arkitrave :: log

To celebrate our fourth anniversary, we played a gig.

Well, actually, because of the gig, we’re going to celebrate tomorrow, but it was kind of fun, really. It was a vow renewal/surprise party…that is, it was their 10th anniversary, and she had no idea that they were renewing their vows or having a party. I’m sure there are women who wouldn’t do very well with that kind of surprise, but she seemed to take to it rather well. And there were lots of cute kids dancing. And we got to play Louis Armstrong, Beatles, and Sinatra in addition to some classical stuff. All in all, a nice evening.

The piano was a trip, though. I went to raise the lid to half-stick, and nearly knocked the lid onto the floor. Turns out the hinges were broken, so we ended up lifting the lid off the piano and propping it against a wall. I also had to pry off 4 dampers that were sticking to the strings so that the strings would speak.

Violinists are lucky people. It would be great to always be able to play your own instrument, instead of having to deal with crazy broken pianos everywhere.

This wedding story deserves more than a comment, so I’m going all out with a new post here. There are two aspects to the story - the worst wedding song ever, and the worst mother of the bride ever.
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My wife and I played for a wedding yesterday (violin and piano, see twistduo.com); it was outdoors, in front of the famous Kleinhans Music Hall of Eero and Eliel Saarinen. We have a track record of no rain in over four years of playing for weddings. Yesterday threatened to break our streak of good fortune. It was overcast for most of the day. Not just overcast; that thick, heavy feeling of overcast where a downpour could happen any second. But the rain held off through the afternoon.

The wedding was at 6:00. We set up the keyboard across the reflecting pool (anyone who thinks Modern architecture was all cold and heartless should read Saarinen’s waxing eloquent about the reflecting pool) from the wedding itself, and hoped (there was no cover for the instruments if rain happened). We played the prelude, the wind giving us some problems keeping the music open and on the stands. The wedding got started a few minutes late, as the judge was delayed. We finally got the thumbs up about eight after the hour, and played the processional music for the bridesmaids. Still no rain. The bridesmaids got to the front, and we switched music for the bride’s procession, for which she had requested “Here Comes the Sun.”

[Sidebar: one bridesmaid didn’t know that The Beatles was the processional music - I think she was expecting “Here Comes the Bride,” or something more, well, nuptual…so, for the first half of the song, she was motioning to me across the water, making horrified faces, and mouthing “BRIDE!” repeatedly, to which I simply nodded my head in understanding, smiled, and continued to play. It took her way too long to figure out that everything was under control and the musicians hadn’t simply run amok.]

So, we played “Here Comes the Sun,” the bride processed, and, just seconds later, a huge cloudbreak happened, and the sun streamed down for the duration of the ceremony (it was a 5-minute “do you? yes. do you? yes. great.” ceremony). It was gorgeous—the wedding party was beautifully reflected in the pool, the dresses sparkled, the judge even looked good.

As soon as the wedding party recessed, the clouds returned.

All in a day’s work.

We’re finally doing our taxes for 2003. The problem is we didn’t sit down once during all of 2003 to keep track of what we earned and spent. So we have the techno cranked and are tearing our collective hair out trying to find receipts and check copies. We play a lot of weddings, together and separately, and trying to track them all on top of the rest of our lives proves difficult every year.

The positive note is that I looked at last year’s return and the total we have paid this year in tax, and actually looks like we may get a bit of a refund.

“Where was that wedding?” “I don’t remember” “Look at the contract” “It’s not in the contract”…

Thank God for Mapquest driving directions (mileage is a nice deduction…) and online directory assistance (for the locations of various churches around Buffalo).

We’re on September now. Making progress.