

I live and work in Germany. I played a wedding last night and it was—for lack of a better word—confusing. The groom was very classy and even tempered, and the bride was like something out of the German version of Hee-Haw (she kept slapping me on the back). The groom rented a gorgeous Bösendorfer concert grand for me (it was really really great). The bride had hired a DJ. The groom was drinking Tattinger Rosé, the bride was guzzling shots of tequila. Anyway, the evening peaked when I was in the middle of a Debussey Arabesque, really enjoying myself on that magnificent piano. I looked through the French doors of the salon, out into the garden, and saw the bride's brother barfing in the rose bushes. This was, I might add, not at the castle where I usually play, but at another castle, obviously on the wrong side of the castle tracks.

It should be noted that German weddings are all day events. By the time I arrived to play for the 5 star dinner, the guests had already been drinking for five or six hours. Heaven only knows what happened later in the evening. I played my two hours and escaped with a big bag of money. But I'll be dreaming about that dreamy piano!

That's a hilarious story. I'm guessing the groom's mother felt like barfing, herself, after seeing what kind of family her son was marrying into...

My hubby and I hired a musician friend of ours to play keyboards at our wedding. (We held it outside, at the house where we lived at the time, which was way out in the boonies down a one-mile gravel driveway, so an acoustic wasn't really an option.) The musician friend is a talented composer of dreamy new age synthesizer music, and we had him play one of his compositions we both particularly enjoyed for the big march down the (nonexistent) aisle. The guests looked a little bit confused by the lack of a recognizable Pachelbel or Wedding March, but it meant a lot to us, and that's all that matters.

My cat wandered in and out of the ceremony, and although it had been gloomy and cloudy all morning, the clouds parted and a beam of light broke through just as we were saying our vows. We could hear the oohs and ahhhs of the guests when it happened.

Oh Monica. that's lovely! I particularly like the cat and the beam of light.

I've had some perfect wedding music moments like that. They keep me going.

I recently played for a gay wedding. It was beautiful—wonderful Steinway, sunshine filtering through the giant trees, two gorgeous guys who allowed me to chose the music (I played all originals), guests who were gracious and appreciative.

At our own wedding, John and I had a jazz trio who played the hippest ever version of the wedding march and a lush arrangement of All the Things You Are.

This is my wedding chapter from my book Piano Girl: A Memoir. Happy reading!

©2005 Robin Meloy Goldsby, all rights reserved
(Reprinted with permission of Backbeat Books)

Here Comes That Bride

“So. You’ll play for us on the seventh of August, from seven to ten in the evening?” says Frau Braun.

“It’s on my calendar,” I say. “I’ll be there thirty minutes early to make sure everything is in order.”

“I just want some background music to be played during dinner, nothing too loud.”

“No problem. That’s my specialty. You have my CD. What I play on the CD is exactly the type of thing I’ll play for your party.”

“Perfect. I love that CD. You know what? Please send twenty of them to the banquet department. I’d love to use them as bridal-party gifts.”

“What a nice idea. I’ll give you a good price on them.” I’m mentally calculating how much additional income this will generate. “So I’ll see you on the seventh.”

“Oh, wait, one thing,” she says.

I should have known. Brides always start thinking of stuff if you don’t get off the phone quickly.

“When the guests are coming into the room, will you play something from Carmen, or something that sounds like bullfight music?”

“You want bullfight music for a wedding?”

“Well, yes, I met my fiancé in Spain.”

“Okay. Bullfight music.” I make a note on my calendar to figure something out. “So I’ll see you on the seventh.”

“Wait! Another thing. Between the soup and the salad course, I’d like you to play ‘Lady’ by Lionel Richie. Heinrich says it reminds him of me. After the salad, before the soup, but not until all the plates have been cleared and Uncle Wilhelm has made his speech about his memories of me.”

“‘Lady.’ Lovely song.” I make another note. “Okay. Bullfight music for the entrance, ‘Lady’ between the soup and salad, plates cleared, Uncle Willi’s speech—”

“WILHELM. UNCLE WILHELM.”

“Right. Uncle Wilhelm. I’ll have the banquet manager keep me posted about the timing of the courses. So that’s it, then.”

“Wait! I’m thinking, I’m thinking, I’m thinking! Oh! I know! I’d like to have you play a little song for Heinrich, you know, one dedicated to him from me. Something to let everyone know how I feel about him.”

“Do you have anything in mind?”

“ ‘My Way.’ I think that’s the name of it. You know, that Frank Sinatra song.”

In Germany, when somebody asks you for “that Frank Sinatra song,” they always mean “My Way.” I hum a few bars of it for her, just to make sure.

“Yes, that’s the one. Will you play that before the dessert is served? Uncle Wilhelm will do the second part of his speech about his memories of me, then you can play the song.”

“Fine. No problem. Great choice!” I hate that song, but it’s her wedding. If she wants to dedicate a song whose opening lyric is “And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain . . .” to her brand-new husband, then that’s her choice. No one will be singing, they’ll be drinking, and they all speak a different language anyway.

“Anything after the dessert?” My page of notes is getting full. I figure if Uncle Wilhelm is going to do part three of his speech, after dessert would be the perfect time. Speeches give me a chance to take a break.

“No, that will be it. I’ve hired a magician and a belly dancer to perform after dinner. Then the dance band starts.”

“Sounds like the perfect wedding, Frau Braun. I’ll see you on the seventh. I really must go. I’m playing for a luncheon this afternoon.” Not true, but I want to get off the phone before she requests anything else. We say goodbye and I hang up.

This is going to be one swinging party. Especially if the guests survive Uncle Wilhelm.

I love weddings. I love going to them, I love being in them, I love playing for them. I adore the Gone with the Wind white dresses, the pomp and circumstance, the father giving away the bride, the drunken weepy speeches, the little girls in their patent-leather shoes, and the little boys throwing rice. There’s something about a wedding that gives me faith in humanity. The very idea that the love between two people can make the world a better place for each of them is, to me, a reason to celebrate.

At Schlosshotel Lerbach, it’s not unusual for the bride and groom to arrive in a gilded carriage pulled by white horses. I play for big weddings and small weddings, for ceremonies and receptions, for wedding lunches, wedding dinners, and wedding cocktail hours. I play in the rose garden in the blazing sun of July or in the golden entrance hall with tremendous gusts of winter wind sweeping through the iron gates of the castle as the ermine-clad bride makes her first appearance. I play on the balcony, in the bar, and out on the old stone terrace surrounded by huge pots of fragrant herbs. Whenever the client has requested quiet background music, I’m the girl who gets the call. I’ve made a niche for myself playing music that doesn’t interfere. Less is more. It’s hard to find musicians who understand this, and even harder to find good musicians who are willing to put up with being ignored. But I love it. An elegant man once came to the piano while I was playing, took my business card, and said, “Your music is so perfect. I can hardly hear it.” He called me a week later and booked me to play for his wedding.

Playing the piano for four or five hours straight is hard work. There’s a meditative state that I sink into when I’m doing one of these marathon jobs. I call it the Piano Zone, and when I’m there I’m happy. I play for myself, I compose on the job, I improvise, I let my fantasies take me far away. I’ve always figured that my job is to tame the chaos beast, so that the people around me can feel as peaceful as I do. Married life is chaotic enough. You might as well get off to a nice quiet start.

I’m just packing the last of the CDs to send to Frau Braun when the phone rings again.

“Braun here. I have one more small request.”

“It’s your wedding, Frau Braun—anything I can do to make it special for you would be my pleasure,” I say.

“Oh, thank you. You see, my best friend is a classical concert violinist.”

Oh, no. Here it comes. The dreaded classical music request.

“I’d love to have him play a piece or two with you accompanying him. Beethoven. Shall I send you the music?”

“Uh . . . Okay,” I say. “That will be fine.”

Stupid stupid stupid. Classical music isn’t easy. You have to actually play what’s on the page. And here in Europe, where many people have studied classical music, there’s no faking it. I break into a cold sweat. The last time I played Beethoven in front of an audience, I was in the eleventh grade. I’m about twenty-five years out of practice.

The music arrives two days later, exactly one week before the wedding. It’s the Beethoven Romanze. After two hours of creeping through it at tempo di-learn-o, I have an idea of what it’s supposed to sound like. There’s so much work to do. I’m playing a reduced orchestral score. The violin part seems just about impossible to play, thirty-second- and sixty-fourth notes making the page look like one solid line of black. My husband, without seeing the music, volunteers to play the violin part on his bass. That’s impossible, so he plays it on the upper register of the piano. He’s a pretty good piano player, but at one point in a practice session I realize that he’s playing sixty-fourth-note bebop lines, in tempo.

It’s summer vacation, and the kids, ages seven and ten, are home. I practice about five hours a day, driving them both crazy. On day four of the marathon practice session, they have the piece memorized and can sing the entire thing.

“Look out, Mom, here comes the tricky part. Whoops, you screwed up again!”

“That sounds terrible, Mom. What if you make that mistake at the wedding? You’ll ruin the bride’s entire life.”

“B-FLAT, Mom. How many times are you gonna hit that clunker?”

During the dramatic sections they march around the dining-room table clapping on two and four. Beethoven with a backbeat.

“Don’t get nervous, Mom. You speed up when you get nervous. You’d better use that metronome.”

But I’m very nervous. I’m a background-music piano player. I don’t do concerts, I don’t play classical music, and here I am volunteering to do both. I don’t want a bunch of people sitting quietly and listening to me play something that’s out of my league. I consider calling a kid I know named Benjamin Nuss. He’s thirteen and a wizard classical player. Benny could sight-read the piece and play it without even thinking about it. Maybe I should pay him 100 euros and get myself off the hook. But I’ve got too many hours invested to give up now.

By day six, I’m up to speed—tempo tantrum—and I play through the piece every other time without a major flub.

“You’ve got it, Mom. Go, Mom, go!”

“Now that bride will have a happy life and you won’t have to put a bag over your head.”

My practice time seriously reduces my hourly wage for the gig. The night of the performance, I walk into the castle, a little shaken, but confident that I will get through the evening.

The violinist is waiting for me at the door. His name is Herr Winkel. He’s about my age and dressed in tails. He looks very serious.

Confidence, Robin. Be Confident. Don’t let him vibe you, says the Voice of Reason.

You never know, says Voice of Doom. He could be a distant relative of Isaac Stern.

“Well,” Herr Winkel says, after we’d been introduced. “I hope they’re paying you a lot of money to do this because I’m really terrible.”

I burst out laughing. We talk our way through the piece and agree that no matter what happens, I will keep playing and Herr Winkel will follow me, because, he says, he knows the piece “really well,” even though he can’t really play it anymore. He had played Romanze twenty-five years earlier as a senior recital piece. The bride, his good friend from his college days, remembered his brilliant performance from 1978.

Herr Winkel paces back in forth in the lobby. “I’m afraid she’s going to be very disappointed tonight, but what can I do, she begged me to play!”

Odd, but his nervousness calms me down. “Look, go and enjoy your dinner,” I say. “Just stay away from the champagne. It’s time for me to play bullfight music. I’ll see you later. We’re on between the dessert and the espresso.”

The bride makes quite an entrance to her bullfight music. She’s in her forties and she’s beautiful, wearing a splendidly cut strapless white satin sheath. Aside from the tattoo on her shoulder, I think she looks about as perfect as a bride can look. The room dances with candlelight. Several of my CDs are on each table. But the bride has taken each CD and replaced my cover photo with a picture of herself. The diva in me starts to rear its ugly head, but I recover in time to smile politely and say, What a wonderful idea.

I play “Lady” as requested, and nobody notices, not even the bride. Uncle Wilhelm, who is in his eighties, makes a speech that starts, “It all began in 1956 in a little town close to Schweinfurt . . .” By the time we get to part two of his speech about his memories of the bride, he’s still talking about her high school years. I escape to the lobby and call my kids. Uncle Wilhelm drones on for so long I feel like I could drive home and read them Volume Four of Harry Potter.

When he finishes, I return to the dining room and begin playing “My Way.” The bride makes her way to the front of the room, places an outstretched hand on the curve of the piano, and poses there, dramatically. What’s she doing? Maybe she’s going to sing. I continue playing, not sure what to expect. I look over at her, and her eyes, which are focused on the ceiling, begin to overflow with tears. She puts the back of her other hand on her forehead.

Meanwhile, the lyrics to the song run through my head.

. . . And through it all, when there was doubt, I chewed it up and spit it out . . .

I finish the song very dramatically—with the world’s most obnoxious arpeggio—and get a big round of applause. I turn to acknowledge the audience just as the bride takes a deep Onstage at the Metropolitan bow. I join the audience in the ovation and help her back to her throne.

The waiters serve the dessert, which is called A Study of Apricots. I’m pretty hungry, and I watch with envy as the guests eat. The moment of truth arrives. It’s time for the Beethoven. I turn up the lights. The piece is difficult enough; I’m not about to try playing it in the dark. I spread my eight pages of music across the piano. The violinist makes a speech. I think he’s stalling. He introduces me. Everyone claps. I take a bow. This is exactly what I fear. I’ve been completely ignored all night while doing what it is that I do well. Now, just as I’m about to demonstrate my musical weaknesses, everyone puts their drinks down, their cigarettes out. They fold their hands and stare at me. A nightmare.

Hey, hey, hey, says Voice of Doom. It’s a perfect night for a train wreck!

Oh shut up, says Voice of Reason. For once and for all, shut up. We’re sick of you.

Odd, I’m not nervous. My back is to the audience. I take a deep breath. The violinist counts off. Then he plays the most horrible note I’ve ever heard in my life. It isn’t even a note. Perhaps it’s one of those quarter-tones that might be identified in an East Indian musical system, but to the Western ear it’s excruciating. I grimace. We’re off and running.

The violinist tears through the piece, making all the correct entrances, playing the correct rhythms and keeping everything in time, but he doesn’t play a single note in tune. Not one. The piece ends on an impossibly high, glass-shattering note. There’s complete silence when we finish. I’m afraid to turn around for fear of seeing the entire wedding party dead on the floor with their hands over their ears.

Everyone jumps to their feet and cheers with wild abandon.

Go figure. The violinist winks at me. I wave goodbye to the people I’ll never see again and go to the lobby where the manager has set up a little table for me. On it is a white rose, an autographed picture of the bride, and my very own Study of Apricots. It’s almost too pretty to eat.

Great stories everyone, keep them coming.
I'll add one I experienced...

My girlfriend's daughter got married recently (her second trip to the altar).

I offered to play the music at her wedding. Figured I'd make some points that way, plus I don't get a lot of opportunities to play out these days.

The wedding was in a little chapel in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was originally
a Seamen's chapel, built circa 1901. Some years ago the chapel was purchased and moved to a heritage park in St. Petersburg.
It's a beautiful location with lots of historic buildings set in a wooded area with a mixture of pine and tropical trees. The ground is covered with pine needles and smells wonderful. It's like stepping into a different time, when things were slower and quieter.

Kathy (the mother) and I took a ride up to the park so I could check out the chapel. It's a beautiful old building, typically with high ceilings, lots of windows,wood floors, and wooden pews. A great set up for bouncing music all over the place :-)

The only instrument in the chapel is an old one manual pump organ.
Now, I can play piano, and I play some organ, but I draw the line at having to pump while I play.

I decided I'd use my own Yamaha P-80 (Digital Piano) and amp.
Anyone who has played the P-80 knows it actually has a fairly decent pipe organ sound, some ok strings, and a reasonable set of piano voices.

They also know it ain't light.

My amplifier is a Hartke KM200, it weighs about the same as the average refrigerator. However, having played in rock bands I felt 200 watts was the bare minimum I should have in case I really wanted to be heard.

The bride and groom were kindly receptive to my playing at their wedding (I'm sure they were wondering if I really knew how to play). We decided to have a little get together so they could hear me, and so they could pick out their music.

Keep in mind, I live on the other side of the state (Pompano Beach), and I drive a Sebring convertible (hey, second childhood here, besides, it IS Florida).
Nice car for tooling around in the sun, not so good for hauling band equipment across the state.

On top of that, I gotta haul the equipment down a flight of stairs, by myself.
The only way I could fit it in the car was to put the top down, hefting the keyboard over the side and setting it on the floor, then grunting and groaning to get the *%*# amplifier into the back seat. Off I go, heading across Alligator Alley (yup, that's really what it's called, and they aren't kidding).

Drive 253 miles to Kathy's, perform for the lucky couple, drive 253 miles back (and haul the equipment back UP the stairs).
Now I have to practice, a lot. I want the music to go flawlessly, and of course I'd like people to be impressed with my playing (or at least, not hate it). After all, it is a group of my girlfriend's friends and relatives.

So practice I do. It ain't exactly like preparing for Carnegie Hall, but still I work pretty hard at it.
The day finally arrives, I haul my equipment across the state again, and set it up in the chapel.

As I'm setting up the cutest little girl walks in, followed by her Mommy.
The little girl will forever be known to me as MM (motor mouth).
"Hi, my name is Stephanie, I'm the flower girl, are you playing for the wedding? I'm in the wedding. How do I look? Can I play your piano? I play the piano, my brother taught me how to play but sometimes I just make stuff up, I really like to play, can I play? Do you like my dress? Is anyone else here yet? So, can I play the piano now, I really like to play"
Mind you, this was all within one breath, without stopping, spoken so fast it sounded like all one sentence.

I let MM play for a few minutes, during which she never stops talking. Her mother finally convinces her they have to go get ready for pictures.

I play some "wedding appropriate" music while guests are being seated.
The couple chose Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring for when the mothers come in, and Clarke's Trumpet Voluntary for the processional.

There is a professional wedding planner (a friend of Kathy's). She is very organized (marching around the chapel with a clip board). She assures me she will give me the proper cues.

Because there is nowhere for the bridal party to wait but outside (I said it was a SMALL chapel), the doors are kept closed once the guests are seated.

What I didn't realize was just how small it was. As in, it doesn't take long to get from the back to the front.

I get the cue, the mothers are ready to enter.

Start the Joy. Doors open, in they come escorted by two nervous teens (the groom's boys from a previous marriage). It takes the mothers about 23 seconds to make it to their seats.
I've been practicing for weeks to play about 12 measures?

Fade the music.

The wedding planner whispers in my ear, the next time the doors open it will be the bridesmaids, and the bride. Cool, I'm ready.
Minutes go by, finally the big doors are swung open, I start playing the Trumpet Voluntary majestically, as an older couple who were late for the wedding walks in! Arggh, no wonder I don't usually play weddings.

Door closed again, we wait...

Doors open, yes, it's them!
I crank up the Voluntary again, and this time it is the bride.
It takes about 37 seconds for them to get to the altar. Wow, I've made it all the way to the top of the second page.

The bride's father (my girlfriends ex-husband, there with his new wife, as if I wasn't uncomfortable enough) gives her away ... "Who gives this woman away?" "I do, FOR THE LAST TIME". (At least he has a sense of humor).

Lovely ceremony... time to leave, play the Mendelssohn Wedding March, out they go.
At least I get to have a little fun, thanks to the groom.
The groom asked me to play the Bruins Theme when they were almost out the door. He's 6'5" and about 300lbs, he asks, I play :-)

Practice? = weeks
Actual Playing Time? = about 1 minute
The opportunity to be part of it all? = priceless

Now if someone would just help me load all this *^&#* equipment back into the car!

Great story Frank. I've been to Florida once. Ft. Lauderdale. Never again. I don't know how you can stand the humidity. But, to each his own.

Wonderful, Frank!

I particularly related to the wedding planner with the clipboard. And to the number of hours spent preparing for the one minute of music.

And I love the image of you driving across the state in your convertible with your Yamaha sticking out the top.

Thank you for taking the time to write this. You're an excellent writer, by the way!

Thanks Ed. I'm not fond of Florida's heat/humidity either.
I'm not here for the weather (see "girlfriend" in above story).

I actually grew up north of Boston, in a little town plunked down in the middle of a harbor. This is Nahant, arrow is approximately where I lived.




And thanks for the kind words Robin. "You're an excellent writer, by the way!", coming from you that means a lot.
I enjoyed Piano Girl so much, I ordered copies to give out as gifts.

Thanks, Frank!

Actually, if I lived in Florida I wouldn't be worried about the weather. I'd be way more worried about those Burmese pythons and monitor lizards that seem to be sneaking into everyone's back yards. Did you read that New Yorker article? Holy cow.

Anyway, love is love, and hey, I followed my man to Germany, so I know how you feel. If you ever get married, you know who to call to play the gig.

More, more! I want more wedding stories! Sad, funny, charming, doesn't matter. I crave them.

I've played at weddings for a long time, and one of the most funny weddings that I've ever played on was this one, where we have this groom, member of a motorcycle club.

The bride called me about 2 months before, and started to ask me songs for my repertoire "I would love to hear some classic love song of the 70's for the reception" "Great" I thought. The song list kept going without any weird request until....

"Oh, and my man is a big fan of rock and roll, so I would like if you could, play him some Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Neil Young and Creedence Clearwater".

That section would cover no less than 30 minutes, so by two months I had to create my arrangements for that songs and the funniest thing was that when I played at the wedding, a bunch of enormous guys wearing a suit, with long hair and beird were around me clapping and singin out loud "You shook me all night long".

Thanks to that rock and roll repertoire I was called up for 4 weddings and all of them were a lot of fun.

Wedding music stories--what fun!

My then-fiance and I were on a budget for our Long Island wedding. We could afford live music for the ceremony, but not for the reception. So we started auditioning deejays. My sister in law "knew a guy". But we were leery of Al. What if we didn't like him? We'd have all kinds of hurt feelings.

So we went through the directories and interviewed a lot of guys. If you haven't been to a Long Island wedding, let me just say they tend to be, um, elaborate productions. DJs are like cheerleaders. Weddings resemble bar mitvahs with give-away foam fingers, plastic leis, and neon sunglasses.

This was not exactly what we had in mind. Deejay after deejay got the hook. Finally, as we resignedly explained to the fifteenth applicant that we wanted something low key and elegant without the tchatkes and the Chicken Dance, he smiled and nodded. "Ah, I see," he said. "So, not like a wedding at all..." Oy.

Approaching desperation, we called Al. He was classy. He was cheap. He was funny. He didn't play the Electric Slide. We entered the hall to the Star Wars Throne Room music. He played Barry Manilow. My friends held hands, sang, swayed, modulated, and laughed. Everybody cried when my dad & I danced to Sunrise Sunset. Thanks Al. Sister in law was right.

Earlier in the day, the ceremony music hadn't gone so well. Frank was the catering manager, and he was in charge. The bride and groom had decided not to see each other. It was October, and it was cold. The ceremony was planned for outdoors at a golf club, weather permitting.

The groom asked Frank to move the ceremony inside. Frank told the groom that the bride wanted to have it outside.

The bride asked Frank to move the ceremony inside. Frank told the bride that the groom wanted to have it outside.

The parents of the bride and groom asked Frank to move the ceremony inside. Guess what Frank told the parents?

The string quartet refused to play outside. The groom and the bride's attendants persuaded them that they should play outside. All this intrigue was carefully kept from the bride.

They played outside. Broken strings and bad tuning ensued.

To this day, whenever anything goes wrong in our marriage, my husband and I turn to each other and say, "It's Frank's fault."

Then there was the August wedding we attended at the groom's childhood camp in New Jersey. They had rented a big beautiful tent. This turned out to be a good thing, as summer thunderstorms are quite common in the mid-Atlantic states.

The band had set up and was playing a nice mix of danceable jazz standards, kitchzy 70s dance music, and teary-eyed ballads.

And the clouds rolled in. And it poured. The tent flaps came down. The little plastic tent windows steamed up. And the pool of water near the band's extension cords got deeper and deeper.

And the band played on.

Perhaps they SHOULD have played the Electric Slide.

Finally, common sense prevailed and they unplugged and took a break for 20 minutes or so until the puddle drained.

It could have been the most shocking wedding ever.

I sang at a wedding once. The bride knew I had a background in a cappella music and she asked me to arrange "Going to the Chapel" for 4 of her singing friends. We had never sung together before, but what the hey?

We spent the better part of the wedding weekend before the ceremony trying to get it together. And we did. It was passable.

My husband also sang--a duet of Perhaps Love--with a guy who is currently making a living singing a featured role in the Lion King show at Disney World.

Lovely music. Cue the recessional.

Oh wait, I forgot to mention. The wedding is in a tent, outdoors at one of the Great Camps in the Adironacks. And, oh yeah, it had rained earlier in the day, when we were rehearsing.

The singer playing the part of Placido Domingo notices a puddle on the tent roof. For some unfathomable reason, he decides to poke at the puddle from under the tent, I guess to make sure it doesn't collapse.

Unfortunately, at this moment, the bride approaches the exit.

This ceremony gives new meaning to the term "wedding shower."

Luckily the bride has a sense of humor, and we're all still friends.

I played at my cousin's wedding several years ago. My music accompanied her in the garden walk to meet the groom. I was suppose to stop when the bride reached the end-of-the-walk. Since I was unaware that her walk ended, I became more involved with the music and oblivious to everything else.

The wedding planner was trying to give me the signal to stop the music but I kept on playing. The combination of the smirks on the faces of the wedding line and the repeated hand-signal cuts from the planner turned a rather solemn occasion into something quite humorous.

Bearlake, I think it's always best to IGNORE the wedding planners. In fact, most people carrying clipboards should be ignored by musicians. These people are nothing but trouble.

Rusty, your stories have proven my point that it is never a god idea to play outside. There are maybe two days in every decade when the weather is appropriate for an outdoor party. It's too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy, too, too, too something.

I played an outside gig last year at the castle and had a major problem with wasps.

David, I could have used your R7R expertise last week. The people I played for wanted nothing to do with my repertoire.

Keep'em coming folks, we're really warming up here!

i don't like playing weddings. the brides are so excited and need to talk about their love.

don't have time for that. It is also difficult to extract payment without an upfront contract.

I played a wedding for a couple back when i was in the 7th grade. I wonder how that went?

heh

Estonian weddings. Hoopa shoopa shoy yoy yoy! Maybe you should reconsider, Oun-Apple—you might be missing out on some fun.

Okay, here's a good one—my husband was on a gig (mid 1980's) with Randy S. and Jeremy K. and bevy of other great NYC musicians. Jeremy was playing keyboard and had his piano module on the floor. They were playing "Tea for Two" as a cha-cha—everyone was dancing— when Randy accidentally kicked the module and threw it into demo mode, at which point it started playing a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, AT TOP VOLUME. My husband said the funniest thing was that everyone kept dancing.

I live in asia now and I've play couple of weddings here, and it seems like wedding gigs here are recipe for chaos. It's not usual to have people ask me to bring my own keyboard, only to find out they have a piano there already.. and sometimes nobody knows where we are supposed to be playing at until 5 min before the gig starts... and you almost always have to deal with a sound guy who "thinks" he knows what he is doing.

I've heard some really weird stories from other musicians. This bass player told me he once had a wedding gig and as soon as they started playing he noticed that the keyboard player already had a bass and drum tracks programmed into the keyboard. He asked the person in charge what was going on.. and the guy basically told him that he didn't have the play the instrument, all he needed to do is pretend and act cool.

I guess it kind of make sense, because the bass player was European guy and they just wanted the bass for the looks. So made really good money pretending to play the bass.

A saxophone player told me a story where he was asked play a wedding.. and on the day of the gig he went there, and there was a piano, and the guy in charge asked him to sit on the piano bench. The sax player asked what the piano was for and the guy said "well you know how to play the piano don't you?" The guy in charge was clueless... just because he was a really good sax player, it doesn't mean he is able to play piano on wedding gigs.

So the sax player did the only thing he could think of.. he started playing the saxphone and walked from table to table as he played.

Thanks Etcetera! Since I'm married to a bassist, I love the bass story.

The banquet department of the castle where I have my steady gig just called me looking for a STROLLING SAXOPHONE player for a wedding reception. As much as I love sax, I just can't imagine such a thing. This would be a good gig for your friend, but alas, you're in Asia, I'm in Germany. I booked a nice guy named Torsten, and he thought it would be fun.

Haha, considering the fact that he ended being a strolling saxophone player by accident, I doubt he will choose to do it on purpose. lol

I can tell you that playing in asia is a very... unique experience. A friend of mine went to china with a concert pianist as a staff/helper.. and she told me that it was incredibly chaotic. They literally didn't know which city they were flying to perform till the day before, or even on the day of the performance.

My friend Greg Thymius, a woodwind player on Broadway (who also plays weddings) had to play the THEME FROM ARMAGEDDON at a recent wedding. Now there's a good way to start a marriage.

I've been a substitute church organist but never played at a wedding....just thought this might be amusing:

When my sister got married years ago, she decided she didn't want the usual "Here Comes the Bride" - too old-fashioned/cheesy or something, she said. Instead she chose Mussorgsky's Promenade (our side of the family is mostly Ukranian). She said the organist at the church looked at her like she was nuts at the request, but agreed to play it anyway. I, as the only bridesmaid, had to figure out how to march down the aisle alone (in high heels no less) to this being played on the organ:

Pictures at an Exhibition, Part 1 (Mussorgsky)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCbKfqf9TPg

Fortunately, they chose the traditional Mendelsohnn's beautiful "Wedding March" (from A Midsummer NIght's Dream) for the ending.

Love this, Elssa! How I wish you had a video of YOU walking down that aisle, with a frozen smile on your face, trying to figure out where the downbeat is.

Very funny to imagine. I must say, I admire your sister's good taste in music, although that piece ain't exactly marching tempo.

Thanks for posting!

Yeah, the Promenade's a great piece. It's just that the meter (alternating 5/4 and 6/4 ) isn't exactly conducive to walking up the aisle in a rhythmic, dignified manner (the heels and poofy dress didn't help either).

Oh, well... As an organist I know once said, anything's better as a musical request for the opening march up the wedding aisle than "Send in the Clowns".

Thanks for starting this thread, Robin. Very interesting!

I was asked to provide background piano music as guests entered the church for my sister-in-law’s wedding in a very small Midwestern town. I play a lot of ragtime and jazz and don’t have much in my normal repertoire that would be apropos for a wedding ceremony, so I bought a bunch of sheet music and learned a few classics – Pachelbel’s Canon, Jesus Joy of Man’s Desiring, etc.

I was burning through my prepared list but there was still more time to fill, so I played a ragtime piece called Robert Clemente, which is a very beautiful, pensive, and graceful rag. Halfway through it, my wife’s aunt walks over to the piano and says with contempt and no hint of humor, “What’s with the saloon music??"

-FB

I played for about four years in a standard "Wedding Band" and have been playing in an "Oldies" band that sometimes does weddings for the past fifteen. I'm guessing my tally is at least 300 weddings, maybe more. I sometimes feel like Margaret Mead among the Trobriand Islanders, studying the elaborate mating rituals of the natives. After twenty years of weddings there's much too much to write in a forum post. Here are a few tidbits:

Someone else mentioned Long Island weddings. That's most of my experience too. Even though most of these affairs are the culmination of over a year of planning -- poring through stacks of two-inch thick magazines, visiting a dozen halls, agonizing over flowers, invitations, centerpieces, bridesmaids' dresses, tasting cocktail hour food and , of course, attending twenty band showcases, to get everything just right -- they tend to be very much alike. This becomes especially apparent when you do a double; two weddings in the same day, or three in a weekend. Nevertheless, there are always a few oddities, accidents (happy and otherwise) and memorable people that stand out from the general blur.

... The bride's uncle has been a few degrees atilt since the cocktail hour, wobbling slightly like a top running down. They bring him up to make a special blessing. "I'd like to say a prayer for the bride and groom (who had a bassinet between their large rounded chairs), a prayer I have recited every night for the past thirty years .................................................Ummmm..................................................." Despite several attempts, he could never recall a single word of it.

... The bride's mother is the matriarch of the family and master of all she surveys, which is soon to include the hapless groom. No one dares make a move without her assent. The bride comes over to the band while we're still setting up, "If it's OK with my mother, my cousin is going to come up and play drums with the band". We hinted that our drummer might want to have a say in the matter as well; drunken doctor cousins eager to impress can do a lot of damage with a pair of wooden sticks. Incredulous that someone else's opinion might matter she added "It's OK, he's a doctor." We played the party with frequent visits from the Queen's embarrassed emissaries - "SHE says it's too loud, turn it down". The drummer played Disco with brushes. The sax player turned off his mic. Guests eager to dance begged us to approach audibility. We referred them to SWMBO. The cousin never did come up to play, but our drummer did an emergency appendectomy "It's OK, he's a drummer".

... Wardrobe malfunctions:
Men at catered affairs wear clothing that approximates the clothing they wear every day: Pants, shirt, shoes, jacket; reliable garment designs that have stood the test of time and seldom cause the wearer any social embarrassment. Women, a few women anyway, see such occasions as an opportunity for innovation and experiment. Fantastic fabric contraptions that only vaguely follow the shape of the wearer (or follow it too closely) are held together with flimsy straps, ribbons, tape and hope. Bits of body parts normally hidden peek out from strategic openings. While outright failures are rare (but they do happen, and even if the cousins, the neighbors and the in-laws miss it, be advised, the musicians see all) women in such garments spend the evening tugging, pulling, twisting and generally readjusting.

In one notable incident the upper part of a young woman's dress was not adequately designed for vigorous dancing, but dance she did, with abandon. The young lady's inebriated escort saw the mishap but neglected to inform her. After a few seconds the girl discovered her predicament and scanned around to see if anyone had noticed. Our bass player, only a few steps away, had, and shrugged his shoulders. The girl then gave her (soon-to-be former) boyfriend a roundhouse right to the face.

I can also remember seeing more of a certain bride than, in gentler times, her fiance would have seen before the wedding night. The groom wasn't much of a dancer, but the bride was, and so was one of the gay male guests at the wedding. They did a dramatic pas-de-deux culminating in a deep back-bending dip on the part of the bride. The slip was brief, but must have been caught by at least a half-dozen video cameras and, of course, seven musicians.

…Ceremonies
I’m not a classical player. In fact, before joining the wedding band, I had more or less only played rock and pop songs. I was in the process of learning the repertoire at the gigs. By the third or fourth wedding I was feeling pretty comfortable with the core material. I had nearly finished setting up in one of the rooms at a very large wedding-mill, when the Mother of the Bride rushed in (in the ungainly way that you rush in a long dress and high heels) to say “Where’s the guy who’s playing the ceremony? It’s almost starting!” It had never occurred to me that playing at the ceremony might be one of the duties of a keyboard player. I assumed that would be up to a church organist, but not everyone gets married in church these days. A couple of us ran my gear down to (natch) the polar opposite end of the very long building, but getting there was only half the fun. Now I had to improvise the Processional and Recessional. The “Here Comes The Bride” melody was easy enough, and I guessed that none of the guests would be familiar with the rest so I sort of made stuff up to fill the space. The recessional was worse; I really could only recall the one recognizable line, and played it over and over, for an interminably long time.

Having survived that episode, our bandleader decided to get me the sheet music for the Recessional. My wife was taking vocal lessons at the time and had recently brought home a professional-looking eight-page set of music for an aria she was learning; learning for fun I might add. What I got, the semi-pro musician of the house, was tiny scrap of paper, maybe 8” by 3”, with three single staves on it. It was a twelfth-generation Xerox of part of a fake-book page; three single staves with the melody and chord symbols, some scratched out and changed, and faithful reproductions of a decade of cocktail-hour stains. And that’s how I learned it. I have still never seen sheet music for the Processional

…Strange First Dance Songs
“Every Breath You Take”, by the Police. This is only appropriate for women who marry their stalkers.
“Good Hearted Woman (In Love with a Good-Timin’ Man)” By Merle Haggard. I wish them luck.
“Beauty and the Beast” – Enough said.

...Garter Oddities
I’m amazed that the whole bouquet and garter circus still sometimes goes on. We had a whole list of songs to play as background music: “Getting to Know You” for the removal of the garter from the Bride, “Higher’, by Sly and the Family Stone for putting the garter back on the embarrassed “winner” of the bouquet toss. But some people still feel the need to be creative.

One bride’s bouquet was a cluster-bomb, actually twelve mini-bouquets that took different trajectories when she threw them. This was apparently planned. After a rugby scrum among the eligible bachelorettes, our front-man had to organize a circle of 12 chairs for the girls to sit on while the guys who caught the 12 garter belts… you get the rest. It took a half hour.

I have always wondered if one particular groom lived to see his wedding night. When asked to gently remove the garter from his innocent bride’s leg, he first donned a sort of doctor’s headlamp and proceeded to put his entire head under her dress. Among the things he pulled out before the garter was a rubber chicken. (incidents like this are why fiction is entirely unnecessary, in my opnion) Many people in attendance thought this was riotously funny. The father of the bride, who at 6’3” and at least 300 lbs. was among the larger human beings I have ever seen up close, did not. He turned a series of unhealthy-looking colors as this went on.

There’s so much more, but it’s late. You’ll have to wait for the book.

Thank you, FB, for your story. I always say a little saloon music livens things up!

And Greg, good grief, you are the wedding music expert. These are wonderful—wonderful!—stories. And, hey, you're a great writer. Do we know each other? I was in NYC from 1979 to 1994—but I was on the Manhattan hotel circuit, not the wedding circuit. I got into the wedding thing once I moved to Germany. My stories are similar to yours except for two things.

1. I play solo (which means I've got no one to shared these things with as they're happening)

2. It's, you know, GERMANY, which gives each event that added Mel Brooks touch of goofiness, like playing a wedding NEEDS to be any goofier.

Anyway, nice to meet you—and keep writing! And playing, that too, so you have something to write about.

I always hear them play "Daddy's little Girl"..when the father dances with the bride.. or when the older couples who been married for 50 yrs get up to dance.."When Your Old Wedding Ring Was New"

Sentimental choices, but at least they make sense!

I don't think so. Back before there were so many mobile DJs there were quite a lot of musicians playing in wedding bands.

In the old days, long before I was playing weddings, people would usually book the band through the hall they were renting. They'd tell you you pretty much had to book the "house band" or else there would be insurance issues, union issues and generally much more hassle than you'd want to take on. If your party was at the Sapphire Room, you'd get Frankie Diamond and his Sapphire Orchestra, or some such name.

They would even tell you how many pieces you had to hire, based on how many guests you were expecting. "No, Mrs. Edelstein, three pieces really won't do for 140 people, you'll need at least five." The logic behind this, except from the salesman's point of view, is hard to decipher. Certainly the instrumentation needed to play the desired music was not the deciding factor. If your party was large enough, you could end up with 7 or 8 musicians, including even a trombone, but still no bass player. The scourge of "left-hand bass" was one of the things that kept me from considering wedding band work earlier.

Your five Sapphires would not generally be an intact, rehearsed band either. They'd be five guys selected from a the Sapphire Pool, depending on how many Orchestras were needed that day.

As engaged couples got younger, they began to want music that a ragtag bunch of generic "Gemstones" could not deliver. They'd still want some Cha-Chas and Standards for the older relatives, but they wanted "their music" too. Worse, they wanted to actually see the band ahead of time. The Wedding Band Showcase was born. Agents were loath to surrender to this sort of anarchy so easily, though. They'd send out eight or nine of the more skilled Gems to the showcase to impress you, but whatever promises might be made, the actual composition of "your" band would still be variable.

Six months down the road after the showcase, the wedding couple would probably forget exactly what the band looked like. If a few of the people were the same, they might not notice the substitutions. And if they did, well, "Jimmy broke his wrist", or "Angela's 5 months pregnant" would be offered by way of explanation.

But sometimes the "variability" was stretched to the extreme. These were called "screamers". The agent would send out a completely different band than the one that was hired, figuring that the clients could hardly just send them home. It would be up to the hapless bandleader to mollify the clients, and collect the rest of the money.

In what is probably my favorite story, my friend Willie, an excellent singer, was hired as a "sub" to fill in at a wedding. The band played as the guests were ushered into the hall and then played a few songs from the "light" repertoire that is typical for the beginning of a party. At this point there is usually a break in the music; the waiters need the guests seated so they can take dinner orders.

A man approached my friend. "You're not the band we hired". Willie, a little sheepishly ,started to say something like, "Well, the band's singer was sick, so they called me to ...", but was interrupted.

"I don't mean just you. The band we hired was Black".

Willie, taking a mental inventory of the pale-skinned sextet behind him, referred the man to the bandleader.

By the time I started doing weddings, the arms race between clients and agents had ratcheted up a notch. Many if not most of the bands were actually rehearsed units. This had become a practical necessity as people had begun to demand really tight bands who could convincingly reproduce a very wide range of styles. But the horror stories were by then well known. People came out to three and four showcases with video cameras to make sure the same group members showed up each time.

That's a fascinating history Greg!

I'm a little curious about your comment "As engaged couples got younger, they began to want music that a ragtag bunch of generic "Gemstones" could not deliver." For some reason I thought that the average age of engagement has been increasing for most of the last century. Is it possible that the rise of rock and roll created a generation gap in which the couples weren't necessarily getting younger, but - for the first time - their musical taste was completely different from their parents'?

Greg, you're killing me. This is hysterical stuff.

Agents often just send anyone at all to an event, and hope that the musicians can make it right. Vamp till ready. I know about the screamers. What a funny term that is.

An agent in Pittsburgh—from an agency called ENTERTAINMENT UNLIMITED (a name that sets you up for failure if you ask me) once booked me on a gig where the client was promised a snake dancer, whatever the heck that is. Instead they got me, in my college-girl version of a cocktail dress, performing selections from Chorus Line. I have done a lot of crazy things in my life, but singing and playing with a Burmese python draped around my neck is one line I refuse to cross.

Soupy Sales once said: "I don't have an agent, I have an Egyptian curse."

You are living and working in the land of slick weddings. With the talent pool in the NYC area, there are some damn good players working these gigs.

Oh, I just remembered another story! My husband played in a quartet for his good friend's wedding. The friend in question—Mark P— was an excellent drummer, but since he was the groom, he didn't play the gig. Anyway, halfway through the night—probably bored with the bouquet toss and scrummage—he decided to sit in with the band. As he was playing, the banquet director came over and yelled at him for being too loud.

"But he's the groom," said one of the musicians.

"Yeah, well I don't care. The mother of the bride is complaining."

There you go.

I like the stories, thanks!

I've only played one wedding, a friend requested that I play for the ceremony... I'm a rookie, and only had a month to prepare so all I did was the bridal chorus and wedding march. The rest of the time I popped in a CD, haa

Wasn't there for the rehearsal so I had no idea how the ceremony was supposed to go, instead I'm watching carefully what's going on, which was hard to do while also trying to concentrate on the music... But it was going well until I mistook the maid of honour for the bride coming down the hall and launched into the "here. comes. the bride!" theme. My hands turned to ice and I was all in a panic trying to figure out how to fix it. My solution was to fall apart and stop for a few akward moments. Fortunately I managed to get it together before the bride came in and she was completely unaware (but EVERYBODY else caught an earful of disaster).

Next was to play the wedding march. It took a lot longer for everyone to leave than I expected. I don't know how many times I repeated that short piece but I really wished I had something else to play.

It was a learning experience...


This year two more friends want me to play for their weddings, and I've got more time to prepare so I'm thinking it will go better this time. Perhaps the ball will roll and I can start doing this on a regular basis

Hi there 1RC—

Very brave of you to make a debut in front of a church (or synagogue) full of people. YIKES! How I relate to that ice-cold hand thing.

Yeah, they walk down the aisle quickly, but it takes FOREVER for everyone to leave the church. For the "leaving the church" music, just pick some pieces that you have fun playing, and go with that. As long as it's spirited and played with conviction, no one will question your choices.

You'll be a pro before you know it, and hey, you must have sounded great, or the other friends wouldn't have asked you to play. Good for you!

That is more like what I meant. It's a bit of a "point of view" slip on my part. The wedding couples have started looking younger, to me, as I have advanced in years.

When people ask what kinds of jobs we do, I sometimes mention that we do second marriages; our particular repertoire now favors people of a certain age.

I have played almost exclusively with rehearsed bands, with one conspicuous exception.

I was in my twenties. I was arranging demos for songwriters using the then-new MIDI technology, but I had not played live regularly for a couple of years. A drummer, a friend-of-a-friend that I had met once or twice, called me in a panic to play at a Bar Mitzvah. For those without any Jewish friends, a Bar Mitzvah is a sort of "coming of age" ceremony for a 13 year-old boy. In some circles this may be accompanied by a quite elaborate party.

The drummer, "Rick" if I remember correctly, was a fairly intense fellow. He told me that his keyboard player had suddenly moved to Florida and he was in a tight spot. He had a gig coming up on a party boat that went around Manhattan. (NY City)

While my chops are just average, I have always been unusually good at playing songs without preparation. That has always been my most notable musical skill. Having said that, this was maybe 25 years ago, before I'd had much experience playing a wide range of styles. I was a little apprehensive.

I told Rick that I had no experience with this sort of gig, but that if the rest of his band was a tight unit, I could probably follow whatever they played. He assured me that yes, this was his regular band, minus the recent defector to Florida.

I met Rick at the pier on the West Side of Manhattan. We were the first musicians to arrive. We carried our gear up a steep ramp to the boat's upper deck, and then down a narrow flight of stairs to the party room, which was roughly at the same level we started at on the pier, par for the course for working musicians. We got set up.

The other players began to arrive. The bass player was first. He introduced himself to me and Rick. The guitarist was next. He said Hi to Rick and introduced himself to me and the bass player. I suppose I was a little dense, but I had not yet picked up on what was going on.

A male and a female singer then arrived together, introducing themselves to me, the bass player and the guitarist. Next came sax and trumpet; introductions all around. Perhaps because I was completely unfamiliar with this kind of gig, I still had not grasped the obvious.

After everyone got situated, I became vaguely aware that there was a sort of football huddle forming to my right. I looked over, and could hear little fragments of sentences, "Do you know Devil With a Blue...", "What key do you sing...", "Have you got the lyrics for...", "I think I have the sheet for...".

The realization finally set in. While most of the musicians knew Rick, with the conspicuous exception of the bass player, who he'd met a week before, hardly any of them had ever laid eyes on each other.

The female singer had a stack of sheet music. I brought her over to the piano. She didn't know what key she sang any of the songs in; it could be any one of the eleven that weren't on the sheet. I asked her to sing the opening verse of maybe four songs and then wrote the key at the top of the sheet. I told her to give those to the bass player, and hoped he could either transpose or play them by ear.

And then we started. We opened with one of the songs I had "rehearsed" with the female singer. It soon became apparent that the bass player was simply not a guy who could "wing it" successfully. I started to shout the chords over to him, which was pretty difficult as he had set up on the other side of the drummer.

The boat rocked from side to side, the Bar Mitzvah boy made his entrance down the grand staircase, and we survived the first song. Seeing that I was apparently now the leader, the male singer came up to me, sang a line or two of his song, and off we went into the second song.

Most amazingly, we started to do four and five songs together as medleys. When we got near the end of a song, whichever singer was "off" at the moment would come over an yell, "Let's do 'Respect', you know, 'What you wa-ant, ba-by I got it...", while we were still playing. I'd scream, "Respect, in Aaaaayyyyyy!" and we'd lurch into the next number.

This went on for the better part of an hour. I was hoarse from yelling "Aaayyyy, now Deeeeeee, B minor, NO, I said BEEEEEEEEEE minor" past the drum kit. We finally took a break. Either the boat or my head was spinning.

A couple walked up to me. Uh Oh.

The woman said, "You guys are the tightest band we've ever heard, how long have you been together?". I looked at my watch, "About an hour", I said. They laughed and said that was very funny. I thanked them for their kind words and went up on deck to get some air.

Thanks for the kind words Piano Girl! I think everybody's stories are pretty damn brave! (playing a surprise Beethoven Romanze with a stranger, showing up and finding nobody in the band knows anyone else )

Yeah I'm stoked just to have a practical application of this music I love. A month from today I should have another wedding story to offer.

Hi Greg— I have an unofficial rule about NEVER taking a boat gig. Unless you jump overboard and swim, you can't escape. What a night that must have been. No wonder the other keyboard player bailed (pun intended) on the job and moved out of state.

1RC—I'll look forward to your next wedding adventure. Good luck!

I've been out of town for awhile—in the city of Lyon, France—where my husband was picking up a new bass, crafted for him by luthier Jean Auray. Greg, on the trip down there we discussed many of your stories! John (husband) is no stranger to the SCREAMER.

Hope everyone is having a good summer. I'm back on the wedding scene this weekend. At this point in the year, all brides begin to look alike.

These are all great stories!! Only one question, why are they called "screamers"? Because it's screaming obvious they're not the band that was hired, or because when someone figures it out, they start screaming?

Hey. Fun to read! And notice how many scenarios sound familiar. I hadn't been called upon to play a wedding for some time. (I was busy playing for all my friends when they were getting married - now it looks like it might be time for me to start playing for their kid's weddings!) But a percussionist/drummer friend of mine asked me to play for his daughter's wedding.

The older brother of the bride would be singing a special song during the ceremony. It was to be "So Close", by Alan Menken, from the dance ball scene in the movie, "Enchanted". Beautiful song! I should have started practicing a couple of weeks in advance of playing it. I usually fake it well since I read/interpret chord symbols pretty well, but as I began practicing a week before the wedding, I saw that this 7 page piece really called for it being played pretty much note for note - especially the instrumental interlude which is sweeping and grandiose, with wonderful key changes. I worked my butt off to get that part right (like Piano Girl said?: the hourly rate was going down, down, down). I did rehearse with the brother of the bride the night before the wedding. I was still struggling with that interlude (AHHH!). I'm not a great reader, nor great with the big octave block chords moving all over the chromatic place.

Anyhow, I got there about an hour before, to a church that I had grown up in, and knew that in recent years they had changed the interior a lot. So when I got there. I discovered just how dark the sanctuary was. They'd painted almost everything black to promote a sort of theatre atmosphere for dramas and skits(?) (lovely atmosphere for a wedding, huh?) The old 7' Kawai that I'd played as a teen, was there and in decent tune. But it was back in a corner of the "stage" where hardly any light could find it. I set up my 7 pages of "So Close" and other incidental music. "So Close" was all taped together and strung out across the piano's music stand, since I fear the clam that might happen if I can't turn a page fast enough.

Now I notice that I'm not going to be able to see the music back in this dark corner! So I go looking for a music light and do find one. It's the type that you use on a Manhasset music stand, so it won't open up large enough to clamp onto the back of the music stand, which is about 3/8" thich wood (glossy black, of course). I'm desparate, so I find a way to modify the light's clamp (read: "bend"). Once this is mounted, I still can only read music that's right in front of me, so I call my 17 year old son, who is home, THANKFULLY, and ask him to bring my gig case down to me with several lights in it for when I lead a jazz band. Fortunately, we only live about 15 minutes away from this church. Whew! But time is running out! He gets there with about 15 -20 minutes until starting time, and I get it all set up: Three lights and a fair amount of scotch tape.

Oh, I forgot to say that the song was to be a surprise to the bride on the spot. She didn't know what her brother had picked out. I was blessed with a wedding coordinator who DID NOT have a clip board, thankfully. She was pretty easy going.
The special song went off quite well, with only a small weakness during that interlude. The bride was surprised and loved the song. My surprise (besides the darkness) was that it had to have been the shortest wedding I'd ever played at just about 25 minutes total. Never got to congratulate the bride, but the groom said he liked the piano playing, and my friend, the father of the bride, liked it and (having gigged enough himself) knew to have the money ready for me in cash.

Dave Gruber, Southern California (no gators! Have Suburban will travel. But not to audition!) www.giocoso.org

Dave!

Great story! Thanks so much for posting this. We all have similar stories but the black hole church isn't one I've heard before. Well done.

Never ever audition for the gig. That's one of my rules.

Castle wedding update: I had to deal with the Chinese soprano from hell over the weekend. She was wearing one of those crazy-lady straw hats, with flowers pinned to it, the kind of hat that always spells trouble. Wedding was on Saturday, and the singer wanted to start warming up on Friday night DURING my steady gig, with me playing for her warm-up session. Madame had hired another accompanist to play for her during the ceremony the next day—she just wanted me to be her rehearsal pianist the night before, never mind that I had a castle full of regular guests who were not interested in hearing scales, arpeggios, and an impossibly high version of "Summertime."

Sometimes I swear these singers see a pianist and immediately think SERVANT.

Anyway, she threw her music on the piano and said something rude to me like, "YOU PLAY WARM UP." I smiled and said, "I don't read music," which is a lie, but it got me out of the situation and saved the sanity of my co-workers and guests who were not into hearing a glass shattering version of "Ave Maria" during the Friday night cocktail hour.

The banquet manager sent her down to a rehearsal piano in the bowels of the castle, where she played for herself and nearly caused the members of the housekeeping staff to lose their minds.

I think that that attitude toward musicians, while perhaps less widespread than it once was, is hardly limited to singers. We are often categorized with "the help"; in places where the help are treated with some respect, we will likely be also. On the other hand...

There's a certain place we've played quite a few times over the years. It's a nice place; even a little quirky, not "cookie cutter" at all. I think they've loosened up a tad, maybe they got new owners or management along the way, but in the beginning it was like working in a prison.

They had a printed set of regulations for musicians, florists, DJs and anyone else that came into the building. The bandleader has to sign it. It was two pages long. One of the most annoying rules was the requirement that we be dressed in our "uniforms" (tuxes), even while carrying our gear.

As bad as that sounds, it's worse. One of the more popular rooms there is a glass-ceilinged atrium. It's on ground level, and there's a door at one end that leads right to the outside; perfect for loading in. Naturally, we were not allowed to use that door.

We were told instead to use the service entrance around back. As the place is built into a hillside, "around back" is actually at least one level up from the atrium room, and at the polar opposite point in the building.

Is that all? Of course not.

Here's the route. (I haven't been there in a couple of years, but it's burned into my memory)
In the back door, down the long slippery tile hallway
Down 4 steps to the upper level kitchen
Turn left.
Down a flight of stairs maybe 3 feet wide to the ground level kitchen.
Down another flight of stairs (a little wider) to the lower level dining room.
[The attentive reader may have noticed that we, having started on the upper level, have now descended to a point lower than the atrium.]
Walk through lower level catering room, turn right, go up a flight of stairs into the lobby.
Fight way through crowd in lobby, turn left into atrium.

On practically every surface in the service corridors there were signs, rules, warnings and video cameras, there to prevent theft, inefficiency and most normal forms of human behavior. Those were mostly for the kitchen help and wait-staff, but the tone was clear.

Even in places where the management is more accommodating, there is rarely much thought given to getting the musicians in and out of the place. I think that the building codes must actually have clauses that specify exemptions for any spaces that musicians might travel through. Stairways can be narrower, ceilings lower, steps steeper, floors slipperier, lights dimmer and directional signs are not required. In addition, corridors whose secondary function as emergency exits would normally prohibit them from being obstructed, can be used to store carts of glassware, hot coffee urns, wedding cakes, and any other bulky, delicate or dangerous items that may be handy.

We just played in a place that was something out of Spinal Tap. The actual party room was beautiful; recently and tastefully renovated. But the route to the room from the subterranean parking garage was through a rabbit-warren of corridors, storerooms and kitchen prep areas. I've got a pretty good sense of direction but made wrong turns on each trip to and from my car, even after I had found the room once.

Our bass player came in with white powder all over the top of his bass bag and on the shoulders of his black shirt. He carries his bass (electric) like a backpack. He's maybe 6' tall and the top of the bass is a few inches above that, but certainly low enough to get through standard doors. There was apparently a low pipe in a dark corridor that was covered with white spray-on insulation.

The most shocking thing about the place was that there were six sets of outlets along the wall behind where we were to play; Six sets of modern-looking, working outlets, placed almost as if someone had thought about the possibility of musicians occupying that area.

Nah. Probably just the contractor padding the job.

Yeah. Fairly common stuff. Though your stories, Greg, show how extreme it can get. And then, occasionally, you get hired by someone to do a party, or some casual, and there's this wealthy individual there who tells you he used to play drums in such-and-such a band, and he's made sure you can park close, have a clear pathway to get your gear in and out. And most important of all, knows that you will play better, and with bigger smiles if he makes sure that you and your bandmates have a nice 30-40 minute break with the same wonderful food that the guests are enjoying. Complete with compliments about how good you are sounding (provided you are). No really. I have had this happen, on occasion. No REALLY.

Dave Gruber

Yes, Dave, I believe you, I do, I do! It's important to remember that nice gigs exist. In fact, if I didn't have a fair number of good gigs, the goofy ones wouldn't seem so, well, goofy.

I have a lot of luck with gay weddings. For whatever reason, these events seem to be pleasant and classy and I'm treated well. Tuned piano, great food, no hysterical woman in a puffy white dress, and no clipboard lady. Easy.

It's hard to know how you'll come off in print, but the stories I've told here were selected for their entertainment potential, not to present a balanced picture. The absurdities are funnier than the run-of-the-mill stuff.

We usually get along OK with the staff and clients, usually get fed and are sometimes even surprised by how nice people can be. But who wants to read that? (kidding)

Here's something that hasn't come up yet: The dreaded list. Sometimes people having a party will write a list of the music they want you to play. Our former wedding band once got a list that was several pages long, nearly 100 songs. Notwithstanding Robin's German Wedding Marathons, here in the U.S. the marriage might not last through 100 songs.

Even when the list is of a more realistic length, it's seldom a roadmap for a successful party. People pick all their favorite songs, even if 75% of them are at dirge tempo, or are otherwise unsuitable for a party. Tell us you love Motown. Tell us Uncle Phil used to know "Frank". Tell us the overseas relatives want a Polka. But after that, leave it to us. We're (almost) professionals. Don't try this at home.

Not to complain about sopranos... but...

I am currently back in grad school (not in music) and am allowed to use the practice rooms here on my college campus. The facilities are not too bad, all things considered. But the rooms are not sound proof, and you can often here people around you practicing. Usually, I don't mind that, especially since once you start to play, you can't really hear anything else besides yourself. With the exception of... sopranos! Something about the range they sing it, you pretty much can not tune it out no matter what you do.

Listening to anyone practice is generally not fun, but listening to a soprano practice wierd scales that sound like a dying cat is easily one of the most unpleasant things I can think of. Have you ever heard a soprano warm up by bending all the way over at the waist and slowing rolling up as she sqeezes out air from the top of her head? If you can say no, count yourself lucky!

The only saving grace is that, it seems the singers don't tend to be up early in the morning, so I generally am in and out of the practice rooms before lunch time and can usually avoid them.

Sorry for that thread-drift! Back to the wedding stories!!

There's a film called THE WEDDING PLANNER. maybe there should be one called THE WEDDING PIANIST. Imagine the possibilities.

Okay, my friends . . . here is a piece I've been working on for my next book. It will be a year by the time it's published, and by then you will have forgotten it, plus I will have rewritten it 14,000 times. But I've been inspired by all of your posts. This is a fleshed out version of a gig I wrote about back in June. Hope you enjoy it!

xoxo
Robin


The Tattooed Bride
Cologne, Germany
©2009 Robin Meloy Goldsby


The rain stops. I jump out of my car and my feet skid in the mud. The hem of my raspberry-colored silk chiffon gown catches in the heels of my gold sandals and I almost take a tumble. I bought these shoes at Bergdorf Goodman twenty years ago. They've held up quite nicely through dozens of Manhattan chase-the-taxi dashes and decades of marble hotel floors, but they weren't designed to handle last minute scurries through swamps in the German countryside. I regain my balance by grabbing the door handle of a snappy silver Mercedes sedan—not mine—wipe the goop off of my shoes with a couple of dead leaves, and do the little-old-lady-don't-wanna-fall walk through the parking marsh lot.

I've been to this castle before, but I've never played here. It's not my regular castle, but a lesser castle, situated in a small forest ten minutes from where I live. It's five minutes before six, and I'm scheduled to play for a wedding dinner at six sharp. I've never figured out why it's so difficult to be punctual for a gig that's this close to home, but that's the way it goes.

It starts to sprinkle again just as I'm onto the cobblestone sidewalk, which is even more hazardous than the muck. Affecting an elegant gait while traversing a cobblestone path in stiletto heels can be, well, troublesome. A yellow brick road, it's not. At last I see the castle, looming in the mist, in exactly the way a castle is supposed to loom. I've been in Germany for fourteen years, and I still thrill to the sight of these old chateaus.

But something is amiss. This castle is kind of funky. For one thing, it's pink. I have a moment of Brothers Grimm-induced panic, but recover when my heel sticks between a couple of stones and I'm darn near catapulted into a patch of stinging nettles. I recover, smooth my rain-ruined hair, and proceed. Clusters of casually dressed people lounge in the front garden. They're wearing t-shirts, shorts, and synthetic-fiber sundresses in peculiar shades of green and orange, and they're draped over benches and tables and each other, almost as if they're sleeping. Really, it looks a little like a Jim Jones purple kool-aid kind of scene, but I hear one or two of them snort, so I know they are not dead.

Must be another party, I think. A lot of these castle places are like American banquet halls, capable of hosting several celebrations at once. But these folks, slumped and silent, don't look like they're celebrating anything. I hobble past them—why don't they go inside to get out of the rain?—and hear someone snicker. I glance over my shoulder and see a couple of scary looking guys with shaved heads staring at me. Maybe skinheads, maybe not. I don't care, I just want to find the piano.

I'm greeted by an elegant man in a tuxedo. He's handsome, James Bondish in a Sean Connery way, minus the height and the martini glass.

"Good evening Frau Goldsby," he says.

"You must be Mr. Dinkledein," I say.

"Yes! So nice of you to be with us tonight. Our guests are outside enjoying the fresh air. The bride has been kidnapped in the woods—it's some sort of Bavarian game the bride's family insisted on playing. Her kidnappers should return her soon."

"What fun!" I say. And I thought American catholic weddings were weird.

"I'm so hoping you'll play the Pachelbel Canon in D for us, before we start dinner. I heard it on one of your CDs and I adore that piece."

"What a lovely choice," I say. "I'll be glad to play it." I am up to my eyeballs in Pachelbel this season. Every bridal party wants it, and every bridal party thinks they are the first to request it.

"I will gather everyone for dinner, and once they are seated, I will introduce you. After the Pachelbel, the buffet will open, and I'd like you to switch to background music at that point."

"That's a great idea." I glance at the piano. This handsome man in the expensive suit has rented a beautiful Bösendorfer concert grand for the evening. It's worth 75,000 euros, and for tonight, it's all mine. My goodness.

"The technician was here this afternoon. The instrument is in good shape."

"Wonderful," I say. "I can't remember the last time—"

A shriek from the garden cuts off the rest of my sentence.

"There's my wife!" says Mr. Dinkldein.

I look out the front door and there she is, indeed. The blushing bride, Frau Dinkledein—all 300 pounds of her—is galloping down the cobblestone path towards the yellow castle, chased by a gaggle of tuxedo-clad men with shaved heads. Really, she is moving at an amazing speed for someone her size. Obviously she is not wearing stilettos. But she is wearing a whiter than white taffeta strapless full-length dress, which she has hiked up around her, uh, substantial thighs.

"Wow," I say.

"Isn't she something?" says Herr Dinkledein. He is beaming. We stand shoulder to shoulder, nodding at Frau Dinkledein, who truly resembles a charging bull in a Vera Wang plus-sized dress.

"I guess the kidnappers didn't nab her," I say.

"Oh," he says. "She's way too much woman for those guys to catch."

I'll say.

The lounging people in the park, the ones dressed in orange and green, begin to cheer. Oh no, it can't be. But yes, they are the guests. The corpulent bride and the shrunken James Bond groom have invited a bunch of German rednecks to their wedding. And I've got to play the gig.

"I'll call everyone to dinner," says Herr Dinkledein.

"I'll check the piano," I say. The piano is perfect. Exquisite, in fact. I retreat to the foyer and wait to be introduced.

***

I call it the Pachelbel moment. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's magic. People love this piece of music, and I admit, I love playing it. For a musician this is like confessing to a Twinkie addiction, but what can I say? In spite of my rolled eyes and tortured not that piece again proclamations, I dig playing it. It's neither difficult nor boring, categories into which most pieces of music fall. I can tart it up or dress it down, play it long or short, big or small (I like small), and still everyone recognizes it. When they hear the Canon in D they do that little smiling-nodding thing that makes me feel validated.

The guests plop into their chairs.

"We are honored to have Frau Goldsby with us tonight," say Herr Dinkledein. He continues with his speech and I take in the small crowd gathered for the nuptial dinner. There are about six large round tables, each one holding eight guests. The skinheads and their dates are to my right. The dates have big hair, big boobs, and piercings in places that make me squirm. The men have no hair and tattoos.

So. Pachelbel it is. As I play the opening cadence I look to the table on my left. They are very close to the piano and I notice that several of them, no, all of them, have a wart problem. What's with that?

Skinheads on the right. The warted people on the left. I close my eyes and play. This piano is a dream come true, so I enter Pianoland and focus on the music.

As I start the familiar sixteenth note section of the melody I open my eyes hoping for the smile-nod thing from the audience. But no one smiles and no one nods. One of the skinheads cracks his knuckles. And then, the mother of the groom gets up to dance. With her dog. Der Hund. I keep playing.

The dog is not one of those little rat dogs. He is a mid-sized dog with floppy ears, and he probably weighs a good 50 pounds. The groom's mother, who is wearing a green sequined frock, sways back in forth with Fido. Everyone ignores her. But to me, this is something special. I once had a singing dog (at the better castle) who howled whenever I played selections from Phantom of the Opera, but a dancing dog? This is a first.

The zombie guests stare into space as I begin improvising.

The bride's back is to me, and because of the strapless dress and the chair, she looks like she's naked. Why oh why would anyone with biceps that size wear a strapless dress? Maybe she couldn't find sleeves to fit. A large dragonfly tattoo colors her right shoulder.

This piano sings! What an instrument. The notes are like jewels, or stars, or any fine thing that glitters.

The paint on the walls is cracked and peeling, and I notice the crystal chandelier is missing a few pieces. More than a few. This place is run down—charming, but seedy. Except for this piano, which is as they say in German, der Hammer. I play the last chord of the Canon and let it ring. Gorgeous!

Considering the comatose state of everyone except the woman dancing with the dog, I'm not expecting much applause, but one of the skinheads stands up and yells, YEOW!!!!! and makes a hooting sound while pumping his fist. All of the skinheads pound on the table with their silverware. The groom stands to make another speech.

"I am moved to tears by this music," he says. "That was beautiful. And now, dinner is served." All fifty guests, led by the warted people, rush to the buffet. The bride makes a beeline for the piano. I've never seen someone so large move so quickly, except maybe in a Pittsburgh Steelers game. Franco Harris comes to mind.

"FABELHAFT!!!" she yells at me. She has buck teeth, with wide spaces between them. I remember one of my dad's jokes about a girl eating an apple through a picket fence. She slaps me on the back and says, "Sie sind echt cooooool!" Another back slap.

Really, it's like the German version of Hee-Haw in this place.

One of the skinheads, the knuckle cracker, approaches the piano. "Can you play something by the Backstreet Boys?" he asks. I'm reminded of Jimmy Ciongoli, a pianist friend of my mine, who—when asked to play a Black Sabbath piece on the piano—looked the customer right in the eye and said, "What the fuck's wrong with you?"

I want to say this, but I am poofy and polite and wearing 200-dollar shoes and a nice dress. So I smile and say: "I'm terribly sorry, but I don't know any Backstreet Boys music."

Crack, crack, crack. The skinhead glares at me, and tugs at his orange t-shirt.

"Those are wonderful tattoos," I say.

Crack.

"Fresh ink," he says. "Got them for the wedding."

"Very, very nice," I say. "Lovely! Look at that. I've never seen a tattoo of a wild boar!"

Crack, crack.

There are two types of people in this world, those who run away from needles, and those who crave them. He smiles sadly, like he feels sorry for me, and walks away. I can hear his knuckles from all the way across the room.

I put on my don't bother me I'm an artist face and try to get back to Pianoland, that place where nothing counts but the music, but I'm interrupted by a warted person who wants to sing. I'm interrupted by the bride's mother, who wants to know if her dog can sleep under the piano. I'm interrupted by the groom, who tells me again and again how he can't stop crying when he hears my music.

But I play and play, until the guests have eaten themselves into an even deeper state of unconsciousness. The room grows quiet, except for the occasional shriek of laughter coming from the bride's table, the cracking knuckles, and the gentle snoring of the dog at my feet. I play a Debussy Arabesque, fully aware that I'm playing well, and equally aware that no one cares. There are no wrong notes on this piano, no shadows or sharp corners, only sparkling light and the rounded edges of the instrument's warm tones.

I glance through the French doors leading into the overgrown rose garden and see the muted colors of the early summer evening—soft pinks and lavenders, a garden's version of a sunset. I see the once glorious history of the castle in the rough stone walls surrounding the castle property; the majestic red maple trees towering over the crumbling gatehouse. And then I see the bride's brother barfing in the bushes.

So much for the Debussy. I keep playing, but I've lost my groove. I don't want to look at the barfing man, but I can't stop myself from staring. No one in the dining room can see him, but the piano is angled so that I have a bird's eye view of the action.

I’m not a snob, really I'm not. I have played for the great unwashed plenty of times and have truly enjoyed myself. But the barfing man pushes me a step too far. I am confused by this event. Classy groom, Hee-Haw bride; kidnappings and green and orange outfits; skinheads and people with warts; mother of the bride with a dancing dog; and a man doing his version of the Technicolor yawn right there in the garden.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. "Guten Abend, Frau Goldsby. As soon as you finish, I'll start my part of the program."

"Oh," I say. "Fine. What do you do?"

"I'm a magician," he says. The dog starts to growl from under the piano.

"So," I say, playing one last chord. "Have a great evening. It's all yours."

I say a silent goodbye to the magnificient Bösendorfer, collect the envelope of cash left for me in the caterer's office, and step into the June twilight, avoiding the rose garden and following the cobblestone path. The rain has stopped and the air smells green and silvery.

Other than making a living, I wonder what I'm doing with my life. Making music? Oh. That.

From the parking lot, I hear the sounds of a Backstreet Boys recording. The mud has dried, so I dance back to my car, wondering how many centuries of magic this castle has witnessed, and how much of it cast a spell worth remembering.

I can't remember what sort of function it was; I doubt it was a wedding, but it was certainly a formal affair. The place was, and is still, called Terrace on the Park, a remnant of the 1964 New York World's Fair. It looks a bit like a giant table, a restaurant perched on four 100 foot tall supports. Back in 1964 the restaurant floor rotated and there was a heliport on the roof. The old World's Fair site is now called Flushing Meadows Park.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wandy-1d/2063677175/

The restaurant is now stationary and there are no more helicopters, but the place still has a terrific view, at least most of the time.

The band had set up and we were waiting for the guests to arrive. A couple of us were looking out the window toward Manhattan. People were starting to park their cars in the lot below us. One car drove up and parked maybe 400 feet from the hall, next to an area of bushes, reeds and small trees. Out came two couples - young - late teens or early twenties. They were dressed for the occasion; the girls in colorful frilly gowns, the guys in suits.

About halfway to the hall the guys broke off and headed into the bushes, leaving their dates at the edge of the lot. We wondered about this, quickly settling on the idea that the guys probably brought some of nature's bounty with them and had stopped to smoke it.

Nope.

Dressed in suits and a half a city block from a building that probably housed no fewer than 30 bathrooms, these guys felt the need to relieve themselves al fresco.

Fiction is no match for reality.

Greg Guarino

Fantastic writing Robin !
Thank you for posting this here.
Can't wait for the book.

Thanks, DeepElem/Buck! Glad you enjoyed the story. As Greg pointed out, you can't make up this stuff. This piece will be more refined by the time it's published, but I'm glad to hear you're digging the first draft.

Greg, I know Terrace on the Park. My husband played a bunch of gigs there when we were still in NYC. There was often SQUAB on the menu, and John used to joke about the waiters being forced to round up pigeons in Flushing Meadow Park when the restaurant was running low on food.

"86 on the chicken, Guido. Time to start serving the SQUAB. Harry, get a couple of nets to the busboys."

Hi Robin,

Thanks so much for posting this - also can't wait for the whole book to come out! I'm still smiling/laughing at all the shenanigans you describe! My goodness, what you have to put up with!

""FABELHAFT!!!" she yells at me. She has buck teeth, with wide spaces between them. I remember one of my dad's jokes about a girl eating an apple through a picket fence. She slaps me on the back and says..."

Thanks for the preview, Robin! Just when I thought I'd heard it all. I'll be looking forward to your new book--- let's hope these wedding people never find out about it.

Some of your phrases just stick with me; there was that other wedding misadventure that had "a major problem with wasps." You may not know it, but as a hiker I have learned that wasps do not care for cologne. It was dramatized by the morning that wasps were disturbed and took off after the one hiker out of thirty who had drenched himself in Eau de Cologne. Half-a-mile, a whole mile, down the home stretch to the parking lot, they avenged themselves. It was lucky he proved not to be allergic. It was lucky a bridesmaid's dress and pumps were not involved.

It looks like your first book has stuck to someone I lent it to, so I guess I'll have to replace it while I get your current one and look forward to the upcoming.

The music for the prison wedding ceremony is another hard-to-forget moment, but we'll let it go for now.

I had to withdraw my own wedding story; it was too dark for this lighthearted collection.

Thanks again for the preview.

Hi Jeff! I'd say we could use a couple of dark stories on this thread, so please post whatever you've got. And thanks for the wasp tip. No more Chanel No. 5 for me. Maybe I should try a can of RAID.

I LOVE that prison wedding chapter in Piano Girl (for those of you who don't know it, I once was talked into playing for a wedding on Rikers Island), so I'm glad you remember it! It's my favorite part of the book. That story is 100% true, by the way, but I had to change the names and some identifying details to protect, well, ME.

Here's the moral of THAT story: Never ever play for the wedding of a man who is serving 25 years to life (NY Post headline over his picture: COKE KING KONKED) even if his fiancée is a good friend.

Hi Elssa! Thanks for the encouragement. I'm in the beginning stages of this project and it's nice to a have you on my side of the piano bench.

xoxo
Robin

Hi Robin,

Well, here's sort of a "dark story".. My friend used to play in a professional wedding/dance band. One time the band was hired to play for the wedding reception of two members of a very conservative church. As they were playing at the reception, they saw that nobody was getting up and dancing, just sitting there stone faced, listening to the music. When the band leader finally asked the people why they were not dancing, they replied that the church did not allow dancing because it was evil! The band was so insulted, they walked out. Don't know if the church members hired a dance band by mistake or they were just trying to make a point, but I don't blame the band for calling it quits on that event.

OK, Robin I really did laugh out loud at this:

Not where I thought you were going with this paragraph at all. What a hoot!

Elssa, I was at a wedding with this same religious group, I think. The bride was a college friend of mine (we sang together). She and her fiance were doctors, and had been living together for some time, and I was a little shocked to realize her parents didn't know that. I had no idea before the wedding that her father (who looked a lot like Fred Flinstone) was incredibly strict. They belonged to a church that did not allow dancing. He and her mom spent the evening with scowls on their faces. Why?

In large part because the groom's mother, a beautiful redhead with legs borrowed from Cyd Charisse, was cutting quite a rug in her floating flaired chiffon skirt. She was a former chorus girl.

Yes, the families found out quite a bit about each other that night...

Well now, Fred Flintstone was not such a bad-looking fellow... and Wilma was no woodchuck. But I sense a dark, seething ocean of ulterior motives in this scene you described. Fred likes Cyd but doesn't want Wilma to catch on; Wilma does, though and intends to keep Cyd as far from Fred as she can (she has a leash and collar in her purse and she's not afraid to use it). And the kids express both sets of parents' unconscious, know it or not. Besides, who knows what storms of forbidden passion may be churning the waters behind Wilma's scowling demeanor--- that frown could very well be a "beard." It's presence is suspicious in more than one sense.

Meanwhile, Cyd knows all about Fred, and Cyd's husband is tolerantly amused and somewhat gratified that everyone's eye is on his beautiful wife; he's used to it, and when they dance the tango he understands how to show her off to her best advantage. It's part of the fun of their marriage, and anyone watching can get as fired-up as they like; he knows she's coming home with daddy. He's looking forward to the rhumba contest at the reception; the band has been primed--- and well-tipped.

And the Wedding March plays on.

I can picture some very colorful future family scenes, and I wonder which branch of the family the grandkids will take after. I hope the young marrieds both have Living Wills... and pre-nups.

Jeff! Elssa!Rusty!

You three are really funny.

Just one thing Elssa—you described my own wedding. I married a jazz bassist who comes from a Southern Baptist family, and they do NOT believe in drinking or dancing, I believe because these things lead to fornication (which, if you ask me, is the whole point of getting married, right?) Anyway, my in-laws have odd beliefs, but they were gracious enough to accept the fact that MY family danced and would probably drink, too, sinners that we are.

There were 200 people at the wedding, and about 16 of them were from my side. The rest of the guests were from the church (Louisville, Kentucky). John hired famed jazz guitarist Jimmy Raney to play for our reception, and my in-laws, meaning well, cleared an area the size of a football field for my relatives to dance. The rest of the guests sat in a ring around the dance floor, with a full view of the action. It was like Dancing with the Stars, except with Heathens. Some of you may know who Jimmy Raney was. That trio sounded fantastic. My Aunt Jean played the role of Cyd at this party. Aunt Jean is a swinger. Still. And she's 87.

Castle update: Last night's wedding featured a dozen (!) Asian bridesmaids dressed in strapless pink chiffon. I played for the cocktail hour, so I don't know if they got down and dirty on the dance floor later in the evening. One can only hope.

Hi Robin,

Wow, I'm really surprised your husband became such a great jazz musician with a family that strict! LOL! I didn't know that the "no-dance rule" was so common, though. Geez, you'd think they could at least allow people to dance the "Bunny Hop" and "Alley Cat" at weddings - the little kids especially, who look so adorable. But even the adults should be allowed to do these because (most of the time) you're dancing separately, paws up and dainty steps/hops with these "kiddie dances".

Ha! John is the black sheep of the family.

If he didn't look just like the other members of the family, I'd swear they found him in a basket on the church steps.

Bunny Hop. Now we're talkin,'

Too funny, Jeff. I've lost touch with the couple, but last I heard they were both still practicing surgeons with two lovely children in grade school. So far, so good... I can only imagine what Thanksgiving is like though.

Is it just me, or at the high society weddings, do the bridesmaids always seem to get a little crazy towards the end of the reception?

aE440: I think you might be correct with your bridesmaid theory. Alcohol is the great equalizer, though. People who drink too much, regardless of their social or economic status, are all capable of doing the alligator dance on the bar by the end of the night.

My dad (musician) likes to look at a room of sober guests at the beginning of the gig and make bets with the band which member of the party will be most likely to strip before the evening is over. Trust me, it's not limited to bridesmaids.

Here is my favorite gay wedding story: I was hired by friend to play the cocktail hour for their reception. Gorgeous party—250 guests, black tie, beautiful flowers, wonderful location. I played my gig and then (because I was a friend) was invited to the dinner. My husband was playing a concert that night at the Philharmonie hall here in Cologne, so he was unable to be my date for the dinner, but said he would come by after the concert and meet me there. He called on his way to the wedding reception and asked how it was going. I told him the truth, that it was a classy event, one of the nicest weddings I had been to in a long time, great food, grandparents, a couple of kids--in other words, a completely normal high society wedding, just with two grooms.

"Okay," he said, "I'll be there in ten minutes."

Well. In the that ten minutes all hell broke lose. A friend of one of the grooms had hired the ROSA FUNKEN, a gay dance group consisting of two dozen men dressed in pink ballerina tutus. John, wearing concert attire, managed to arrive at the reception just as they were marching into the ballroom to perform their über-choreographed version of Gloria Gaynor's "I Am What I Am." It almost looked like he was part of the show. Too bad he didn't have his bass with him.

I went to a no-dancing wedding in Chicago suburbs once. It was quite the culture clash. The bride's family, friends and neighbors were all, well, light; Blond or light brown hair, light skin, pastel-hued clothes in conservative styles. They had driven in from rural Illinois.

The groom's family and most of his friends were New York Italians who flew in for the affair. Jet-black hair, dark suits, black dresses (or other bold colors) with some decidedly less conservative lines, sunglasses. They arrived in two 15-passenger vans from the hotel we all stayed in.

The church attendants soon realized that there was no need to ask "Bride or Groom?" of the guests. They just pointed the way to the correct side. There were furtive glances across the aisle, each side studying the curious creatures on the other.

I don't think it was until we arrived at the reception that the guests on the groom's side found out that the entertainment was a string trio. (people get too wild with a quartet).

We in the bridal party waited outside the catering room. They announced each "couple" as we entered. Each announcement sounded something like this: "...and next we have Bobbi-Jean Swensen and... uh...ah... John Gee-uh-nan-a-noo-nee", "Betty-Sue Cornbread and ... Greg um...Gar-da-nee-no", "Mary-Jo Easy-to-pronounce-Midwestern and Domenic Oh-my-Gawd-what-the-heck-is-with-these-vowels-o".

You'd think that a mere 45 minutes out of Chicago they might have had some familiarity with Italian names. But they didn't. They mispronounced each syllable and added a couple onto each name for good measure.

That was pretty much it for the excitement. Compared with the weddings I had been to before (did I mention that my Mom's family is Greek? 'Nuff said), this one was more like 150 people eating a meal in the same room.

Many of the New Yorkers, especially the younger ones (a category that used to include me - sigh) got together in the hotel lounge that night to fill in the omissions of the afternoon affair: Loud music, disco lighting, dancing and of course, a little alcohol.

This must be the funniest post I've read online anywhere in quite some time. You win the Internet.

Very funny, Greg! I love the string trio line.

There's an old vaudeville joke that might apply to your Chicago wedding: "Is this a party or an oil painting?"

No wedding at the castle tonight. The happy couple was not so happy and cancelled at the last minute.

Thanks. I'll send you an invoice.

Here's another tidbit from the same wedding. The ushers were all from NY City: the groom's two brothers and three friends, including me. We had to rent tuxedos long-distance. This involved phoning in our various measurements to the tailor. "Honey, help me measure from my waist to my crotch...Yes really." Between our lack of skill and the hilarity of the process (at least in my house), the measurements may have been less than completely precise.

Do I even need to tell the rest of the story?

On the day of the wedding all five guys went into one of our hotel rooms to get changed into the tuxes. It was like a swap meet. "My pants are too big/too short/too long/too...wrong". The exchanging began. I ended up trading pants with a guy 6 inches taller than I am and swapping the jacket with someone else. The results were pretty much as you might expect.

At least we didn't have to dance.

Robin you have a pm waiting.

Well here's my 2nd wedding piano story from Sat, unfortunately things went pretty smoothly :P

It was for a good friend, so I was also in the wedding party. This time I made it to the rehearsal, thank god, I actually had some idea of what's going on this time.

The church had a nice grand piano, a treat for me since I usually am on a digital. Not to mention the acoustics in the church! Playing the background music while people arrive was a low pressure situation, most were talking so I felt like I was just playing for myself and anyone who ran out of things to say.

Since I was nervous I decided to start with the easiest pieces to get warmed up on. Turns out it doesn't take long for everyone to arrive and the ceremony to start though, I didn't get through half of what I'd memorized before I saw the deacon at the back waving for me to begin.

For the ceremony they'd convinced me to practice up the guitar again, Bach's Air for a G string for the wedding party and Pachelbels Canon for the bride. Nobody knew how to work the sound system (or even where to find it) so I just played into a microphone, it sounded like ass from where I was sitting, very boomy... But I was told it sounded fine where everyone else was. More piano for the wedding certificate and while everyone walked off. There were memory slips and dropped notes all over the place, but overall went pretty good and everyone seemed happy with it.

Then we ran into a bunch of people from the wedding at the liquor store, and it was such a hot day out to take pictures in a tux... we were all a bit tipsy by the reception. The brides side, who usually seem a bit stuck up to us partiers from the grooms side, even loosened up and had some fun. Thanks alcohol! All the groomsmen were gifted with pocket knives and we were like kids with new toys. It's amazing nobody got hurt, though I woke up with a lot of little nicks on my hands and somehow sliced my thumb today, oops.

Lots of laughs and good times. I get to play for another friends wedding in Nov. Someone suggested I learn the theme from Pirates of The Carribean, which I think would be pretty funny and somehow appropriate.

Yes! 1RC, sounds like a smash success! You have obviously discovered the pleasures of playing when no one is listening. I've made a career out of it, and although it's not something I'd recommend for musicians with fragile egos, it can be (in weird way) an artistically pure way of performing. Play for yourself.

I actually played that Pirates theme at a wedding dinner a couple of years ago. I didn't mean to play it, but I have it in my fingers, which means—like most pieces of music I know— it has a life of its own and can slip out of my hands whenever the atmosphere nudges me in a particular direction. (that last sentence sounds ridiculous, but those of you who play background gigs know what I mean) At this particular wedding the bride looked like a wench (boobs pushed up to her chin) and the groom was wearing an eye patch, which just screams PIRATE and well, I just started playing it, which almost caused the banquet manager to drop a tray of wine glasses.

And another thing, 1RC. Pocket knives and alcohol are probably not good companions, especially for a pianist! At least you waited until after the gig.

your story was delightful piano girl.

I particularly loved this line.. "I have played for the great unwashed plenty of times "

what a nice of humor you have.

(I'm thinking about the party i played for years ago where the host's sister was a lifetime drunk but an incredible pianist.. she kept sitting down to accompany me, adding descants, bass rhythmic enhancements, countermelodies. If it weren't for her breath and the fact that she kept listing (leaning) into me, it would have been a delightful experience.)

Piano Girl - you really ought to post this in the Piano Forum or Pianist Corner.. it deserves a greater readership.



edit- I see you've met Marian McPartland (you're so lucky) - is the show to broadcast this week? It airs in KCMO on Wednesdays (rehearsal nite and I'll have to miss that one).

I hope to hear it.

Robin Meloy Goldsby - who wrote the book Piano Girl

Cathy

P.S. I see the question of "what does RMG stand for?" has been taken out, so my answer looks a little silly But it's still the answer

Here's a topic we haven't addressed yet. What about people who talk to you while you play? I don't mean brief bits like "You guys are really good!" or "Can you play 'Witchcraft'?". Here's a conversation that I'm sure I can type out nearly verbatim, even though it was 15 years ago:

Couple:
"Our son plays keyboard"

Me:
[smile, nod]

Couple:
"He's eight"

Me:
[smile a little more artificially, nod again]

Couple:
"We just bought him a new keyboard..."

Me
"Uh huh."

Couple
"but it doesn't sound like yours..."

Me
"Oh"

Couple
"Why do you think that is?"

Me (stifling the urge to say six or seven of the obvious things one might say in such a situation)
"Because it's different, and he's eight"

Them:
"How can we make it sound like yours"

Me:
"Buy one like this"

The Idiots: (miffed that I might have thought that they, members of a rather upscale country club, might have bought less than the finest for Little Biff Tenthumbs III) :
"Well, it's a very good one.

Me:
"OK" (with a slight "If you say so" tone)

They left after that.

Oh please! The Bunny Hop surely came from the pen of Ol' Scratch himself. Also "Havin' My Baby", by the way.

And I note you didn't include the Hokey Pokey. Depending on who's "calling" it, the song can get pretty risque. "What did he say to 'put in'??"

Okay, what first? Let's start with Greg and Little Biff. At the risk of sounding immodest, I have to say that I am really good at talking and playing at the same time. I don't know if this ability to split my concentration comes from early training at my first job at the Nantucket Club Car in 1976 (where I had to converse with drunken sailors, turn the pages of my fakebook, and pull up my tube top while pounding my way through my Bicentennial patriotic medley) or if I was just born with a Rainman like ability to yap and play at the same time. What I cannot do, is speak German while I play. English, fine; German or French, train wreck.

Anyway, the talkers don't bug me much as long as they speak English.

I really hate the hand-shakers. What's with that????

Thanks, Cathy, for clearing up my name, even though the question disappeared. It was kind of like Piano Jeopardy. I'll take Cocktail Piano for 500, Alex.

Apple, I'm afraid of those other forums—they're kind of serious over there, rightly so. But feel free to send them over this way.

The show I did with Marian McPartland has been broadcast twice, the last time in January of this year. I'm supposed to do another taping with her sometime soon. Here's the link if you want to listen online (it's in the archives). It's a really fun show, and I can't say enough about her. She is WONDERFUL. I just hope that when I'm 92 I'm still playing the piano and having as much fun as she is.

Robin with Marian McPartland on NPR

This thread goes on my "all-time PW favorite thread" lists. Love these stories... Greg, I was howling at your story about little Biff. And I truly enjoyed the special treat of a sneak preview of your forthcoming book, Robin... can't wait for it to come out!

p.s. I know what you mean about the other forums being scary. (Except, of course, for warm and cozy AB forum. ) I still haven't recovered from the time I admitted that I liked Trans-Siberian Orchestra on the Pianist Corner.

Hey Monica! You're right, AB is a safe haven. And inspiring! There is something so moving about adult music students. Gives me faith that the world is an okay place.

I'll bet you have some on-deck wedding players hanging out over there!

HA! I love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra comment. On this thread, we'd think that was a wedding band for an Eastern European reception.

Friend of the prisoner or friend of the poet? At least the vodka would be good.

I really miss listening to Marian's Show. I've had a rehearsal scheduled on Wednesday evenings for years and years now. She is so delightful. I suppose i could arrange to be sorting socks or sewing buttons while I have a listen.

I'm sure there are many people who would enjoy your sense of humor Robyn. Some of our most pedantic posters have sly wits. Some of the forums get absolutely NOOOO traffic. I've been trying to drum up business for the organ forum to absolutely no avail and our 'Who's Who at Piano World has only 7 topics.

This is probably my first post ever in the nonclassical forum (and I'm likely to get laughed out of here).

Speaking of Who's Who, I'm going to ask Lang Lang if he'll join Piano World when I see him on Sep. 15th. ya never know.

"Some of the forums get absolutely NOOOO traffic. I've been trying to drum up business for the organ forum to no avail..."

No kidding, Apple... is there really one? This is the first I've seen it or heard of it--- and I love organ.

understandably, the organ forum gets little traffic. This is afterall, Piano World. There is an organ forum elsewhere. (www.organforum.com) Not a lot of traffic there, but considerably more than here.

i digress... back to the tattoed bride.

Wow, what a great thread--pulled me out of long-time lurkdom! I've been laughing hysterically on every page.

I've only played one wedding--my nephew's. They asked me to accompany another nephew and a friend who were singing a duet during the ceremony. No problem, I play for singers a fair amount. Then they wondered if I'd be willing to play the Wedding March for the processional. I said I could, but asked if they might be willing to let me try to find something a little less traditional, with their approval.

They said OK, but suggested I brush up on the wedding march just in case. Well, to make a long story short I ran out of time to really find anything suitable as an alternative so figured I'd just do the wedding march as originally requested.

But...I don't know what came over me. During the rehearsal as the bride entered, I launched into "Hey, Look Me Over." I was laughing hysterically. The bride looked completely panicked. I pulled myself together (which took a bit of time) and we did the wedding march and all was well.

The wedding ceremony was lovely. I only smirked once or twice from my piano bench in the choir loft.

Nina, your post caused me to laugh out loud, not an easy task at the crack of dawn (I'm writing from Germany). "Hey, Look Me Over?" That's a riot! See that's what I mean, sometimes these things just slip out, it's like stream of consciousness gigging.

What was the duet piece your nephew sang? I'm always intrigued by the songs people choose for the Big Day.

Apple and Jeff, I'll bet there are some church organists with excellent wedding stories. I was in a wedding a million years ago where the bride FORGOT to hire an organist—she had ordered 6 billion dollars of flowers, and enough chocolate wedding cake to feed the entire Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh, but she forgot about music. (Where's the clipboard lady when you need her?)

Knowing that I had the cocktail piano gig at the Pittsburgh Hyatt, she tried to get me to go play the church pipe organ, but—even though I was 21 and crazy enough to try just about anything—I had the sense to say no. I am clueless when it comes to organ. I have enough trouble with two hands, add feet to the mix and I'm askin' for trouble. Anyway, we marched down the aisle to complete silence.

I am a service organist and do weddings and funerals. I really don't enjoy dealing with brides. (maybe a tattoed one would be ok). They are so emotionally needy and so a gaga over themselves and their love and their dress, and their makeup and so into the planning process. Why they think the organist wants to hear how they fell in love is beyond me. Perhaps, confused, they think I would be a soundboard.

In spite of a contract, I've had little luck in keeping my hours contributed to a manageable level. How can you turn down a crying bride who needs to change the music even tho rehearsals have been conducted with soloists? How do you extract money from a bride who's fiance has decided not to go thru the wedding? How do you deal with a mother in law who wants to bribe you to change the music as a surprise for her son?

and then there are the organs which are never played except for weddings and their volume pedals are stuck on super loud.

I played my first wedding in 7th grade. I was soooo scared. I hardly knew how to turn on the organ, much less use any pedals or choose which stops to use. I still made 50 dollars which was a fortune in 1969. That's when my parents decided I could well afford my own highschool tuition.

Funerals, tho somber, are much easier to deal with logistically..... sometimes the level of grief is overwhelming. I've gotten thru a couple without giving into my sorrow, only to go home and cry the rest of the day.

Anyway, I'm delighted to find yet another book to ad to my music book collection, and look forward to reading it.

Yes, Apple, the only way to get through some of these weddings is with a bullet proof sense of humor. Sounds like you have one.

50 bucks in 1969 was indeed a fortune. Iplayed my first gig in 1976 and made 50 bucks a night, five nights a week. I was 18 and it seemed like a million dollars.

I didn't get on the wedding circuit until I moved to Europe and cracked the high society wedding market, something that happened because I got a steady weekend gig at a castle that is renowned for weddings.

There is no such thing as a "normal" wedding. For most women, a chance to be queen for a day is a once in a lifetime event, and most of them work that diva thing to death. I have pretty much figured out that when the day comes, they have no clue what I play, how I play, or whether or not I even manage to show up. But most of the time I play background music for the reception or dinner. It's a different deal if you're playing the ceremony, like you, Apple. Tension City.

I'm still laughing about "Hey Look Me Over."

Don't get me started on funerals, except to say that in 2004 I played a funeral and wedding on the same day. I'm working on writing about that, but I'm not sure I can pull it off—what a mix of emotions.

i've saved many of the anecdotes i've shared on this piano forum and others in a 'maybe this will be a collection of short stories' file. This was a funeral I attended but did not play at. As a bit of preamble, I live in Kansas City and the Chiefs are a football team.

-----------------

A brother of a friend of mine, a fireman with a gambling and drinking problem, committed suicide in jail after being picked up for driving under the influence.

He lived in on the northwestern side of the metro where houses are pink or black, crumbled, surrounded by wild dogs, or may have a full sized Chief's logo painted on the side of the house, covering the windows. Tattoo parlors abut homemade churches of questionable denomination and the roads have no curbs or drainage conduits.

William was a fireman and a bagpiper. The funeral was well attended by sturdy legged firemen whose pants were way too tight, who sported handlebar mustaches and shaved heads, and probably had Harley-Davidson wannabees in their detached sheds. After the ceremony, 25 firefighters gathered in the vestibule with 8 fully dressed bagpipers. The Church was fairly small and the vestibule was maybe 12' X 12'.

A fireman said "We will sound the final alarm for our brother William". They had brought at least 8 BIG brass bells (the kind that used to ring in firehouses to call the firefighters and dangle above the front of the trucks). The 8 bells started clanging, reverberating the church of stucco and tile, the bagpipers started playing, and the huge old church bell above us started peeling. For at least 3 minutes this unbelievably loud cacophony sounded. The congregation was clusted at the back of the church by the firemen and bagpipers. After about a minute of this wonderful noise, everyone broke into the most unfettered sobbing I have ever witnessed. Not a person was spared from the racking sobs of utter sorrow. It was a total group thing.

When the clamor died, one of the firefighters said, "Dang it - Bill owed me ten bucks". The very elderly mother of William opened her purse and gave the firefighter a ten dollar bill which he stuck in his pocket.

I couldn't believe it.

"Hey, Look Me Over" is not so bad. "Farewell Mein Lieberherr" could have popped out of your subconscious, and what a number to walk down the aisle to. No--- no one could walk to that. One must slither.

"Why they think the organist wants to hear how they fell in love is beyond me."

I know, Apple. The only thing to do is fight fire with fire. If you interrupt with a story of your own.... Get out pictures of your grandchildren, it does for brides what garlic does for vampires. Or excuse yourself, saying your cellphone vibrated and the call turned out to be important and private in nature.

"How can you turn down a crying bride who needs to change the music even tho rehearsals have been conducted with soloists?"

Say yes, and play the original music as rehearsed. Brush off the bride with some excuse afterward. They're going to cry anyway, what difference does it make why? Or just say no to begin with; I refer to my previous remark. This is what matrons-of-honor are there for, that and when the bridesmaids need a referee.

"How do you extract money from a bride who's fiance has decided not to go thru the wedding?"

Advance payment? A signed contract backed up with a visit to "Judge Judy"? It's worked for wedding photographers, bridesmaids' seamstresses, wedding DJ's, limo drivers, and caterers... and some episodes were juicy. Bridezilla does not translate well in front of Judgezilla. In fact, we may have put our finger on the very problem the groom had.

"How do you deal with a mother in law who wants to bribe you to change the music as a surprise for her son?"

You say that like it's a bad thing--- I would do it. Everyone loves wedding surprises. I say, go along--- that is, if the bribe was big enough, and in cash. Tell the bride you didn't think she would want to get crossways with her mother-in-law right from the jump; it is unanswerable.

Oh well, at least these are fantasy "Weddings from Hell." There's a TV show of home videos of real wedding disasters. One poor bride shut the limo door on her dress, and it peeled off, taking her train and a good bit of the back panel with it. (I don't remember if they went through with the ceremony.) Members of the wedding have taken a header down the church stairs or gotten drunk at the reception and reeled into the band, knocking it flying. Face-plants into the wedding cake, a mishap with a mud puddle, that thing where they dance with the wedding couple hoisted on chairs (so hazard-prone)... the video quality may not be up to network standards, but it's gritty reality. Low, no doubt, that others (such as myself) can laugh at the misfortunes of others on their Big Day. I tell myself that the syndication royalties can pay for a second honeymoon.

I can't even try to top your funeral story, though. Especially the ten bucks.

Jeff, this should be in a wedding music text book. Why don't they teach this stuff in music school?

"Smile, nod, and play what you want to play" is probably a good rule for these things. You can kill yourself learning some awful song and then no one even notices when you play it.

I once had a bride give me list of 60 songs (!) to play for a one hour cocktail reception. Imagine.

My dad always joked that musicians should be like chefs and have a menu.

funeral musicians have menues.

I have a funeral choir ... old ladies and men, (one with emphysema and an oxygen tank) who willingly go to every funeral and sing their stock songs. They sing it their way, with Kansas 'r's, ancient rhythms and the occasional wobbling descant. A family may choose from about 50 appropriate songs.

I inherited this choir as well as the songbooks that they cut, pasted and taped together long ago. Once I tried to introduce a few new songs to them. We had a rehearsal and included them in the list of available songs, taping them into the songbooks. When we actually sang one, they just sat down during the service and looked at me with great reproach... Apparently that was the signal they agreed to give me, to let me know that they weren't going to sing that song. (I wish they had just told me that beforehand). If I happen to forget a coda that they always do (but isn't written in the music), they cluster around to protest after the Mass (yep, it's Catholic). 'how could I do this to them?'

(Not to make fun of them, they are a great bunch of people).

LOL! There are really Weddings from Hell. Instead of letting them get into your nerves, have fun. Laugh out loud.

Maybe the subtext of this wedding thing is along the same lines as hazing during fraternity initiations, on the theory that if you can get through the ceremony you'll make it at least to the seven-year-itch. Or maybe they think that suffering though it will make you turn to God--- after all, you're right there in a church.

It might work in some cases. Or it could backfire.

To be fair, I have to say that my niece's wedding was a real blast, every single minute of it. No one could have been the more polar opposite of a bridezilla. The floodwaters had only receded from New Orleans for a scant year, but she wanted to do her part to help the town recover... and she wanted to do what she could to bring all the branches of the family together, and all her buddies. It was an unlikely job, but she made it a stunning success.

Everything was fun: the meals, the rehearsal dinner, the ceremony in the garden of a truly fabulous antebellum mansion, the music and dancing (three different ensembles for before, during, and after). I drew video-camera duty; the bride thought of everybody--- even the staff at the mansion--- and remembered even those who weren't there. My mom had very badly wanted to be present, and we had moved heaven and earth to make it possible... but her health took a turn for the worse, and the skilled-nursing facility where she lived said, "No way." But Mary didn't forget her. As she came down the spiral staircase in her wedding gown, she stopped for a moment in front of the camera and said, "I love you, Mimi," and blew her a kiss. Then she was off, down the aisle.

I took the video back to my mom in Birmingham the next day, and she watched it over and over, over and over, holding some of the roses from the bride's bouquet.

A week after I got back home to California, she passed away. So we all got to meet again.

There must be some species of magic in the kind of person who thinks in such detail, and with such caring, about everyone else's experience. Seven years have come and gone, and her husband still loves her. We all do.

Is there a name for this? What, the bride anti-zilla? I wonder if this would make it in syndication...

Angel-bride, that's what I would call her. What a lovely story, and what a gracious young lady she must be. Thanks for telling us about Mary and Mimi. I love this.

Best. Response. From. Pianist. Ever.

For my own wedding, my little brother (age 11 and already a complete smartass) suggested that, instead of the Wedding March, it would be much more appropriate for me to come down the aisle to the strains of the Imperial March from Star Wars (Darth Vader's theme). My darling groom thought this was a spectacular idea. I can't believe the man has survived for the past 27 years. I was no bride-zilla, but this I did veto.

PP, you were absolutely no Bridezilla!

Jimmy Ciongoli might be the funniest pianist I've ever known. He worked with my dad for decades. He is now retired and living in Arizona, and arthritis has forced an end to his playing (he's about 80). But it makes me happy to know you appreciated that comment!

What stories!

i didn't realize there was a first page to this thread having bookmarked the 2nd. (lots of laughs)


I own a 10 yr old girl and dutifully watch girlmovies with her. This might have slipped under your radar Robyn but it's right definitely on topic. it is a sequal to the Prince and Me, a delightful story where a doctor wannabe from a Wisconsin Farm meets the Prince of Belgium and they fall in love.

The royal wedding, the sequel, is a blast... a royal cousin (what a shrew she is, tries to sabatoge their weddin and steal the prince.. lots of shenanigans including the bride wannabe falling into the mud.

they are actually pretty good movies if you are female. (the prince is absoLUTEly adorable)

I see your problem. Mismatched instruments. You should organize business for the organ forum, and drum up business for the drum forum. Let me know how it works.

oh stop

ORGANize..

Interesting weekend at the castle. On Saturday night we had a 50th wedding anniversary party going on at the same time as a wedding reception, which left me feeling like I was playing on a loop. The 50th anniversary party seemed like it was way more fun, although credit where credit is due—the young bride was a stunner.

So nothing really to report. This may well mean that the wedding season is grinding to a halt--for some reason the brides of summer are always a little nuttier than the ones who marry in the off season.

Next year, I swear I am going to take pictures of all the brides.

Well, that's a little too corny for my taste, but the "bunny hop" is just cute IMO. BTW, speaking of dancing, my cousin's daughter just got married.. The bride and groom are both professional dance instructors (all types - ballet, modern, etc). At the reception, instead of the traditional slow waltz/dance together, they did their own thing. She changed into a gorgeous, flowing "Jeannie"- type outfit and danced a beautiful exotic style belly dance for all the guests.

Well there you go. Why wait for the groom to hire a belly dancer when the bride can do it herself?

Belly dancers are very popular at German weddings, but I don't recall running into that type of post nuptial entertainment stateside.

We had a wedding last summer that featured ALPHORN players out in the driveway as the happy couple pulled up to the castle in a horse-drawn carriage. I loved that. The band uniforms were beyond fabulous: Lederhosen, little felt caps with feathers, suspenders, the whole routine. Moments like this always remind me that I'm in a foreign country.

Castle update: The weekend was a blurrrrrr due to Goldsby family members participating in way too many events, but the Saturday night castle wedding was remarkable for a nice reason.

When I first started playing at the castle, back in 2001, I met a lovely sixteen year old girl who came to the castle every month with her family for Sunday lunch. I watched her go from gawky teenager to lovely young woman. She was Saturday's bride. I'm the mother of two teenage kids—one of whom is in South Africa on an exchange program—and this hit home to me, big time. Kids grow up and then they put on a poofy white dress and walk away. I spent most of the evening feeling a little weepy.

On the other hand (I say that too much—I think it's a phrase that comes naturally to pianists) I was happy to be the one to play the bride into her married life.

I went to a wedding in Rochester, New York back in May. The bride was the daughter of one of my cousins. I have 19 cousins and most of them have kids. I don't know most of their children very well, but I have seen this one at family gatherings once or twice a year for her whole life. I have even met her fiance/husband a few times.

They had one of the nicest weddings I can remember: ceremony outdoors in an orchard, reception in the (very old, very clean) barn and all over the grounds. They had two bands, a bluegrass quartet outside and a western swing band inside. The food included fruits and vegetables grown on the grounds and was served by the middle aged women who had prepared it. The whole event was much more personal than most; there was nothing boilerplate about it. It reflected the tastes and interests of the bride and groom.

I have a 14 year old daughter. At some point during the ceremony it all of a sudden came to me: "She (my cousin's daughter) is OK. She's grown up. She can take care of herself. She's marrying a good guy, she's got a career, she's even interesting. She's made it to what every parent has to hope for for their children.

That got me a little choked up myself. I don't imagine the worry ever completely goes away, but with a 14-year-old, one of the bumpier parts of the ride is just beginning. I hope the next few years don't go by too quickly (they will, of course), but I hope to someday have that same feeling about my own daughter's adult life as I did at that wedding.

Yes, Greg! My children are 16 and 13, so I hear you. Thank you for putting the way I'm feeling into such beautiful words.

Our band played at a wedding over the weekend and I played the ceremony for the first time in a couple of years. My description of how qualified I am for that task (barely) is further up in this thread.

I'm known for getting to the gig last, especially when it's a place I've been to many times. There's sometimes a good hour and a half between the drummer's arrival and mine. As I had the ceremony to play, an hour before the reception, we got there at about the same time.

I was still plenty early though, and thanks to my proximity to the "Bride's Room", I got to see and hear some of the last minute semi-frantic prep work that occurs in the final minutes before a wedding ceremony. It was a little like the bride's 20 friends attending to a zit in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".

Judging by the bits of animated conversation that I heard, the bride's dress was loose, her veil wasn't straight and her hair, was, well, hair, rather than a static sculpture, and thus had problems. There was also some sort of make-up debacle that I simply do not have the proper expertise or vocabulary to describe. She looked fine to me (the same, in fact), both before and after the repairs. Men are like that.

A nervous, distracted-looking fellow in a morning suit came up to me at one point, introducing himself as the groom. "You don't say?", I answered.

These were very nice people. The father of the bride thanked me and complemented me more than my meager ceremony performance could ever have warranted. So it is only because I simply cannot help myself that I relate the following.

This was the bride's third wedding, but was otherwise indistinguishable from anyone else's first. Here's the kicker: Our band also played at her second wedding. There was some talk around the band/photographer/video dinner table about this. "Take this punch card, the fourth party is 50% off", stuff like that. There are precious few unexplored humor opportunities among a bunch of musicians who see each other as often as we do. "What's another eternity in Hell?", as our bass player is fond of saying.

The bride's daughter, a girl of 10 or 11, asked us to play "Brown-Eyed Girl" so she could dance with the groom. We did, and they did. She looked happy. They obviously get along, which is a great thing to see. The father of the bride, a man of unadorned speech, spent several sentences saying how proud he was of his daughter and how happy he was to welcome the groom into his family.

I wish them all the luck.

"...The father of the bride, a man of unadorned speech, spent several sentences..."

I've recognized it, Guardino. Those dry, yet rich witticisms. I'm just now reading Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, in the hope of giving my brain just a measure or two of rest, without letting it stop; who knows if I'll be able to get it to turn over again.

It's not a music-related book, and has no truck at all with weddings, but he would have appreciated both you and Robin as writers.

There was a time when people would have guffawed into their sleeves if they spied certain brides wearing a white dress, but by the time a lady's child is old enough to dance with the new groom, I guess the fuss has had plenty of time to die down. After all, it's not the fifties anymore and we don't have to feel embarrassed about having sex anymore... just about having bad sex.

Dorothy Parker could have made something of the wedding biz of her time--- in fact, she may have, if I would only read further. I made the mistake of buying an edition of her collected works in a secondhand bookstore. The print is quite small, and I've set it aside for now and may look for something more suitable for persons over fifty.

Two of the great humorists, or ironicists (if that's a word, and no I'm not going to look it up in that heavy dictionary). So you're keeping pretty good company.

I do try, but in this case the father, no speaker by any measure, said exactly what you'd want your dad, or your new father-in-law, to say at your wedding, especially if it was your third. He seemed like a good guy.That's a very entertaining book, an account of a pleasure cruise when the very idea was brand new. Better yet, Twain managed to connive a way to get paid to be on it.

I think Twain would have called that one a "stretcher", at least in my case. I've discovered in my later years that I can turn out a page or two of reasonable entertainment - an unexpected turn of events for a guy who never enjoyed writing in college - but I think more than that is required to be called a real writer. I'm glad someone enjoys what I write. Thanks for the compliment. Leaving aside the nearly unavoidable humor about playing at two weddings for the same bride, I'm glad there's been some change in that area.

Again, thanks for the (too) kind words. By the way, one of the funniest pieces I've ever read is also by Twain, and may be of special interest to Robin, if she hasn't already read it: "The Awful German Language". It's an account of Twain's (apparently serious) study of German, written the way only he could.

Jeff,

Thanks for the kind words! I feel privileged to work (and play) in a world that's colorful enough to provide good writing material. I'm sure Greg agrees with me. Even when the gig is bad, good words come out of it.

"In Germany, a sense of humor is no laughing matter." I'm paraphrasing, but that's one of the quotes that sticks in my mind from the Twain's account of learning German. Having been forced to learn German at the ripe age of 37, I can attest to the validity of his struggles.

Note: German humor is just different from our humor, but it does exist! Just not necessarily at weddings.

I don't know that it exists at our weddings either, Robin. I think people believe the venture is risky enough without tempting Fate.

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthrea...tml#Post1266661

This thread is from tuner/technicians' forum, and really isn't about wedding bands (except for some jewelry found inside the piano case). One or two items might have provided exhibits for divorce court, however:

"once i went to do a tuning job for an elderly widow. as always, she was "amazed" by how easily her piano came apart.. especially as i was taking the keys out to vacuum the key bed. anyways, there was a note in there and she excitedly opened it to find it a note written by her deceased husband to his lover!!

"yes, things became a little awkward"

There's a country music song in this... or an aria for an opera buffa. Or Steely Dan could have done something with it.

I vote for the Steely Dan version.

No wedding news to report—I fear the summer bride season is over. "The falling brides drift by my window . . . ."

I did, however, play a fabulous gig at the Gerling Villa in Cologne, Germany last night. 1965 Steinway B, with a custom burled wood interior. No wrong notes on this piano! Anyway, the job, aside from being for an over-the-top event, was pretty straight ahead, except for Cleopatra. About ten minutes into my first set, a woman in a Cleopatra costume began creeping across the room, making a beeline for the piano.

In a normal hotel situation I might have yelled for security (like that does any good), but this was a high-fallutin' shindig, and since I was perched in the middle of an art-filled salon, I figured that Cleo must be some kind of performance art. Correct assumption. She stood on a spinning platform (the size of a plate) next to the piano, struck a statue pose and rotated for 15 minutes. Gave me something to watch while I was playing, but then I had to stop because I suffer from motion sickness and watching her twirl around did a number on me.

Well. People drifted in and out of the room and stared at Cleo and listened to me and then went back to their foie gras and sushi and champagne.

In my second set, the same thing happened, this time with Cupid, a little disconcerting because Cupid had her bow pointed right at me every time she rotated in my direction.

I only played the two sets, then left just as a group called DIVA-LICIOUS was being introduced in another part of the villa. And so it goes.

PS: Jeff Clef, thank you so much for the link to the tech thread about junk left in pianos. There are some very funny posts there.

Robin, am I correcting in understanding that for the gig, you weren't told about Cleo and Cupid in advance?

What is with organizers who keep key people out of the loop? I used to get asked to do workshops and participate in a variety of events when I lived in Japan, and it was always like pulling teeth trying to get organizers to fill me in in all the relevant details. Basically, I had to think of all possible scenarios and ask specific questions if I wanted to find anything out.

"So, will my presentation on multi-cultural awareness be followed by a snake charmer? Right, then I want to get off the stage quickly. Got it. Thanks for the heads up."

Correct, Shirokuro, no advance warning! Here's the funny part, I even had an assistant assigned to me for the entire evening. He followed me around, helped with everything, made sure I got back to my car safely, etc. And he was very specific with instructions about how the evening would proceed—I had a print-out plan that looked like a NASA flight schedule. But he never mentioned Cleo and Cupid. There were all kinds of people running around there and I'm wondering if the models weren't part of another event planner's plans.

As I was leaving, I spotted Ceasar on the staircase.

As your story points out, you can never ask too many questions!

Our part-time band is having one of our "full-time" weeks, seven gigs in nine days. This usually only happens in the summer. The concentrated schedule increases the number of funny things that happen and, in my case, heightens my sensitivity to those gig oddities.

We were hired by a priest to play for his father's 80th birthday, and thus were prepared for a pretty rockin' evening. The average age among the guests required exponential notation. This is a challenge for us, as were are mostly known for Rock & Roll and R&B. Several of our members used to play weddings, so we awakened some rarely-used brain cells and stretched our repertoire of Standards to the limit.

There was the obligatory woman for whom anything louder than Victrola-level was an offense against God and nature. She made her objections known at intervals throughout the party, both verbally and through pantomime.

Two people came up to sing. You might now expect a treatise on pitch, but I have come instead to speak of Rhythm. Rhythm is not given to all in equal measure. We who can just "feel" the beat have apparently stolen more than our share, leaving the rest woefully underequipped.

A woman of a certain age asked to sing "At Last". It is quite common for amateurs to choose songs with truly great vocals. This makes for some pretty stark comparisons. They couldn't choose John Denver? But I digress. She was very nice and came over to me to work out a key beforehand. This is essential, by the way. Do not be tempted to believe a person who claims to sing a song in Bb. Try it first. We tried a few lines of the verse and bridge. She seemed comfortable in F. She had a soft quivery sort of voice and was reasonably on key.

She came up to sing in the next set. One of our singers "conducted" her into beginning the first line at something like the proper time, but after that it was off to the races. Amateurs frequently have trouble with pauses. One line ends, the next must begin. We end up playing in some odd eastern variable time signature approximating 13/8. By the end we had to lop off most of the last bar. Whoever finishes first wins.

I find this situation far more disconcerting than a singer who is off-pitch. That I can just grit my teeth and endure for a few minutes. A singer who leaves out a beat and a half every two measures twists the very fabric of the universe a little, especially when there are four or five musicians trying to adjust to her individually.

The priest then came up to sing a Standard. He not only had the same Rhythm teacher, but started the song without waiting for us, landing naturally, as our bass player would put it, "on the fret" between C and C#. He was more coachable though; with our singer doing exaggerated Conductor choreography off to the side, we all managed to finish the song together.

I talked to him afterward, telling him he did a nice job with he song. Rhythm deficiencies notwithstanding he did have a passable voice. I told him that next time (we are booked for a couple more functions at his parish) he should let us start him off with a chord, explaining that it's best that we all start in the same key. "I'm a man of faith", he quipped. I like that.

The night before we played an Oldies Dinner Dance, opening for a "name" act. The other band seemed like pretty nice guys, but one thing seemed really inexplicable. We were all setting up together, with their gear behind ours. Their guitarist arrived after I was pretty much set up. He placed his amp where he wanted it, then a look of confusion and worry formed on his face. His amp had a four-foot power cord and there was no outlet within a four-foot radius. He seemed truly perplexed by this, even though he had played with this group for a decade or two.

Our guitarist was having the identical conversation with their bass player on the other side of the stage. I can vaguely remember having this quandary myself, thirty-odd years ago. Shortly after that I discovered extension cords. Neither of these musicians said anything like, "Oops, I left my bag at home...". It's as if it had simply not occurred to them that there might not be an outlet set into the floor right under their gear. In my experience a convenient outlet is a rare miracle. How have these guys avoided that lesson? A guy from the hall found some extension cords for them (we were going to leave before they started playing).

We'll see what else happens as the week progresses.

OH yes, Greg, please keep us posted!

Your treatise on RHYTHM is priceless.

Old joke: How do you tell when a girl singer is at your front door? She doesn't know how to come in.

Brief excerpt from my book Piano Girl (advice given to me by my dad, when I was 18 and playing my very first gig):

Bob’s Excellent Rules for Success on a GIG:
1. Don’t drink on the job.
2. Don’t let the management push you around.
3. Always carry a roll of duct tape and an extension cord with you because with those two items you can solve virtually any problem.


Words to live by, although I confess to the occasional glass of champagne.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of the week. Ask that Parish priest if he knows the Dilernia Brothers.

Greg, your post is priceless. "eastern variable time signature approximating 13/8" ROFLMAO!

Not just "girl" singers. Our bass player is fond of saying that one of our singers "only comes in on prime numbers" (excluding 1, of course). He can be seen signaling each bar of an eight bar break with his hands in one song, not realizing that any musician who needs to count to eight might as well hang it up.

In the first real band I was in all the singers were also musicians. This gave me a unrealistically rosy view of the rhythm and harmony skills of singers.


Sure. You can use the extension cord to lash your keyboard stand to a support pole on a rocking ferry, for instance. You can use the duct tape and a cocktail napkin as an ersatz bandage when you cut yourself carrying your gear through a dark hallway. I've done both.

But I find that you need a great deal more as well. I invited someone to feel the heft of my accessories bag after I was already set up. With all the spare cables, tape, sunscreen, bug repellent, band-aids, outlet tester, multi-tip screwdriver, pliers, ac adapters, extra pedal and other stuff, it must still weigh 15 pounds.

I thought this wedding video was rather charming, and not too far off the mark for this topic:
Wedding March video.

And the follow-up video 6 months later:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbr2ao86ww0

I think "unforgettable" pretty well says it. It looked wonderfully fun, and, actually, quite loving. There are a lot of bridezillas out there who have made a lot less out of a lot more.

Thanks for posting this one. I think it's edged out the dog playing the piano and singing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXcKrq2hEnE

and the Toddlers and Tiaras thread
conservatory politics
on Piano Teachers forum.

One is funny, one is appalling, but Lets Talk Weddings carries off the honors once again.

Great, great, great! Love all of these videos! Too bad the dancing bride didn't have live music. That would have made it better, but you can't have everything. Getting the wedding party to dance is one thing, getting them to play is another.

Jeff, there's a dog who comes to Lerbach (the castle where I play) who sings just like the video dog, but only when I play music from Phantom of the Opera. I have chosen to think that the dog is not really singing, but is in fact protesting, that there's something about the music from that show that truly offends him. Hard to tell.

I'm sending a sub to tomorrow's castle wedding, because I've been asked to do a reading at an art opening. The cocktail party will be swanky and oh so stimulating, but, alas, no piano, so once I'm finished with the reading I'll have to hobnob and chitchat and eat stuffed mushrooms like a normal person. Blah. And I'll have nothing to report on our wedding forum. See, that's the thing about these brides, I actually start missing them when they're not around.

Greg, looking forward to hearing how the rest of the week went for you. I hope the duct tape and extension cord technique carried you through the gig marathon.

It's gaffer's tape, Robin. I, too, was colorblind in that range, but Greg has opened my eyes. I use the little mnemonic, "If your mike cords stick, get gaffer's tape quick."

No cocktails-at-the-castle for me this week, and no brides. I'm trying to exercise a bit of restraint at Barnes & Noble, with less success than I'd like. Books (mostly about music and musicians) and CDs, trying to sprint ahead with my music education, but unlikely to show, let alone place. Still, it costs less and is less annoying than going back to university... or even taking piano lessons; that's a big-ticket item these days, and chancy, considering the very uneven quality on offer.

I have discovered some things that are priceless: Lizst, Ravel, Claudio Arrau, Rubenstein, Alkan, Buxtehude, and some other things that I like less but which may grow on me as I get more used to them. It's like trying to drink down a vast ocean--- you just can't. However, I have a budget--- and only so much capacity to soak the information up.

But otherwise, I might be bored--- and I have non-barking dogs that don't play the piano.

So... you're reading from your new book, Rhythm, at this party?