I have been posting a series called “What’s in the (Bandleader’s ) Bag?” The totes we carry are enormous, and have anything and everything that we might need. In my case, a more interesting question is “What’s on my music stand?”
In the middle of the stage, I have what I call “my office.” It is a three tier conductor-style music stand that expands and expands, so I can organize my stuff into difference sections. You would be shocked at the details we carry in our minds, and the supporting paraphernalia that it takes to do our job right. So here goes…
On My Music Stand;
Paperwork- contract, timeline for evening, schedule of contact information, equipment list, sheet music for special requests, song lists, cardboard index cards with song titles and “notes” to the band, inspirational quotes, notes to myself, notes from creative meetings with client.
Knick-Knacks- teeny digital clock attached with Velcro, Iphone, extra guitar picks, 3 sharpies, blank pad for writing notes and cues, lipstick and gloss, eyeliner, magnetic mirror (for touching up make-up), Luna bar, business cards, guitar capo, extra 9 volt batteries, ear buds for in-ear monitors,
Also in my bag-
Folders of all events going on this weekend, extra shoes, gig jewelry, band-aids, handi wipes, tissues, 5 colors of lip gloss, Bliss hand moisturizer, sugar free eucalyptus lozenges, travel kit of essential oils (lavender, grapefruit, ginger, heliocrism, bergamot), package of arnica (homeopathic remedy), Motrin, sunglasses, backup of all makeup, another blank notebook (I am way into notebooks), large collection of pens in every color, scotch tape, pouch of favorite stones and crystals, Amazon Kindle (in case I get momentarily bored), camera, phone charger, snacks for the crew, IPod, backup business cards, scarf, baseball cap and hair tie (in case it rains), mini umbrella, travel toothbrush, and a master list of what the other bandleaders are carrying!
One day I will write a book about the life of a bandleader, more specifically, the life of a “Starlight” bandleader. What goes into our job, our lifestyle, what it takes to put it all together, how we prepare for our events, what we need to think of. I always see our bandleaders coming to the performances carrying the biggest bag (purse) I have ever seen. It makes me think of Mary Poppins, with her magic carpet bag!
I asked Sarah, Laurell, Rebecca and Claudia to tell me what they carry in their bags, so I could share it with you.
Here is the first one. From SARAH SCOTT
What’s in Sarah’s bag?
Extra back-ups of:
Stockings
Shoes (women’s)
Ties in several colors (men’s)
Black dress shirts
Earrings
Bracelets
Eyelashes
Black sequins dresses
Bra straps
Also:
Safety pins
Deodorant
Body spray
Hairspray
Moisturizer
Kleenex
Gum
Vitamin C packets
Pain reliever
Stain remover
25 charts (sheet music) of great dinner music
Emergency Hora charts (more sheet music)
Water bottles
Sharpees
Business cards
Manuscript paper
Pencils
Insoles (for womens shoes)
Scissors
Bobby-pins
Body glitter
“What are some good choices for our first dance?” Brides and grooms ask that question all the time, looking for guidance and suggestions. The first dance is a very special moment, and the song selection can be based on many different things.
Special song: some couples remember a particular song from either their first date, when they fell in love, or some other specific memory (first baseball game?). The song has become “theirs” and is symbolic of their relationship
Special dance- some couples want to do a particular kind of dance or choreography, so they will look for songs to fit a style or genre. (For example; one couple enjoyed ballroom dancing and were quite good, so they chose a romantic waltz. Another couple wanted to really make a splash, so they chose “More Than a Woman” from “Saturday Night fever” and did the Hustle!
Still Searching- I find that most couples do not have one special song, are not planning a special dance, and want to find something that they both like and feel comfortable with.
There are many genres of love songs to choose from. You can find love songs from movies or shows (i.e. “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” from Lion King), pop ballads on the radio (by Alicia Keys or Anita Baker), rock ballads (by Eric Clapton or Bryan Adams), jazz standards (by Frank Sinatra.) There are contemporary ballads (by Ben Harper), classic soul ballads (by Marvin Gaye or remakes by Boyz II To Men), and modern power ballads (by U-2.)
Some people like the tried and true. Other people want to find something completely unique. Some couples are traditional. Others want something trendy or edgy, and there are musical choices to suit everyone. Since we are often asked for song ideas, we have created several lists of suggestions for first dances, which you can find on the SONGLIST tab, at the top of this website.
We have so much fun researching and finding both new and old song ideas to share with our clients. We will be compiling and adding new lists frequently, and we will periodically post these as articles.
Music, Love, Weddings, Special Moments, Romance, Longing, Finding, Loving, Dancing.
Some songs are poems set to music, while others are words crafted to fit a melody. What makes a love song great? What moves us about certain songs? The below list is my top 20 favorite love songs. Please feel free to post your own in the space below.
I think I am the only person I know who has never watched American Idol. Ever. And there is a good reason why; it just feels too much like work! One of my many roles at Starlight Orchestras is to audition talent. And although it is exciting to meet new performers and find exactly what you are looking for, the process can be quite brutal! Maybe on reality-TV it is entertaining to tell people when they have no talent, but I find it cheerless and nerve-wracking to sit through so many unfortunate performances.
I certainly acknowledge the entertaining aspect of live try-outs, which is why I invite my mother to all of Starlight’s auditions. She finds it extremely entertaining; right up there with her season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera and the Roundabout Theatre. (Actually, at one audition many years ago, we were setting up the video camera, and I asked my mother to stand in the middle of the stage so we could get a lighting level. Apparently, she had been waiting for this moment her entire life…she jumped onstage, grabbed the microphone and then proceeded to belt out an Ethel Merman number from the show “Oklahoma!” I might add that any musical talent that I inherited came from the other side of the family! This priceless performance is buried on a Starlight audition videotape somewhere, and I have been meaning to dig it out and play it at the next family gathering. )
Another part of my job is producing live shows; choosing material, overseeing stylists, choreographers, arrangers, performers and technical crew. I truly adore my work, and at the end of the day I prefer to watch a show like “Dexter” (lovable serial killer) or “True Blood” (lovable vampire) or Brothers and Sisters (lovable dysfunctional family) for my entertainment, rather than what I assumed American Idol might be.
But.
Friends and family members have been talking about it, and lately my ears have perked up. Great guest headline performances. Interesting songs being re-arranged and covered. (That is another one of my jobs; finding fabulous songs to re-mix and cover, and I look everywhere for inspiration.) And the latest news, Ellen DeGeneres has been hired as a judge for the upcoming Season 9. Well, I do love Ellen, I appreciate her humanity, kindness and sense of humor; the refreshing way she relates to people and expresses herself. This coupled with the fact that I am a fan of many of the talented performers who have come through American Idol (especially Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood), has encouraged me to watch and write about the new season that will air in January of 2010.
One of the funniest things I have ever seen is Paula Abdul impersonating Ellen DeGeneres . As you may remember, Paula lost her job as one of the judges on American Idol and Ellen was hired to replace her. During her recent appearance as Emcee of “The Diva’s,” Paula Abdul, dressed like Ellen and wearing a short blond wig, danced down the aisle of the theatre, doing a fabulous impression of Ellen. If you missed it, you can watch it on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJaat0Ofl7I
This is a letter from the event planner at a recent wedding at the Plaza Hotel!
Dear Sarah: Thanks so much for doing an extraordinary job for the Morse family and being incredible to work with as always. Really, you are one of a kind and I really appreciate your attention to all of the details of the wedding.
I am a big believer in the “no right and wrong” philosophy. There is (usually) not just one way to do or look at something. It is important to determine what experience you want to have, and then make the choices that will lead you to that experience. So while a decision is not “wrong” in a general sense , it may be the wrong one if you are looking for a specific outcome. Let’s say, for example, that you were planning a dinner party at your home, and you wanted the evening to be very relaxed and casual. It would be the “wrong” choice to ask guests to come dressed in black tie. If you were a planning an elegant Saturday night wedding in a ballroom of a metropolitan hotel, however, it could be “right” to ask guests to wear black tie.
No right and wrong. Please know I am not talking about moral issues here, as I also believe in always being extremely kind and caring toward our fellow creatures. But with regard to choices, about the way things are “usually done,” about how we navigate through our lives, how we celebrate our milestones, how we throw our parties, I subscribe to a school of thought that encourages us to find what brings us the most joy, and continues to make the choices that lead us there. Determine what we want to accomplish, then set a course for it; previously chartered or not.
No right and wrong, although we can certainly benefit from guidelines and formulas that have been successfully used before, which can be modified to fit our unique perspective.
Let’s tie this into the “music for weddings and parties” theme, since this is the Starlight Orchestras Blog! While planning your events, I recommend doing your research on how things are commonly done, and then making your own decisions based on what makes sense to you and what would please you the most. It really does not have to be any particular way. If you find that you lean toward ideas that are not in the mainstream, then be sure to choose vendors who are flexible and open. (By “vendors” I refer to event planners, music providers, caterers, designers/florists, photographers etc.)
Remember, life is like a big buffet, with a huge variety of experiences to choose from. What makes life so indescribably delicious is that there is no end to the possibilities, no end to the choices we can make. As a matter of fact, we can continue to make the same choices and continue to have the same experiences, or we can choose new options and change our life experience. Every day, every moment is a new opportunity to create our selves and create our lives, and while we’re at it, why not create fabulous events as well?
There are so many kinds of weddings: fancy ones, funky ones, casual ones, formal ones, beachy ones, elegant ones, I could go on and on. I am going to write about a wedding I did recently at a beautiful hotel in Manhattan. First of all, when I say “I did the wedding,” what does that mean? I own and run Starlight Orchestras (a live music company), I lead a band, I play the electric guitar, I train bandleaders, I look for talent, I sing, I write arrangements, I write songs, and I produce music; so, what does it mean to “do a wedding?” Well, I have spoken about “the whoosh factor”; that special magical something that makes a party come alive. If an event is a machine, then I believe that music is the “engine.” If an event is a destination, then music is the plane or ship that takes you from here to there. If an event is a body, then music is the soul that gives it life. I could go on with my analogies all day (and I do love my analogies!). The music is a driving force, and someone needs to manage it, steer the ship, fly the plane. Someone needs to orchestrate the different ways that music affects an event. Providing music for the various aspects of a wedding or event is one part of the job, the other is consulting on all of the ways to USE music to influence, encourage, motivate, enhance, enliven, and underscore the entire affair. When I, or any of my fellow bandleaders at Starlight Orchestras “do a wedding,” we are not only bandleaders, but also creators of the magic; bringing our expertise and artistry to create moods and environments using sound and music.
We “do” weddings all of the time. People seek us out when they want something special, a chic and whole-istic approach to the musical elements of their event. So when a former neighbor, Mrs. Reuben, called to talk about her daughter’s wedding, I was excited to learn that I would be “DOING THE WEDDING!”
…Stay tuned for Chapter Two which will follow the unfolding of “A Dreamy Wedding.”
How much does a good band cost? How much should I spend on a band for my wedding? What should I budget for music for my party? These are common questions that people ask when planning their events. The answer, of course, is that there is not one answer. Consider dining out. You might ask yourself, how much should I plan on spending if I want to eat dinner out? Well, that depends on where you want to go and how much you have to spend. Some folks will go to the local diner and have a turkey club with fries and spend $15 for two people. Others will order in sushi and spend $50. Some people will go to a fancy Italian restaurant, and after a bottle of wine, dinner, dessert, cappuccino and limoncello, will shell out $200. And there are those who will go for a celebrity chef, a restaurant in the Time Warner building have a tab close to $1,000 for their meal. Same with cars. You can buy a five year old Honda Accord that will get you where you are going for $10,000. You can buy a brand new Subaru for $20,000. You can get a 5 series BMW for $50,000, and a Bentley for $200,000. I guess I made my point. Now, how do you pick a venue for your wedding? How much are you going to spend? There is such a large range of places and prices that it really boils down to your overall budget, and then what percentage you will allocate to each part (venue, catering, music, décor, photography, wardrobe, incidentals). For now I would like to point out that along with the economic hierarchy of venues, there is that same ladder of pricing associated with the other services. For example, you can save a lot of money by renting a hall and finding an inexpensive caterer to bring food, dishes and rental chairs. The price tag will be significantly less than having your affair in the ballroom of a fine hotel. You can have a modest wedding in your living room with very little fuss, or you can put up a million dollar tent-compound in your backyard, with air conditioning, chandeliers and a hand-painted dance floor. I have performed at all. My point again is that it keeps coming back to your style, your resources and your priorities. So when it comes to bands, (aha! finally I am coming to bands!) there is obviously quite a range, which is relative to many of the other elements.
My company is known to be a boutique, upscale service provider. We are priced at the top end of the spectrum, and there are very good reasons why. In many respects, you get what you pay for, whether it be service, quality of material, support of an organization, innovation, caliber of talent, cost of behind-the-scenes extras. Sometimes price is determined by popularity and the laws of supply and demand. In the world of music for private parties, be it weddings, galas, charity balls, corporate events, and all of the special celebrations that punctuate our lives, we should seek to find the best musical product for what we can afford to pay. We cannot underestimate the impact that good music (or bad!) can have on an event, from the first moment to the last, yet it is my belief that the music is often overlooked and “underbudgeted for”. I have so much to say that I will probably write a book, a very impassioned discourse about that one issue! How crucially important the music is, and how under-emphasized it can be in the budget. Just to go on a quick tangent here, I am not only talking about the “band;” the music for dancing. I am talking about how music could be used to underscore and influence all the different elements of the event. I refer not only to a bandleader but someone who is a musical consultant, who can understand and convey how we work with the musical nuances to transform, connect, and influence. This goes far beyond the understanding of most of the weddings magazines when they talk about how to choose a band.
So how much should you spend? Well, how good do you want it to be? How good can it get? That is what needs to be considered! (I will eventually answer my question, I promise!) Industry standard is less than mediocre. The “wedding band” stereotype (cheesy, sloppy, thown-together) has been well earned over a long period of time. The “better” bands, the companies with real musical integrity who have put their energy into re-inventing the concept and offering a superior alternative to the standard “wedding band” phenomenon are few and far between, and definitely worth the higher price.
So now I am going to answer the question. How much should you, could you spend on music for your wedding? My first answer is, as much as you can, it is THAT important. With that said, here is the range. I know some deejays that start around $750. (Surprised to hear me say this? Thought I would start at the $25,000 figure? We’ll get there.) Most of the deejays I use go for around $ 2500-$ 3500. There is definitely a difference between the $750 DJs and the $2500 DJs. The deejays with a following, not to mention the celebrity deejays charge as much as $10,000-$50,000 depending upon their reputation and the circles in which they travel. Then there are a whole crop of deejays in between those prices, some bring a few live musicians, some have elaborate lighting packages that can be added, staging, dancers, and emcees.
With bands, if your party will not have dancing, then the ensembles can be smaller and will certainly cost less than a larger ensemble. Two to four musicians can make a lovely presentation, whether the repertoire is classical, jazz, or pop. Anytime you add a vocalist, the price will go up because you also need a sound system (a microphone into an amplifier into speakers, usually on tripods, with cables and power cords. It is a whole set-up and adds to the cost.) If you want dancing it is important to establish a range of styles that you want, which will affect the instrumentation of the band, how much variety is needed. This is where there is a tendency for the quality to fall off; in order to fit into a budget, bands sometimes try to play music they are not properly staffed for, or not quite qualified for. If you want dancing at your party and you want live music, you must make sure that the band you hire has enough personnel to cover the different styles of music needed. One thing about weddings, there is usually a very wide range of music played, partly because there are guests of different age groups and different backgrounds, and because there is usually a lot of time for dancing. We need to mix it up, keep it moving, encourage different types of people to enjoy partying at the same time. Like an airplane, the music needs to be able to taxi, take off, ascend, cruise, and land- several times throughout an event. To continue this analogy, you might say that the band is the plane and the guests are the passengers and are on a journey toward a destination. The band is the vehicle that takes them there.
So what should it cost? Can every band be an airplane? Are the airplane bands the ones that cost $ 20,000? (I am making fun of myself now.) I have been told that there are bands in the $3500-$5000 range, but I must confess that I do not know of any. There is enough budget in there for each band member to make a night’s pay and have someone bring a sound system, and the band is probably not part of a larger organization that has internal support systems. There are probably decent bands in that range where the leader does everything himself (finance and payroll, hiring the musicians, writing arrangements, compiling sales materials, doing presentations to perspective clients… you would be amazed at what goes into putting this all together!). One might wonder, though, if the leader is so busy doing all of the administrative details of running a small business, will he or she have time to concentrate on the creative and musical elements, like rehearsing the band?
From my experience running a live music company that specializes in polished presentation and customized performance, competitive prices for the high-end market start in the $11,000 range and go up from there. Prices were higher in the past, but now, to accommodate the economic changes in our culture, and since “small is the new big,” many high-end music providers have downsized some products, and are offering smaller versions at more affordable prices.
While bands do exist at all price points, in the Luxury Bridal Market you will most likely spend over $12,000 for the music (a small group for the ceremony, a few musicians at cocktail hour, and a band of minimally 10 people) and as much $30,000 or even more for something larger, extremely unique or customized. Substantial string ensembles are also a specialty of some companies (like mine!) and add to the cost, and I will write about that in a future posting.
If these numbers seem high, here is some info to round out the equation.
Here are the (current) going rates for some headline entertainers that will perform at your wedding….for the “right price.”
