Column Marianne van den Heuvel
Making music on a professional level is much more than just playing your instrument. This became quite clear to me during a “gig”.
I received a request by mail to play during a men’s dinner of someone who became 50; a concert of fifteen minutes only. In the past I have done many things like this. The nice thing about making live music is that you play at different places, from super hotels to the somewhat more “liberal” living rooms. But after more than 15 years in this business, I had enough of it. There are always “payment problems” and complications… Now I was considering whether or not to do this, and if not… who would be the lucky one to get the job. Finally I decided to do it myself. The place was nearby and only fifteen minutes of playing…
The price was not made yet and so I was thinking what to ask for fifteen minutes playing. All of a sudden I remembered Elizabeth Taylor. She was asked to play Cleopatra in a movie but she did not want to have the role. She decided to ask an absurd high rate. To her big surprise she got the role… Nowadays the famous actors and actresses still “celebrate” this way of acting and they see their bank accounts grow… Therefore I set my price fifty euro’s higher than the highest price I could imagine. Of course this was honored.
Then it appeared there was a special request which took me a week to study… It would be very appreciated if I could play “Erbarme Dich” from the Matthew Passion from J.S. Bach. The Gentleman was a real classical music lover and was raised “Bachiaans”. Since I work with the principle of “You ask, I play” this was no problem at all.
I derived the part from a piano piece that I kind of “connected” with the vocal part. This makes it all a very strange and funny piece of music. I figured: they do not want a piano. Why bother?
I felt very welcome at the party. They were very happy that I could make it and that everything was arranged so soon. The feeling that my price was way too low was confirmed… A good lesson for next time. While two ladies were busy preparing a spoon it appeared that I was an intermezzo, and the big surprise for the evening. I got a place in the room and the gentlemen were invited to come in on my first notes.
Before hand I always try to find out what kind of public I might expect. How they move and dress and with who am I dealing with… For this gig I would say “medical specialists”. People are used to drink and they have conversations like students. This is exactly how they acted.
Anyway, this was going to be my party and they were very surprised when I asked them if they knew the piece after I had just finished it. The lady who made arrangement told me that there should be one person with musical knowledge. This person started to speak immediately. To my big surprise he mentioned Vivaldi as the composer of the Matthew Passion.
This is the group I am entertaining… Most probably they have more income and a bigger intellect than I have. There they are, standing like little boys and dressed up. They behave as they have learnt. Most probably they know a lot. Here I am standing, a woman playing the violin, something they can’t. I can feel their uncomfortable body language. This pleasure cannot be paid by all the money in the world. This fifteen minutes has brought me a nice amount of pocket money.
Yes, music is fun.