Playing in a piano bar, part 1

First, some background. Why do I play in a piano bar? Back in the spring of 2014, I got a mysterious email from a guy named Josh who said he was helping open a new club in town and they were looking for a "staff fiddler." I found this really perplexing, because anything labeled a staff position makes me think of a 9-5 desk job. I couldn't figure out how that applied to fiddling.

I agreed to talk to Josh on the phone so I could find out more. He was very friendly and invited me in for an audition. I wasn't very serious about the job at this point, but went to the audition mainly out of curiosity (still trying to figure out what "staff fiddler" meant). So I showed up, talked to Josh and his boss for a couple minutes, and then they asked me to play a song. After only a brief minute, the boss stopped me and said "ok, you're hired!" and that was that.

I figured I would give it a try and see how I liked it, but in my mind I still wasn't committed. I didn't think I would enjoy it. A year and a half later, I can say that it's been one of the most intense, surprising, and fun things I've ever done. A big reason I've stuck around is the band. They are awesome and have become very dear friends. And I've learned a lot more from this job than I expected.

Playing in a piano bar requires a different set of skills than other music-related gigs, or at least a different set of skills than what I previously possessed. If it looks easy, it's only because the person doing it is really good at what they do. Josh was my mentor and explained all of the logic and decision making to me and walked me through how everything works. I started right after the beginning of baseball season last year, and because Ballpark Village was brand new, we were jam packed every night. It was a bit overwhelming. My second season has definitely been a lot easier now that I know the drill.

Photo taken by Jennifer on my first night at the club. That's me on top of the piano.

Our club is different from a typical piano bar because we have a full band--in addition to two pianos, we have guitar, bass, drums, and a couple other random instruments like keytar and violin. The musicians plays multiple instruments and rotate around. Everyone gets breaks throughout the night, but the music never stops. The first time I witnessed it I thought it was a pretty ingenious setup. With more typical band shows, you'll play a set, then take a long break (which totally kills the momentum and sometimes people leave) and then you go back up and do another set. Also, if the musicians are pounding back drinks during that set break, there's a chance you will see a much sloppier second set. Not that I've ever witnessed that.....purely hypothetical.

At our bar, the party never stops. The rotating setup also gives everyone their moments to shine. We each have signature songs that we do really well.

In no particular order, here are some things I like about playing at this piano bar:

• The people/energy. It's nice to be an environment where people are so excited. This includes the staff at the club. They are really awesome and they sing and dance to the music just like everyone else! Sometimes we get them up on stage to perform with us. 
• PIANO SOUNDS. We have electric pianos that have a lot of different sound options. Although it's fun to experiment, the one I always come back to is the Wurlitzer sound. It's my fave.
• The excitement that a violin brings. People get really excited when they see there's a violin on stage. Their eyes bulge out of their heads. Sometimes they start sending up requests for violin songs before I've even played a note. 
• Playing a wide variety of musical styles. I like that our show is never the same night to night. I get to play a lot of music I wouldn't have the chance to otherwise. It allows me to pretend my violin is another instrument. When I'm not featured on a song, I play rhythm parts.
• Dressing up and wearing stuff I don't normally wear in my day-to-day life. 
• Watching people play air fiddle in the audience. (No one looks cool doing this.)
• Watching people sing into their beer bottles like they are microphones. 
• Listening to people scream along to the music. 
• Constantly learning new songs. I like the research aspect of being in a band and finding/learning new tunes.
• Watching the band perform.
• Adlibbing. Sometimes we do live mash-ups of songs, or we play around with the sequencer that has sound effects programmed into it.  
• Seeing random people that I know. Lots of people come through and I've gotten to catch up with some folks I haven't seen in a while. 
• Photobombing pictures. Everybody wants to take a picture with their friends at da club.
• Reading funny things people write on request slips. I post the really good ones on my instagram feed 
• Playing with really awesome drummers like Tony and Tim!
• Halloween at the club. Halloween was incredible at Ballpark Village last year. People really got into it and we saw a lot of great costumes. I think my favorite costume of the night was Bugs Bunny from Space Jam because it's so random and specific. I can't wait for Halloween this year!

Here are some of the weird things people do at the club:

• Try to have conversations with us....while we are singing. In case anyone is confused about this, we sing out of the same mouths we talk out of, so there's no way to sing and talk at the same time. #themoreyouknow
• Get offended when a performer who is singing will not stop to have a conversation. 
• Get offended that we don't know literally every song ever written. This experience is not unique to the piano bar; I've run into it everywhere. The conversation goes like this: "oh you play music? Do you know this super obscure song? No? WHAT?????? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU????" 
• Request weird songs that are terrible for the setting. Example: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
• Get offended when we don't know Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. 
• Try to sing into our microphones or play our instruments. 
• Spill beer on us and the pianos. 
• Kiss/hug us while we are performing. People do this more in a drunk/affectionate "I like the music" way than a creepy "I've got the hots for you" kind of way....I think.
• Get too close to me while I'm playing violin. Even though everyone can see that I play by moving a long pointy stick (bow) very fast, they still get way too close to me up on stage. Why???
• Yell requests at us from the crowd instead of filling out request slips like everyone else. We aren't sticklers about the request slips for our own enjoyment, we really need the requests written down! We communicate in writing because we can't talk; we're using our mouths to sing (see first bullet point).
• Set empty beer bottles/drink glasses on our pianos and walk away. 
• Ask to sing a song with the band and then forget all the lyrics. Sometimes people want to sing their "favorite song everrrrr" with us, tell us they know how to perform it, and then stand there and awkwardly hold a mic and look like a deer in the headlights
• Ask if we are "really playing the instruments." I've only gotten this once, but I guy did ask me this. It would be harder for me to fake play my songs on violin than to actually play them. 
• Stand on stage for hours at a time. Audience members are allowed to get up on the front of the stage and most of them do so for a couple songs before going back to their tables. But fairly often we get individuals who will stay up there all night. And among that subset, there's a special breed of people who will keep getting up there even if they fall off the stage, sometimes repeatedly. 
• Request songs that are incredibly well known by the wrong name or artist. I don't know if this is a drunk thing or if people really don't know the names/artists of songs they've been listening to for years?
• Stick phones in our faces to record us while we're playing.
• Steal our gear. Someone stole one of our tambourines! Who does that?!

What I've learned

• Various skills such as transposing like there's no tomorrow, talking while I play (something I couldn't do before), walking around while playing, dodging drunk people mid-fall while playing, learning songs on the fly by watching a pianists' hands, communicating via crude sign language and lip reading, etc. etc. 
• Playing tambourine is shockingly difficult. Everyone can hear your mistakes!! I would like to take a class on proper tambourine playing technique. 
• Playing anything precisely on the beat with mechanical precision is also really hard. I never thought about this much until I started playing in the club. I've spent more time thinking about rhythmic precision in the last 16 months of my life than I did during the 28 years before that. 
• So far, female members of the audience have been much more direct about hitting on the band than male audience members have been. Women send up their phone numbers or chat up the guys during their breaks, but dudes who want to talk to females in the band take much more circuitous/awkward routes to get there. 
• Hell hath no fury like a maid of honor with a bachelorette party in tow. Sometimes we get as many as 10-12 bachelorette parties per night. There's usually one person in every group who is extra assertive and comes up to the stage every 30 seconds with demands. They make me feel like we are hostages and the band will only get out alive if we do exactly as they say. 

For the most part, everyone who comes to the club is really friendly and just wants to have a good time. I've had some really great conversations with people during my breaks. At the end of the night, hearing/seeing how excited people are by the music makes it all worth it. 

Up next: a post about a much darker topic....