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"Friend of the newt or friend of the swan?"

"Newt."

"Should have known. The shiny coat was a dead give away."

"You?"

"Swan."

"But you're white! The other swans are black."

"Adopted."

"Oh. Nice."

"Care for a real drink? I can't take any more of this swamp swill. I think the swans must have imported it from the BMW parking lot pond."

"Yeah, sure. I could use something grassy. On the rocks."

"Hey, check out the Mother of the Newt. She looks pissed."

"Can you blame her? I mean why couldn't Nellie marry one of the nice neighborhood newts? Did she have to run off with a black swan of all things? I know it's not easy being green, but still—"

"Oh look, the band is getting ready to start. What are they called?"

"The Five Duckies."

"But there are only three of them. What happened?"

"Weasel. Happened last night. Got the bass player and the singer."

"Get out of town."

"No, really. A tragedy. No one has volunteered to play the bass. But the swan's sister has volunteered to sing."

"The one in the feather boa and the leopard sandals?"

"Yep, that's her."

"Oh, great. She couldn't swing if she was hangin' from a vine."

"Yeah, but you know, nice beak."

"Who's on keyboards? He's gonna have to kill himself to make up for the dead duckies. Especially the bass player. Hope he's got a strong left hand."

"Not to worry, that's Danny D. He's been with the Five Duckies for months, and he's got a killin' repertoire. You name it, he'll play it. In any key."

"How do you know this stuff? You an agent or something?"

"I dabble. Used to have an event planning office over at the aviary. You wanna grab that drink and head over to the bandstand? Looks like the lizard dance is just about to start."

Cute, of course if someone visits our piano forums for the first time and this is the first post they read ...

If you think that was 'out there,' wait til you hear what's on those trays of hors-d'oeuvres.

I should only hope a first-time visitor was so lucky as to come to this thread first. In the long run, the wedding may outlast the piano...

Okay, I apologize for the newt-swan wedding dialog. Sometimes I'm a slave to whimsy. It's Clef's fault. That newt photo was the greatest.

Back on topic, I got an email yesterday from a pianist who asked how to advertise for wedding gigs. Good question.

Here's what I do: I'm lucky to have a steady gig at a place (the castle) that is an enormously popular wedding venue. The banquet department often interviews potential wedding clients on Friday and Saturday evenings (when I'm playing) because the hotel is at its best (music, happy people, candlelight, flowers) during those hours. I keep a stack of business cards on the piano, along with my CDs. I don't have a fancy brochure, just a classy business card that says Robin Meloy Goldsby, Solo Piano, with my contact info. You'd be surprised how much work I get just from those little cards. Anyway, if the banquet department director indicates to me that the client is interested in piano music, I present the client with a comp CD. This works really well.

(NOTE: This is one of the ways you can make money with a nicely packaged recording---give away the CD and book a big bucks job as a result. i know, it's expensive and time consuming to produce a high quality recording, but it pays for itself with just a few of these wedding jobs. Just make sure the recording is the same type of music you would be playing on the gig.)

In general, I would suggest that you ALWAYS keep business cards on the piano, no matter where you're playing.

I know some people advertise in bridal magazines or go to those bridal fair events. Greg does the dreaded agent showcases with his band. But what about the rest of you? Anyone have any good ideas for getting wedding work?

Not any more, thankfully. That was many years ago, with a dedicated wedding band.

It can be difficult to start from scratch. The best way to get work reminds me of an old Steve Martin routine about a foolproof money making scheme: "Step one, get a million dollars. Step two...". In other words, work tends to breed work, so make sure to do the very best job you can whenever you play in public. Nothing will convince a potential client that you can do the job better than seeing you do the job.

one of my favorite threads EVER

I have a wedding upcoming and the bride hasn't a clue what she wants as far as music.. she told me to pick what I wanted but requested the Happy Husband by Beethoven. (I sang Ode to Joy for her over the phone, and she said 'Yeah.. that's it').

(i'm thinking the period shouldn't come at the end of the previous sentence but within the paranthesis.)

Don't you just love humming Beethoven over the phone?

Greg, I'm happy that period of your life is OVER. I agree 100% with what you said about being in top form on every job. Having a gig and playing it well is probably a musician's best marketing tool.

The Five Duckies (Minus Two) book most of their gigs through their Web ("It's all in the toes, man") Site. They even have an audio demo.

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/fiveducks.htm

And yes, there is no shortage of weasels in the Musical Forest.

There is, by the way, a real act called the Duhks that's pretty interesting. I hear them on satellite radio in the car from time to time.

Ha! Those Duckies get around.

And I agree about the weasels.

"Anyway, if the banquet department director indicates to me that the client is interested in piano music, I present the client with a comp CD. This works really well."

Dear Frau Goldsby:

Thanks so much for the lovely wedding music CD. We'll have our DJ play it before the ceremony; it will remind us of your kind best wishes for our married life. Sorry to deprive a working musician of the gig, but we decided to spend the money we saved on nicer favors for our guests. My husband and I hope they remember you, too, when they get married.

(The Future) Frau Wilma Freuhauf-Weasel

*****************************************************

Dear Freulein Freuhauf,

I'm glad you liked my wedding music demo CD. Please, think nothing of blowing off the actual performance--- it is my pleasure to provide the music for this special occasion (at the "other castle," so the Banquet Director told me). All I ask is that you provide me with a copy of the videotape of the ceremony, so I can forward it to the syndicated television program, "Weddings Gone Wrong."

The demo version of my wedding music CD features an advanced copy-protection system which causes certain sound-effects to occur when the disc detects a wedding chapel. I hope your guests and your in-laws enjoy them as much as I have. Indeed, I hope your friends do remember it; I can all but guarantee that they will.

Sincerely,

etc.

This is marvelously evil, Jeff. Would that CD technology would allow such mischief. I can see the title of the video...

"Die Braut mit die Flote", or perhaps
"The Flatulent Fraulein"

Dear Frau Goldsby,

"Pfennig Wise and Euro Foolish," was the least-unprintable thing my mother-in-law had to say about the shambles of a wedding. I have never seen a living human face that shade of purple, and can only thank God she wasn't wearing a blood pressure cuff, for it might have struck someone dead when it blew.

She accused the hapless DJ, using asperities I blushed to hear in the presence of a man of the cloth--- for of course, she was seated in the front row, very close both to the speakers and the preacher. Luck favored us somewhat, for had she gotten her hands around his neck, the occasion would have been marked with mutilation and murder, and the press coverage was lurid enough as it was.

Wedding Processional and Trumpet Voluntary--- So it was labeled in plain German, right on the face of the CD, and so the headline read--- but she claims she will never live down the humiliation she suffered in front of my other in-laws, who hee-hawed themselves as purple as she was.

At least some of the guests enjoyed it; they laughed like hyenas, pointing knowingly at the peeling paint in the chapel and the chandeliers with half the crystals blown off. But, once the plaster started coming down, they took off at a run. They looked like so many sacks of flour, running for their life from the baker's oven.

The vows were hastily-completed in the vestry. "Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" "I do." "Are you SURE?" One could barely hear, even at a shout, for it was impossible to shut off the CD. Indeed, it blared on until a fuse blew.

I have honored your request for a video, as best I am able... though it didn't really come out, and what there is records a mere fraction of the ceremony. Only one camera remained working long enough to record the arrival of the fire department and the bomb squad. At least, there's no need to imagine how that went down with the in-laws--- there's some distortion on the sound track, but the video rendering is clear enough.


Sincerely,

Frau Freuhauf-Weasel

Liebe Frau Freuhauf-Weasel,

Thank you very much for sending me the video of your wedding. What wonderful visuals to accompany the CD I gave you! I particularly enjoyed the four fleeing bridesmaids, the ring bearer who wet his pants, and the older woman (I believe someone called her Aunt Louella) writhing on the floor with her hands clamped firmly over her ears. I thought the fire department made an excellent entrance into the church—what helmets, what boots!——one had the feeling they had been choreographed. The bomb squad paled in comparison, perhaps someone might suggest a little bling for their costumes, which are, dare I say it, bordering on dull. If you're going to work a wedding, you might as well dress for the occasion.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the 90 minute loop of Tie a Yellow Ribbon. It was difficult to find an elementary school steel-drum band capable of playing it in the key of B major. It was equally challenging to find a young piccolo player to play the piece simultaneously in Bb. But I think you'll agree that Frederika von Klingball has a real future in the concert bands of tomorrow, even though she does play a bit sharp. And those steel drum players? Forget Calypso! Had you not fallen into a dead faint and been carried from the church on a stretcher, you might have truly enjoyed their version of Für Elise, accompanied by Frau Dick's Bell Choir , three oboes, and the Flensburg Bagpipe Consort.

I'm sorry to hear that the DJ was arrested, but, you know, it serves him right. Whoops, I guess that was petty.

Please feel free to contact me for any of your future celebrations. I will be happy to play for the christening of your first child, your wedding anniversary, or your mother-in-law's funeral.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

RMG

"There was a rather nice 9 foot Steinway in a large lounge. ... a particularly rough Atlantic crossing ...ripped the screws out of the floor...a half-ton projectile ...a long stretch of unobstructed dance floor to build up speed before it destroyed the bar."

Not that I can be gleeful about that Steinway tearing loose in rough seas and clearing a path through the ballroom--- no doubt it was very unfortunate. I can just picture Greg, using his most innocent and easy-going manner to get that cruise line steward to open up and become confidential. No doubt, he primed the guy up with a few good stories of his own and, no doubt, these stewards could tell plenty, if they wanted to.

An animated feature. High seas with hurricane-driven whitecaps are visible through the portholes. Dancers in evening dress are doing the best they can, with the deck tilting up 65 degrees this way and then 65 degrees the other way. It is no easy task, and not all succeed: some are skating along on their butts like bumper cars. There is an ominous creaking on the sound track, and we see a close-up of the massive piano, it's carved legs straining against in its flimsy brackets, until, with a loud CRACK!!! it charges off on the glassy dance floor.

The ballroom patrons are jumping for their lives; most escaping, barely though it might be. The pianist, playing 'air piano;' the chanteuse clinging desperately to the music rack (I picture a Ginger look-alike in a sequined sheath too snug to allow for a life-saving leap); the bitter end of the mike cable doing a snappy 'crack-the-whip,' to the dismay of sluggish ballroom dancers. The deck tilts: the piano charges north; it tilts back, the piano charges south. A lesser tilt; the dancers wipe their brows with silk handkerchiefs, starting to look relieved. Too soon! With the mightiest tilt of all, the piano turns, pauses, paws the floor like an angry brahma bull, then charges fast and furious toward the service bar!

Drinkers, wetting their whistles, are not so easy to dislodge from the bar, however. Their comfortably-upholstered leather barstools are more securely affixed to the deck than the piano, and one (they suppose) can always cling to the plank. Thus the barreling behemoth takes them at a disadvantage. It crashes, it smashes, it plunges. We see a martini glass, poised unsupported in the air in mid-tipple. The hole, smashed through the bulkhead, just the shape of the piano and the martini drinker (and Ginger), a hand reaching through at the last second to grab a bottle of Beefeater from the top shelf, before the bottles realize the shelf has gone south; there is a second, smaller crash as they hit the deck.

Cut to the bottom of the Atlantic, as the piano settles to rest, disturbing a cloud of sediment. The martini drinker shrugs gamely, and pours a round for fifteen men on a dead man's chest, the piano bar customers at Davey Jones' Locker. One turns to Ginger and says, "Aarrgh--- do you know "Love Shack?" But the salt water has taken the starch out of Ginger's hairspray, and she is in no mood to grant requests. "'Misty,' in 'D,'" she barks--- but, it seems, no one plays. She grabs the bottle and knocks back a good belt. "Glub, glub," she says as the sediment cloud enfolds the scene.

"The End"

...and in tiny print: "No actual bar drinkers were harmed in the filming of this scene."

Love it!

And so appropriate to include that offensive song, the story of a recidivist criminal and his enabling codependent spouse, which assaults the ears of radio listeners apparently worldwide.

(though I gotta admit Barnacle Bill is even more offensive, but a really catchy tune)

My college friends' suggestion for a processional: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you!"

Probably better than "Was I Drunk, Was He Handsome, and Did My Ma Give Me heck!"

A friend of mine has an organ version of the "Vatican Rag" for funerals.

We've come a long way from ruffles and organza, that's all I can say. I keep hearing Steely Dan.

So Robin, how about telling us about the big Valentine's Day 'do' at the castle?

The pianist at my wedding played "Prisoner of Love." The church was full of well-meaning Southern-Baptist women wearing variations on the pink-lace theme, and I doubt that many of them caught the musical reference—they were too busy falling into a collective dead faint at the sight of my mini-dress—but my husband and I certainly appreciated it.

Alas, bookings are down this year at the annual Valentine's Day castle gala. VD falls right in the middle of Karneval weekend, which means most Germans in this area are out guzzling copious amounts of alcohol and parading around town in clown costumes. The castle, a bastion of good taste, has an anti-Karneval policy, so I doubt there will be any VD guests wearing red noses and fright wigs, but you never know. One can only hope, at least for the sake of this forum.

Report forthcoming, complete with menu and wardrobe descriptions. I am also playing a VD lunch on the 14th, so it should be a busy day. For lovers and clowns, alike.

"VD" is an unfortunate abbreviation!