Home › Forums › Performing › Okay, here’s a new one….
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Alison.
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March 18, 2014 at 12:30 am #62914
David Ice
MemberI really seem to know how to pick ’em……
A *VERY* upscale bride/groom hired me to play their wedding. They wanted me to play a specific piece for the bride to come down the aisle. I agreed, and did a lovely arrangement. They came over to hear it in person, and loved it.Then…..I started getting email requests to record it (audio and video) for them. I managed to put them off on that, for a while. I mean, I did the arrangement for no extra money, and now they want me to set up a full video studio in my home to record it for–what?
After repeated requests, I did an quick audio-only recording for them.
And today, I got this from the bride:
“This is very pretty thank you. I am just wondering, and tell me if this this won’t work so close to the wedding date – if we might be able to tweak that key change/center part ever so slightly. It is beautiful but I am not certain I love when it changes to the higher octave.”
This arrangement was taken directly from the original. And she (nor anybody else) is NOT singing the lyrics. This is a first for me….a bride not liking a key change!
I’m NOT changing it!!!!
Dave Ice
March 18, 2014 at 1:29 am #62915catherine-rogers
MemberI don’t know what the equation is but I’m certain there is one. The result is this: the more work you put into a special (unpaid) request, the more ungrateful the client will be. Never seems to fail. And when someone suddenly wants an audio recording, I always wonder if they want to try to use that instead of me. Once they have it, you never know what it will be used for in the future.
March 18, 2014 at 2:33 am #62916MemberI have already been paid in full….but I agree Catherine, it seems that the clients who want the most are also the most problems.
March 18, 2014 at 12:17 pm #62917alexandra-baldwin
MemberYou really seem to get the craziest clients! Of course, then you have the best stories 🙂 Maybe you should write a book!
March 18, 2014 at 2:15 pm #62918carl-swanson
ParticipantDavid-Tempus pecunia est. Time is money! Don’t do anything for free. The client wants a special arrangement of something? Have a fee schedule for that. So much to buy the piece, so much to learn it, so much to make an arrangement, so much to make changes. If there is a price to pay for each of these things, the client will treat you with more respect and will be less demanding.
March 18, 2014 at 3:37 pm #62919Gretchen Cover
MemberDavid,
Time to politely say you hope they enjoy hearing the piece at their wedding. You are too busy with other work to put any more time in this piece. They like it, you like it. The end. No more negotiating or trying to please. Nothing will be enough if you let this go on.
March 18, 2014 at 3:38 pm #62920MemberPS/ You could also let the bride know recordings/videos violate the copyright. No more.
March 18, 2014 at 6:00 pm #62921Sylvia
ParticipantI’m wondering just how long the aisle is…and why you’d have time for a key change. Why not just play the first part and repeat it, like the bridal entrance does….going to the dominant and the next time going to the tonic?
March 19, 2014 at 1:56 am #62922MemberHi Gretchen (and Sylvia)–
This bride and groom were positively anal about the music….how many seconds it would take the bride to walk down the aisle, etc. I have timed it to 54 seconds before the key change. I can repeat the first section, no problem, and that is PLENTY of time to get her down a rather longish aisle….but now the bride wants me to record THAT version–playing it twice! “Can’t you just do an iPhone recording?” I told her NO WAY. I like your comment Gretchen–that I’ve already violated copyright law, and I’m not going to record further. I agreed to do the arrangement as it’s a piece I can certainly use in the future (it’s a Beatles tune and who knows, I might get it published!) but this is ridiculous. So I’ve set my foot down. If they persist I’m $100 per hour consulting/arranging. I’ve never had a bride that obsessed with key changes, etc.
…..it always seems that when you bend over backwards to help a client, you wind up with a broken back…..
Dave IceMarch 19, 2014 at 1:59 am #62923MemberThe irony of all this is that I’ve never EVER had a bride who actually heard the music for the processional! Her mind is on a zillion other things and emotions. I can’t tell you how many brides got back to me later to say, “I never heard a note you played until I got the video of our wedding.”
March 19, 2014 at 1:23 pm #62924MemberDavid,
You are putting yourself back in a position of negotiating, Tell the bride both of you agreed on your arrangement, that is how you’ve practiced it and that is how you will play it. Tell her the wedding processional will be lovely as it is. The end (again).
March 19, 2014 at 3:04 pm #62925kay-lister
MemberDavid,
You REALLY should right a book!
Kay
March 19, 2014 at 5:33 pm #62926ParticipantJust a word …. If you write a book, you have all the publishing costs, and then you have to sell it at a low price to get people to buy it…and the market for harp wedding books is pretty small. I found that out when I published my harpisodes, detailing the sometimes ugly truth of playing weddings…the view from the back end of a harp….not at all the lovely wedding the audience sees. I sell them really cheap, so I don’t make a cent off them. But…if you like to share funny stories, it’s a great way to do it.
April 23, 2014 at 10:32 pm #62927Saul Davis Zlatkovski
ParticipantSince you already got paid, why don’t you tell them you will re-record it, and they can play the recording when they walk the aisle.
August 19, 2014 at 2:32 pm #143542MemberI realized I never gave a final update on this wedding. Well, for all the consternation and obsession about having exactly 54 seconds of music, etc.–it turns out they forgot that the parents escorting the groom down the aisle (this was a Jewish wedding) were very infirm, and the groom’s processional lasted nearly 4 minutes! I was doing repeats, inversions, every trick I could think of, to stretch things out before the bride came down at the key change. Well, when she started she had shoe/heel trouble coming down the stairs (this was outdoors) and she required 2 or 3 repeats as well. So, once again my own David Ice-ism proved true: “all it takes is one lost bobby pin and all the timing goes out the window.” I will use this tale in the future when dealing with obsessive brides! Up next: the groom who is writing all original music for his wedding, and he wants me to play/arrange it for harp. And he’s only recently grasping the idea of music notation…..and keys….and quarter notes………..
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