I make a living doing the nursing/retirement circuit. I think singing is essential, unless you are a monstrously good keyboard player.

If you can sing by yourself, that would be preferable, because in the nursing/retirement home venue, the pay is limited. I average about $120 per hour performance - some gigs paying $175-$200/hr., but a lot of gigs paying $100 or just over $100.

If you had to split this with another person in another car, you won't ever be able to quit your day gig.

It is important to have charisma and to entertain the audience. I'm sure I could do more. I often read the joke section of Reader's digest, look at clean joke books, or listen to the clean joke station on my satelite radio. These give me a lot of good ideas for patter inbetween songs.

I would say, don't get discouraged. It might take years to get a lot of gigs in your schedule. But practice and make sure you do as good of a job as possible.

When I started, I guess I wasn't as good as I am now, and there are some activity directors who have last heard me 5 - 7 years ago who will not hire me based on what I did back then. Little does it matter that I am a hit at hundreds of nursing and retirement homes.

Good luck!

Beakybird