I play out about 4 or 5 times per year and lacking imagination, I usually stick to more or less the same programme of tunes, stories, etc. This formula lasts, give or take, an hour. However, I was challenged the other day when asked to play at a baseball game. The local baseball team has an Irish day every year and when step dancers and canned music replace the organist. Anyway, the event organiser asked me if I could play during one time slot. The trick is that the time slot was only 45 seconds!!
My previous shortest gig was 1 minute 45 seconds when I played “I buried my wife …” through twice on local radio before being cut off by a commercial for herbal laxatives.
But 45 seconds? It takes me that long to pump up the bag. Even if I got my timing right and had the bag fully inflated at the beginning of the time slot what could I play in 45 seconds? We can rule out slow airs immediately. Forget the Fox Chase, the Bucks, Colonel Fraser, the Frieze Britches, the Lark in the Morning - all too long. Basically I’d have to rule out any tune with more than 2 parts and even at that, I’m under pressure to finish in my time. I even considered a polka and reviewed my repertoire of those tunes (which certainly didn’t take 45 seconds) but they just didn’t fit with the image of a baseball game.
So in the end, putting artistic integrity before commercial gain (the offer was free parking and all the hotdogs I could eat), I declined the gig. And so it seems that the worlds of baseball and uilleann piping are destined never to meet.
Never mind. I live in Canada and hockey season will be starting soon …
Yeah, I’ve done those TV gigs where it takes an hour to set up and block the camera shots, then you play all of 30 seconds for the lead-out to a commercial break.
Not quite as short … But a few years ago, my group was hired for a St. Pat’s party at a private golf club / country club. By the time we arrived and set up, things were already quite festive, with the hosts already in an advanced state of “festivity”.
After playing a set or two, one of the hosts asked to borrow our microphone to make a few announcements.
Long story short … Two hours later, we were still sitting there in silence as various festive partygoers came to the microphone to tell jokes and make rude animal noises. Apparently, they had been deprived of the “Mr. Microphone” toy as kids, and were making up for lost youth. We got up, collected our money, and left.
A few days later, we got a note from the organizers thanking us for a great gig. Yes sir, we aim to please!
I once had a composition audition for a video game company. Part of the repertoire they wanted was a 5 second sound effect that represented a robot crashing to the mat as a result of being KO’d in a boxing match.
It took 4 hours or so to realize the final product for that 5 seconds.
well, they KNOW no-one can safely eat more then 3.5 hotdogs
I woul’dve done it for parking, and if they put my name & picture on the ginormous electronic screen, and burned me a dvd of same…
but, also,
Having no scruples whatsoever, I would’ve completely abandoned the “trying-to-find-a-tune-and-fit-the-tune-to-a 45.7-frame-spot” approach, and come up with some special precisely 45 sec. long lick just for the occasion that showcased what my pipes are best at,(at that particular moment).
&
Yes, an hour of footage per broadcast second is about right…
Once I was asked to do a gig (playing highland bagpipes) for 30 seconds. Without playing. For 400 Euros.
The request was from german television doing one of those unbelievable stupid folk-style music shows where all of the “music” is done by playback. In one song there was a part played by “bagpipes” (keyboards) an they wanted one of those funny scots wearing a “skirt”.
So in the end, putting artistic integrity before commercial gain[…], I declined the gig.
Funny, I thought I had “bought your silence” years ago. Check your mail for a big envelope stuffed with Irish punts!
Yes, it was a thirty-second gig. But those weren’t just guys (weren’t there two of them?) in leprechaun outfits: they were huge dancing leprechauns with super-giant over-sized heads. The money I got for it all barely got me a quarter hour on the therapist’s couch.
To quote that great American, Elmer Fudd (from Apocowypse Now): “Da howoah, Da howoah…”
I got a gig to play a short spot on TV with a fiddler friend of mine (Jim). It was live, but it was 6:30 in the morning. We were being interviewed by a perky young woman reporter. In between tunes, Jim did this gag where he puts his teeth around the side of his fiddle and at the same time rubs the back of the fiddle with the bow in such a why so that it makes a terrible sound like crunching wood. It makes it look like he is eating his violin. When he did this, the reporter said “Gosh, it’s good to have a little wood in the morning”. She was talking about dietary in-take, of course. We all bit our tounges and started the next tune, but the cameraman nearly fell off of his stool.
