It’s never a good idea to be a one-trick pony as a Musician. I am an opera singer first. But I also teach voice. I play piano well…so my college piano teacher told me. I teach that too. I play a modest organ. I do know pedals to a respectable degree for an opera singer.

But when it comes to actually making music what keeps you interested besides the actual act of making music? What keeps your audience or students interested? Hmmm…

When I play weddings at my Church I always say I hate everything I play. Ha! I have to play keyboard as the Greek Orthodox Church I belong to doesn’t have a regular organ. So even though there are gigantic works for organs that can wow the audience it’s actually not possible to play all those works on a keyboard, as fine as the keyboard is. I play a certain list of music, mostly early music from the 15/16/1700s. Seems to fit well in the Church since the regular music is Byzantine, vastly different than the music we acquaint with regular Church services. But I’ve been playing basically the same music a long long time. I’m bored.

Well, I still have to play mostly the same music since I did design it specifically for the Church. The other day I sifted through music I used to play and found a couple of pieces I decided to resurrect and include in my wedding repertoire once again. I even added a new Bach chorale!

I have edited the Pachelbel Canon in D four times. It’s a great piece to bring the bridesmaids down the aisle but it can become tiresome when you use it regularly, plus it’s long. What I find interesting is that going through all my edited copies, I ended up with the same one I’m using (and getting bored with) since I realized it actually is the best one. Our aisle takes about 60 seconds to march down so everything I play for the bridesmaids and the bride is very much edited. There’s nothing like a trip through all of your music to realize you actually do prefer exactly what you’re playing. Ha!

I guess this is where the term “Musical Artist” really comes into play. One has to put a music program together that is both appropriate for the occasion, musically interesting and pleasing to the people. It has to have a theme of sorts, something to pull it all together musically. It should also show a modicum of what you can do as a musician…your abilities. A full blown recital is the place where you can really show off your abilities as a musician and artist. But most of the time you’re designing a program for a specific occasion.

It’s interesting putting together a program for different occasions. Your own recital, weddings, student recitals and any other occasion for which you might have to provide music. I guess that’s what makes us Musical Artists. Cool huh?

So. I’m done. If you are a musician reading this think about how you design programs for your own musical situations. What criteria do you use? Do your programs make sense? Seriously…they need to. They need to hold together…tell a story. Nothing like a bunch of pieces that don’t relate to one another. Good grief!

Ok. Happy musical planning to all you fellow musicians out there. It really is great to plan programs. I love it. Don’t you?

#musician #musical artist #piano #organ

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