This year, she upped the ante by inviting me to play, and by having "campfires" and marshmallow roasting (it moved outdoors to the garden patio out behind city hall). I play an hour before the first bus, and then watch my audience walk out. Then I hang out for an hour (and eat the dinner they provide for all the volunteers), and then play another hour for the second shift of trolley people. Twice: Friday and Saturday.
It's pretty nice -- it's quiet and the crowd tends to be older people, so they're into the schmaltzy Christmas songs. And some families show up so I can play the kids' songs, too. I don't get paid, except dinner (though they're looking into getting me an "honorarium"), but the people are all very appreciative and say nice things as they go past me to get onto their bus.
And one lady came in and loudly proclaimed at me, "Christmas carols [sic] are *hard*! I was in a professional band for 11 years and the chords for Christmas carols are hard!" Not sure why/if she was specifically making a distinction between her "professional" band and me, but it was nice for someone to recognize that not just anybody can pull off those Christmas *songs* (not carols) on guitar. I worked long and hard on a lot of those songs -- much harder than the 60's and '70s pop tunes that I usually play. Working those Christmas tunes out taught me a lot of new stuff (and fancy chords) that I didn't know before. And a challenge is always fun.
2 comments:
Nice gig!
A piano player was hired to entertain for the "holiday dinner" at my mother's assisted living home. She seemed to know all the Christmas standards, but when she came around the tables asking for requests, she demurred when I suggested "Sleigh Ride". "Still working on it!" she replied, "It has a key change that throws me."
Absolutely! I finally worked out "Sleigh Ride", but I had the beginning and end worked out (in F) years before I figured out how to get the middle part to work (in I-still-don't-know-what).
But it's that "Chestnuts roasting..." song that had me whupped the longest. I found lots of chord sheets for it out there, but none of them sounded anything like any actual song, much less this one.
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