I'm around your general age I think and I've gotten jobs playing at churches
Really? . Doing what? A recital? Or like playing every other day for an X amount of time?
I usually play Baroque pieces during the offertory at this one church near my house and they usually pay me a little bit. I'm not sure if all churches offer that though.You can also play with the church choir.
I had to have 3+ straight hours of varied repertoire. Classical only is not an option. People will come up to you and ask for things like "piano man" - and you will win points with the hotel if the guests like you so its good to be able to play their requests.
How much of the repertoire can be repeated?
Can you improvise at all? as in you can learn songs very quickly from lead sheets? because all you do is read the melody and you make up the rest?Edit: I don't mean this to sound discouraging at all.. its just my experience, and the worst that can happen is you either dont get a job, or you get a job and then lose it -which just means you are right where you are at already. You should absolutely go for it.
I was all set to pursue that path, but then I met a girl - they are really distracting.
Do you have a list of the popular songs that the hotel guests would expect me to play?
teaching piano is a good source of income and is rather easy... "piano teaching is merely listening to someone play,... they are renting your ears."
*sigh* I guess that means more Bach...
dang and here i am thinking my piano teacher is lazy, during my lessons its usually 30 min of constant scales. then she'll hear what I've done the past week and then assign me to learn so much by the next week.
1) Pimp. Money is good, but it's late at night and you're not to sure the clothes will suit you.2) Drug Dealer. Money is good, hours quite reasonable, but you'll need her to buy you a gun and there's some travel involved.
Well, I'm not very good with women, so pimp is probably a good way to learn..
Well, I'm not very good with women, so pimp is out of the question.
I don't think "good with women" is part of the job description.
I talked to my ex teacher and he told me that you don't need to have three hours worth of repertoire to play at a hotel because nobody is going to hear you play for three hours straight, people are going to be moving in an out of the lobby? So he said that one hour of music played over and over again should suffice.
And then he said that he was gonna tell some of his other students what was with him before he moved to come to me and said be prepared to pay 30-40 dollars an hour!
Ah, I think we had a different sort of hotel in mind (ie, a bar). That sounds fine, but the same music over and over is going to bore you to tears after a very short while.
Now that you're gonna be (comparitively) rich, should I point you at my (amazingly lengthy) amazon wishlist?
Well all of that money is gonna be cut down to size because my new teacher charges 75 dollars to tear my heart out and use it as a punching bag for an hour.
And so, my wishlist is.......
You will probably also find that you learn more from the teaching than you actually teach, so a doubly good deal.
I'll still have to pay for a therapist and a surgeon after he tears me apart every week.
GO ALL THE WAY! There may be some people like teachers, judges, or fellow pianists your age who will absolutely crush you, but don't listen to them! Would you rather not pursue music and get a boring job at some office doing the same thing for the rest of your life wondering, 'man, what if I kept pursuing piano?', or would you go all the way do what you love and try to become a professional pianist, but fail and become a bum living on the streets, or maybe partially succeed and only make like 35k a year but know that you tried your hardest? Would you rather live on your knees, or die on your feet?!YOU DECIDE!!!
[...] my new teacher charges 75 dollars to tear my heart out and use it as a punching bag for an hour.
In my resume, what do I put for skills?
And I found a music school that I could teach at, but I'm not a very good sightreader. I know how to sightread, but I'm not as good as Liszt. Would that be bad?
I also heard that it's bad to play for your students because that gets them to copy you. So could I get away with that?But I'm also teaching little kids who are just learning how to play. So does that mean more playing for them? Would my secret be exposed for the world to see?!
For your application to teach at the school? Your highest exam passed and/or your repertoire
You know I'm not a big fan of exams or grade levels.Do I have to list my whole repertoire? What about stuff that I played then forgot? Or stuff that I'm currently working on? Or stuff that I'm going to learn in the not too distant future?