So about two months ago a student showed me a craigslist ad asking for a harmonica player to play Pachelbel's Canon in D at a wedding. The experience was interesting enough to share with you.
I emailed the bride. I asked her what I needed to know to quote a price. It was an hour away from my house,each way. I would need to provide amplification, I would need to buy the sheet music and learn the piece. I would need to have another song for the wedding party march and another for the walkout music plus 15 minutes of waiting for the wedding to start music. I would need to wear a nice button down shirt and slacks. I quoted $250.
"We didn't expect to spend that much on a harmonica!"
I asked what they'd be willing to spend. I said I wanted to help them, but please remember it took years to learn the craft, plus how to read music. It would be 3 hours away from home, where a wife and baby and mortgage waited. The sheet music would cost money. It would take an hour to buy the music. It would take at least 10 hours of rehearsing to get ready. Amplification costs money.
I didn't hear back so I assumed it was lost. I told my top students about the gig, maybe they could get it.
Two weeks ago, I got an email saying they were willing to spend my price. Besides taking care of a baby, chores, 4 bands and around 30 students a week and a group lesson every Saturday, I also have taken on 2 unusual music projects that perhaps I will share with you when their stories are done. Plus I hadn't finished my taxes, which when self employed doing by yourself is tough! Basically I was beyond swamped and this would possibly sink me. Still, $250 is $250. I said yes.
I rarely get nervous about performing. Now, I had 3 performance situations that I was nervous about. I could feel stomachaches!
I bought the music. I listened to a video of a diatonic harp player the bride sent me that she liked. The diatonic player was improvising on the theme, it was nothing like my version of the music. The bride said it was the speed she wanted.
Although Pachelbel's Canon in D is leagues easier than other classical pieces I have learned, there is still a very complicated eighth note passage in the middle that at her speed, I could only hit around 50% of the time. One night, I played it for my wife who said that it sounded uncomfortably fast. I agreed with her and slowed down that section. We both agreed it sounded much better. I then decided to screw the bride's tempo, I would play the entire piece with a goal of comfort and beauty. That really was the turning point. I came up with a nice version, in my opinion.
I chose 10 romantic songs out of the real book and read through each a couple of times. I made sure I really had the walk songs down.
Today I arrived on time and the wedding coordinator acted professionally with me. Although a beautiful space, it was very small so my amp stayed in the car. After playing almost all my romance tunes, they said it was time to start. After playing two verses, no one had walked down the aisle. I stopped. Someone let me know they needed 5 more minutes. I finished my chosen songs. Luckily I had brought a real book with me. They whisper it will probably be another 15 minutes.
A half an hour later I had read every romantic song I could find and even a few where I was like "I cannot remember the lyrics. Is this romantic or sad? Screw it, I'm playing it." When the wedding party started coming out, I played the walk song until they stopped coming. Then a minute later, they cued me that there was still lots more of the wedding party to come out! I restarted the song again. Finally they let me know it was time for the bride.
Remember it was a small place? I basically had gotten through the first line Baa daaa daaa daa da da daa daaaa and the bride had made it down the aisle. All that practice for nothing! Perhaps I will record it for youtube this week.
Unlike normal gigs where you get to hang around the audience to get kudos, only the preacher and the coordinator were left to talk to me. The preacher took my card and asked if he could put me on his website for recommended wedding players. The coordinator did not have my money! Rather than run around the wedding trying to figure out who the bride's father is and interrupt his picture taking, I went home and sent the bride an invoice and said wait until after the honeymoon. Hopefully this story has two happy endings and not a sequel!
Chromatic all the way. I can read on diatonic, but I read as if on a C instrument and it does not sound like cross harp unless the song is in the key of G. I have a great transposition method, but I have to write the song out in the nashville numbers system and it was more trouble than it was worth.
Ballade for the Internal Revenue services, when your income tax return our tax settlements are late: a piece of harp that will inspire kindness to every tax office. It unfortunately still has to be invented. Michael, I liked your story, it sounded as self employed's real life.
Last Edited by on Apr 16, 2012 5:49 AM
I offered to play the wedding march for my friends wedding. Almost got me uninvited! :)
I still think a movable do system would be the way to go for sheet music for a harmonica, at least for diatonic. I did some shape note choral singing a few years back and the movable do system seemed to be ideal for choral groups that might have nearly entirely different sets of members from one event to the next, particularly because it was so easy for people who weren't strong sight readers to change the key in a hurry, with or without the other accouterments of shape note music.
"I still think a movable do system would be the way to go for sheet music for a harmonica, at least for diatonic."
Why shouldn't sheet music for the diatonic be just like any other instrument. Bb trumpet sounds a Bb when the score says C, Eb sax sounds an Eb when the score says C. Shouldn't sheet music for the G diatonic harp score a C when a concert G is desired?
Did you play with backing tracks or or was it just solo harmonica? Personally, I don't know if I'd be able to, or want to, play all of that as just solo harmonica. I think doing one, maybe two songs solo would be fine, but I really don't think I'd want 40 minutes of just solo harmonica. Personally I think it would be important to have some backing tracks to play along with. (This is just my personal viewpoint, I'm not saying you did it "wrong" if you played it all solo without any backing)
I'd really like to hear the diatonic harmonica version of Pachelbel's Canon that she sent you. When it comes to hiring a musician to play at a wedding ceremony, I'm geussing it's extremely rare for someone to think to themselves "I really want a harmonica player to play my wedding ceremony." I'm guessing that her hearing that recording of Pachabel's Canon on harmonica is what gave her the idea and convinced her that that's really wanted on her wedding day (which will probably become one of the most memorable important days in her life). Which is why I'd be really interested in hearing it. I'd also like to hear a recording of your rendition of the song, if you have it.
Last Edited by on Apr 16, 2012 2:19 AM
Nacoran, If we mean the same thing by movable do, it is harder on a physical instrument than as a choir singer, where you lean on the piano and the stronger singers to make it work. But it is a plausible system. You have to take the time to learn it, which I have not.
STME58 Whatever harp you use, you want to transpose to a position that will sound good. That is the tough part.
Here is the video she sent me:
Listening again to the vid today, he does a great job, but it is not my written version.
REM I did solo harp. Remember I was told 15 minutes of music. Personally I hate backing track performances. I cannot think of much I like less. If I had known it would have been 40 minutes, I would have hired a guitarist or keyboardist.
Last Edited by on Apr 16, 2012 4:59 AM
STME58, most people playing most instruments change their fingerings when they change keys. Depending on the instrument they will play read sheet music that is in the Treble or Bass clef, or occasionally using the grand staff. There are a few other oddball cleffs that get used less frequently. That's just how they play chromatically. The majority of diatonic harp players change their harp instead. What that means is that when a harp player looks at music he has to think about what the music is telling him and what harmonica he has in his hand.
If a french horn player sees a Bb on the page they know what fingerings to use, because for that Bb, in that octave, the fingering is always the same.
A diatonic harmonica player, at least one who is basically a 2nd position blues player will have to play a different hole depending on what harmonica he has in his hand.
Movable Do works just like regular sheet music, except instead of a the lines and spaces representing specific notes they represent different degrees of the scale. Instead of having to transpose the song on the fly you just pick up the harmonica the key signature tells you to (you could simplify it even more by just flat out telling harpers what key to grab). After that, it's just like regular sheet music, written in our brand new movable clef, but now the notes all correspond to the same lines and spaces every time. In choral arrangements the conductor or song leader just sings Do (or even a whole scale) or plays it on a pitch pipe. It's really useful because someone can yell out, 'Hey, that's too high for me' and then the leader can just say, 'okay, lets try it down here... Do, is that better?'
There used to be a lot of instruments that had sheet music written out in their own clefs. Since instruments have different ranges it made sense to do it that way, particularly for the instruments that played in a range in between treble and bass. Writing their sheet music involved adding lots of lines above or below the clef. Eventually though standardization set in. When you are writing out sheet music it's easier to write harmonies using the grand staff rather than several different clefs. (Of course, that was before computers. Computers make child's play out of transposing or writing in different clefs.)
That's good to hear Michael, they must have really enjoyed your performance to give such a nice tip. A 40% tip is generous, but it sounds like you earned it with all the extra work you had to do on the spur of the moment. I'm glad things worked out so well.
Stan, I think it depends on the city you live in. Austin is notoriously low at how much we pay musicians. I definitely could see asking for $350 here, but anything higher would have seemed outrageous.
I do not live in Austin for the performance pay. Although years ago I made all my money performing in Austin, I would go crazy trying to do that now in my 40s with a wife, baby and mortgage. I would move somewhere else to do it.
I live here because the musicians are incredible. We all play music we WANT to play for audiences who are filled with friends, most of whom are better musicians than we are! That and everyone is ridiculously nice.
Diggs, Exactly like that. You should have seen my hair flying all over the place.
I actually am in a band that features a deaf front man, Jimmy Turner. He plays violin, electric bass, guitar, sax, harmonica and vocals. The band is called Airseed and we have a CD out that is incredibly tough to find. We do around 2 shows a year. The music is very avant garde but beautiful.
