I am starting to put together a piano portfolio as I aim to hopefully pick up some instrumental entertainment/session playing work in the future. You know the kind of jobs I’m talking about, right? A pianist wearing a tuxedo with the ridiculous tails, plinks and plunks away on a piano in the corner of a hotel function room or a cocktail bar as socialites and corporate ladder climbers sip on gin & tonics and eat caviar. Or the pianist who provides romantic ambience in a high end restaurant as couples eat their £200 fillet steaks and dessert plates that are almost entirely empty when the waiter brings them. Yeah, that kind of gig.
The high society nature of this kind of clientele wouldn’t bother me in this situation as I am happy playing piano, regardless of where, when or under what circumstances. If I am getting paid, that’s a bonus. And if you can get this kind of work, it pays well.
I am a long way off needing to buy a tux though as my playing is still only at an intermediate level, but I’m getting better all the time and practising like mad after work each day. Another reason I have been less active on Substack of late. I need lots and lots of paid subscribers so I can afford a tuxedo so,… while I have got you here…
Anyway, I’m putting together a few instrumental piano portfolios of different genres for different occasions that I will eventually publish on a website and use as a video resume/audition aid. One is modern pop songs, one is classical, one is jazz and one is classic pop.
Now I am still in the learning and practising stage with these set-lists but eventually, I’ll need to film the performances to make the videos (duh!). Hiring a venue, cameras, audio equipment and lighting is a lot of work and INCREDIBLY expensive, not to mention hiring a real piano. So I have been experimenting with home videoing myself on my home keyboard to see if I can make it work. I’m gonna need to make a whole lot of videos so working from home would be ideal. Here’s a few photos from my camera test…
This video is the result of one of my experiments. It’s filmed with my smartphone on a tripod, in my living room and lit with fake candles and a light up model of the moon that we bought my son for Christmas a few years back. It looks tacky and cheap but it has highlighted what I need to work on so, all things considered - ‘experiment failed successfully’. I need better lighting and blocking: a higher resolution camera, adjustable booms for better angles, and perhaps more space.
In my next attempt, I’ll try to alleviate some of these issues and hopefully, increase the quality of my output incrementally.
The piece that I am playing is one of the movements from the Rob Dougan song ‘Clubbed To Death’ that featured on the soundtrack of The Matrix (Warner Brothers 1999) in the ‘woman in the red dress’ scene. Although this movement of the song doesn’t happen to feature at all during the runtime of the film, but it is on the soundtrack. It’s one of my favourite pieces ever written and I have always loved playing it.
Dougan himself adapted this piece from the first movement of Edward Elgar's ‘Enigma Variations’, a piece, or a set of pieces that are supposed to be adapted into new iterations, hence the name. Dougan wrote the whole song, including this piano part as his attempt at a ‘variation’ offering.
I have spliced together 5 takes, shot at 5 different angles/distances to try and make the video seem more interesting. That’s the problem with filming piano performances; they’re a little bland to watch. I have managed spruced it up with some recolouring and filters in MovieMaker so it looks slightly more professional and eye-catching.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening/reading…
Pete Brennan (Music)
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