Likewise Happy V day to everyone.
I'm gonna throw my 2 cents in about my one and only Valentine gig this afternoon. I took a personal day from my full time job to do this one.
This was a Valentine's luncheon at an assisted living center. Probably about 125 in attendance. Some of you may recall that about 8 months or so ago I asked for some advice on how I could get more gigs. I'm primarily a background pianist/keyboard no singing yet. Many of you commmented you gotta do some singing to really get the ball rolling. Someone else commented if you don't sing tell a story about the music your playing. That's pretty much what I've been doing, stories that is. And it's working. I also started taking some voice lessons.
Today as I was getting ready to close the activity director said they wanted to do this singing Valentine greeting that the staff would sing to the residents. I picked out a midi file/karoke version of New York, New York. Next thing you know the activity director said we really need your help singing, since everyone is mumbling and stumbling. Short story is I made my singing debut with the midi file as my background. Everyone loved it, I did the lead and about 10 others followed my lead. I'm not ready for prime time and I don't have the testicular fortitude to post my singing here I will tell you that much.
But more than anything and as still a relative newcomer to gigging the thing that made my day was the activity director said be sure to save next Valentine's day of '07 to come back to play, as well as giving more dates this year. That is a first (getting booked a year in advance). I also just singed a contract with a local univeristy to play at some year end award banquets. Thanks for all the good advice I've been getting here!!
As strongly recommended, been doing my share of practicing and then some more as well.
[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 02-14-2006).]