Originally Posted By: travlin'easy
I agree wholeheartedly with Don - you have to please the staff as well as the residents.


I’m quoting Gary quoting Don here. This can't be emphasized enough these days. It's a constant struggle and a constant balancing act. Forgot playing music. To deal with staff, you need the charm of a Cary Grant, the charisma of a Clark Gable, the legs of Betty Grable, the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the power and finances of Donald Trump (so you can tell half of them where to go).

I'm hoping it's less difficult for the rest of you, but where I live it's really an uphill battle with this new breed of AD's. Each one is unique and ripe for character study.

I'm trying to figure out how to play for the Seniors (for the daytime gravy money) without having to go through the AD's. It's a delight working with them if I can figure out how to bypass the AD.

But......I really meant to say that......Don made me realize why I'm not enjoying playing a lot these days....AD's

A suggestion though getting back to the subject of the post.

Years ago when I first started playing and I realized I would be doing this for a living, I kept a "song diary." In it I wrote the title of any and every song or song title I ever encountered. What I heard on the radio, television, what was mentioned in conversation, what I read in newspapers and magazine articles, what I thought up myself, etc. I classified each song......ballad, fox trot, Latin, Strauss waltz, ethnic, Classical, slow, fast, etc. Also I rated each song 1-10 as to what I thought audiences responded to the most. I also marked songs that I sing. And songs that are specific to certain instruments.....piano, accordion, and arranger.

Finally when computers came along I took the time to make an enormous database of songs. Now, say I'm doing a piano solo, I simply call up all "piano" songs. If I'm doing an Oktoberfest job, I call up all German songs, Senior's...I call up all sing-a-longs and songs from the 30-40's. And so on.

I just checked the number of entries in my database. 2,278 song titles. All the hard work is over.......what a time to be considering giving up music!!!

Mark