Saturday, October 14, 2006

It is rather easy to find classical musicians. It must be a tough life for all of these incredibly talented people. They train their whole lives to preserve an art, and they become a dime a dozen. Lets face it, brilliant classical musicians are about as hard to find as lousy rock bands. Although many of these musicians make some money playing in concert halls as part of symphonies, most have to supplement this work with other stuff. Some of them work outside their field, but most of them don't. A classical piano musician might work three or four different jobs at a minimum, first in the orchestra, then as a private piano instructor, than as a session musician helping composers record their tracks, and finally as perhaps a high school band teacher.
Classical musicians do one other thing quite commonly: they work private parties. It is really easy and fairly reasonably priced to hire classical musicians to entertain yourself and your friends for virtually any event. We recently had my daughters graduation from college and hired a classical string quartet to entertain. They were really lovely. My daughter Erin has always loved string music, as have the rest of us, and it provided the perfect accompaniment to her evening. The classical musicians even played some modern numbers for us to dance to.
Of course, we knew those particular classical musicians through a friend of the family. They actually had grown up with my daughter, although back in those days they hadn't been friends. That string quartet actually formed from a rival clique of girls from my daughters middle school. Back in those days, they were kind of bookish and geeky, not at all the charming social climbers like the friends of Erin, but who would have known that they would have grown up to do something so wonderful. As classical musicians they furnished a wonderful ambiance for our party, and stayed tactfully in the background. Really, for such socially graceless girls, they scarcely disturbed anybody.
It's good that we already knew those classical musicians, because it is such a chore finding competent entertainment. I swear, if not for the connections that I have, I wouldn't even know where to start before a party. I mean, how do you know that they are any good, and not just out to make a buck as entertainers? It is really best to hire classical musicians who you know.

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