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more on the couple

Sweet!

Playing a ceremony on Saturday. Here are the songs the bride requested. Just in case anyone is interested.

1. Pachelbel Canon in D (so what else is new?)
2. Your Song (I still play the wrong chords on the B section, in spite of numerous interventions from my husband the chord doctor—it still sounds goofy to my ears)
3. Feather (Forest Gump–stupid is as stupid does . . .)
4. River Flows in You (Twilight —vampires, weddings, why not?)
5. Somewhere in Time (the only sensible choice if you ask me)
6. Oh Happy Day (I will sound REALLY stupid playing this, but what can I do? Hopefully there will be a lot of noise at that point)

So that's this week's wedding scoop.

Robin, you must immediately call the bride and tell her that she left out "We've only just begun." That playlist just isn't complete without it. Then tell her you'll only charge her double for catching such an egregious omission.

Thanks for the tip, Monica. Your 15% is in the mail! I had forgotten about that song. It was our high school graduation theme song.

Karen Carpenter - the anorexic with the absolutely gorgeous, unsophisticated, mezzo soprano voice..(she could really nail those low notes). i loved her singing and would love to have heard how she'd sing My Heart Will Go On.

I should start a thread entitled "Let's Talk Funerals"©

That's all I do anymore (I'm glad for the employment but the cantor i work with drives me absolutely bats.. she's sooo cheery and forgets she is at a funeral!.. she is a vituoso performer so into herself. who thinks the altar is Carneghie Hall.... no one cares about her singing. .. she always, always, always, holds the note longer than i play.. i could i hold it for five measures and she is still singing.

oi vey

anyway, the priest is cute.. he is an older Italian from the Italy, who yesterday said "bravissima rigatoni"(or something like that).. the Italians are dropping like flies in this heat... thank goodness we have Anna to liven things up". hummph

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I love dropping in on this thread.

Jeff, you are almost as entertaining as Robin, and I'm thinking I'll be singing that PIG song to my son, who has the worst manners in Kansas.

Jeff is way more entertaining than I am, and furthermore, he actually KNOWS stuff. He is my hero. Where have you been Jeff? Lost in the stars? One can only hope.

I survived Saturday's wedding, but I had my doubts about some members of the wedding party. More on that in a second.

The preacher asked for my set list and when he saw the Pachelbel for the entrance music, he said: "This is what I use at funerals. I have a nine minute version of it."

The sister of the bride looked at the set list, sneered, and said: "Ha!"

I don't know what that meant.

Another member of the wedding party said he was really hoping for a group singalong of Kumbaya. I looked for the sarcasm in this statement, but trust me, he was serious.

I explained to everyone that the bride had chosen these songs and that any complaints should be filed with her.

Then the father of the groom cornered me and started telling me, a complete stranger, about his heart attack three weeks earlier.

"I collapsed right in the middle of the street—when I was headed to the grocery store—" he said.

"That's awful," I said. The discussion should have ended there, with a smile and me saying something like, "I'm so happy you're here with us today," but then he started telling me the details of every single hospital procedure . . . the tubes, the catheters, the tests, the allergic reaction to medication, the vomiting, etc. This went on for ten minutes, as the guests were being seated.

"I can't help thinking I shouldn't be here today. That I almost didn't make it," he said. "What if it happens again? It could, you know. I go down right in the middle of the ceremony."

"Oh, that surely won't happen," I said.

"But it could," he said.

"But it won't," I said. "I'll keep my eye on you." Those of you familiar with my career know I have a history of playing for events that involve some kind of medical emergency, so this wedding was starting to make me nervous.

I got the signal to begin playing. The wedding was outside, in the rose garden, and it was a perfect day. The bride, very beautiful in a black and white sequined Las Vegas dress (I mean that in a good way) rounded the corner, and, to my horror was wearing the exact same white beaded shawl that I had chosen for the occasion. I was wearing my standard LBD with white shawl, a good outfit to blend in to the piano. Good thing that Canon is easy—I was able to lose the shawl discreetly while she was marching up the aisle. I'm sure no one noticed—all eyes were on the bride.

All the other pieces were fine. It was actually a little concert, right out there in the middle of the park. The Heart Attack Guy made it through the ceremony in one piece, even though it was 90 degrees and very humid. I waved at him as he was leaving. He seemed happy. His son was married, and he was alive.

I got through Oh Happy Day with nary a raised eyebrow from my colleagues, who are not used to hearing me break into gospel tunes.

All was well in wedding land.

******

TIP TO WEDDING PIANISTS: About two months ago my teenage daughter posted a little slideshow video of the castle, with the Pachelbel Canon (no eye rolling, please) as a sound track. She graciously added my name and website info to the credits. Unbelievably (or maybe not) I have gotten two great wedding gigs for 2011 as a direct result of this video. The video has only had 240 plays, but two of them were brides shopping around for wedding ideas.

This video cost NOTHING to make and post. She did use the recording of the Canon from one of my CDs, but I'm guessing many of you have good quality recordings that would suffice for such a project. If you're hooked up with a good-looking wedding location and have access to an okay camera and an easy editing program (she used iMovie) you're in business. Please note: it's not a hard sell thing, in fact we weren't even thinking about marketing, Julia just wanted to make a nice slideshow about the castle.

So there you go, unintentional marketing that seems to be paying off. Thought some of you might be able to take this idea and run with it.

Here is the link if you want to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctaaXDnUeT8

interesting Robin re the link.

I chose a you tube link to share with brides who were choosing music. it was called something like 'various wedding songs to choose from'.

"Where have you been Jeff? Lost in the stars? One can only hope."

I have been married to music equipment manuals, since my piano teacher asked me to post a recording I made of him, to the Unsung Heroes E-cital on Pianists Forum.

"Oh, sure," I said, "when is the deadline?"

"Tomorrow," he replied blithely, and left for his next lesson.

That hill turned out to be a little too steep to climb. One manual may as well have been written in Chinese; it was like listening to a schizophrenic talk--- it sounds like conversation, but it's word salad, so entirely self-referential that only a clinical psychiatrist could have extracted the least sense from a paragraph.

Meanwhile, an asteroid was smacking into Jupiter, the third big strike in thirteen months. Back on earth, a quarter of over half a billion eggs--- that is 500 million plus--- were recalled with a salmonella problem. What will the weddings cakes do now? A hen cackles in Iowa and people get sick from Minnesota to California.

Well, the manual paid for it. Every page screams with highlighter now, plus I have a few pages with my own notes that actually do say what to do. Luckily it was a good recording, though I ended up having to ask for help to get it in the file format required on the website--- because I have two other manuals for two other devices to master to get it all to happen.

"Another member of the wedding party said he was really hoping for a group singalong of Kumbaya. I looked for the sarcasm in this statement, but trust me, he was serious."

Having grown up in the Deep South, I actually know people like this. Well--- I did know them. I don't know them now.

""I can't help thinking I shouldn't be here today. That I almost didn't make it," he said. "What if it happens again? It could, you know. I go down right in the middle of the ceremony."
"Oh, that surely won't happen," I said.
"But it could," he said.
"But it won't," I said. "I'll keep my eye on you."

The organizer of a mountain retreat I attended took care of this by telling attendees to be careful driving down the mountain on the way home. "If I hear," he said, "that you've wrapped your car around a tree on the way back... I'll dig you up and kill you again."

Everyone was careful.

On "Weddings in the News," nothing too much. There was a couple who jumped out of a plane and parachuted to the place where the preacher was waiting, at the Burning Man festival. My only surprise was that people who attended Burning Man actually got married. Perhaps the bride figured that if the groom survived the jump, she had little chance of getting rid of him anyway.

"...The bride, very beautiful in a black and white sequined Las Vegas dress (I mean that in a good way) rounded the corner, and, to my horror was wearing the exact same white beaded shawl that I had chosen for the occasion..."

PS-

So we've discovered a new category for Wedding Jeopardy: shall we call it "Off the Rack?"

N4 - And you are playing at a castle, aren't you?
n5 - love that one.
n6 - ... I was at a wedding where the bride and groom SANG this piece, a capella .... pretty much off-key and off beat....One has to wonder....I have a feeling it was the groom's first "yes dear" married moment and can only wonder how dopey he felt.

I was at a wedding dance where they did the traditional "clear the floor, nobody dances until the bride and groom do the first dance. (usually a waltz)"

The groom, while somewhat musical, did not dance. At all. Not even a little bit. This led to some truly awkward and painful moments stumbling across the floor with all eyes on him.

I know just how he felt. <ahem> Because it was me. Somebody could have warned me!

Have I told this story before? I was playing a wedding dance in the Chicago area with a polka band. Urged by some of the few teenagers present, one of the old timers kept tipping us to play some rock. We didn't have any rock (or any Caribbean!) in the repertoire. After a while one of the management came over quietly and explained that this guy was "connected," and it might be in our best interests to comply, sooner than later. If we wanted to make it home okay.

No problem. We did Smoke on the Waters, I played lead on the trombone.

He tipped us again, this time not to play it! I think that was my best payday ever with that band.

My sister used to work for Neal in Polkacide, the hard rock polka band. They started by playing at dances for the deaf. They needed something loud, with a beat. I knew him slightly. I knew his brother a little better, but he went off and became a monk.

Off the Rack for three hundred, Alex. (Love Wedding Jeopardy, Jeff!)

Hey Casinitaly, you're funny! Have you been here before? Welcome.

Oh dear, I have never in my life played a polka. Look how much fun I've been missing. I have, however, played for deaf people.

What? You are in Germany and never played a polka? Not even the Strip Polka?

There's a burlesque theatre where the gang loves to go
To see Queenie the cutie of the burlesque show
And the thrill of the evening is when out Queenie skips
And the band plays the polka while she strips

"Take it off," "Take it off" Cries a voice from the rear
"Take it off," Take it off" Soon it's all you can hear
But she's always a lady even in pantomime
So she stops! And always just in time

Hi! Thanks for the welcom!
You're pretty funny yourself!

I've been on the forum since about March - I participate 95% in the Adult Beginner's forum. I just started playing piano 8 months ago and I'm having a blast.
I have been reading this thread for a while (it has taken me a while to get through it all - I think I've still got about 6 pages of posts to read...)
I just couldn't resist replying when I read about "Oh Happy Day".

Can't wait for the next installment!

I'm not sure most polkas adapt well to solo piano.

However, I'd think maybe Trisch Trasch might work, in Germany.

I can play "Beer Barrel Polka" fairly well on the piano - loads of fun.

Shall We Dance, from The King and I, is a good polka. It would be a good number for a wedding dance.