I only have 2-3 Nursing Home accounts now so I’m pretty rusty when I go out there, and, so, I’m not at the top of my game these days.

Now, the method that works for me is to draw on the hundreds of songs I’ve memorized and play them willy-nilly, meaning I go from one song to another not knowing what I’m going to play next until the last few measures of what I’m playing now.

So, with that explained, I usually get to my job an hour early, and use that time to “go over my lists of song titles” to remind myself of the songs in my song pool.

Now, in all the years I’ve been playing, I’ve never forgotten to bring the “lists.” This time I did and this time it was a month since the preceding job. Panic ……cause, like all of you, I take my work seriously. Now this place is a luxurious, high-class, brand new residence with an auditorium and an incredible sounding Yamaha grand. I do a “performance” on both piano and accordion with about 50 people sitting there just watching…..no dancing.

Well, I had no choice but to go back to my roots……”play it by ear.”

Now, coincidentally, Bill Lewis wrote a while back that he considered me “multi-talented.” I appreciated that remark and pondered over it for a while. With that still in my mind, I decided to put it to the test and proceeded blindly into the gig. I immediately discovered I was (multi-talented). Went in there and did 90 minutes just playing off the cuff. Like this: play some "standards," sing some sing-a-long tunes, do a concert piece, and then....seque into conversing with the audience, tell them the history of certain songs (a lot of them have interesting “histories”), tell a funny story, do a joke, explain how an accordion works, the diff between an accordion and a piano, did some dance demonstrations…..Charleston, Ballin’ the Jack, Swing, waltz, some “moves” by Elvis…Al Jolson…Michael Jackson, etc, (and, BTW I don’t dance real well, but I CAN do “moves,}” play more music, stop and go back to having a conversation with the audience, take requests, play medleys from the major Broadway shows, an informal Q&A period, and basically whatever came to mind for the time period.

The whole point is that it was one of my best ever improvised performances. They kept me there for an extra half hour and told me flat-out afterwards, that basically they were tired of hearing musicians just “play” no matter how good they were. What worked for them, is all the banter in-between. That gig really rejuvenated both them and me and gave me a new perspective on entertaining.

I always loved being in the spotlight in front of an audience where you are in total command of a group of people. You can make them laugh, cry, be happy, sad, excite them, take them on a nostalgia trip down memory lane, and generally emotionalize them in some way!

Viewing the recent threads about getting too old to be carrying all this equipment around, and Gary retiring and Don’s April Fool’s joke about retiring, and everyone just using pocket sized recorders to do their act anyway, I’m thinking maybe I can get back into playing by doing this kind of an act…..talk….play…play…..talk, etc. and not have to use so much equipment.

If any of this gives you new thoughts about changing your own performance, let me tell you this one secret I learned early on….and once I adopted this, performing became a breeze. When you address your audience, IMMEDIATELY enter into their world. Become one of THEM….become both an intimate friend AND a performer. Talk to them like family or like you’ve known them for years. Imagine yourself in a social group in which you’re the head of it but that everyone in that group (including yourself) is an equal and talk to them that way.

Not sure if I said that correctly, it’s something that you generally have to pick up on your own…hard to relate it in narration. And……not even important if your thing is just playing dance music. I, myself, have burned out after all these years of playing Spanish Eyes over and over and over.

I’m going to think now about reentering the field in this way. After all, I can’t stay burned out forever……there’s the inevitable bills that keep popping up in the mail every few days. You know……those letters with the windows in it that have your name inscribed inside!

I hope none of you guys have ended up like me...... Gary probably would have if he kept on going!

Mark