Piano Bar Etiquette: What would you do?

[Chris Link]

Management probably told the piano guy to get you back up in order to keep a large, drink-buying group in the place.

 

 

[drawback]

So you might get hassled over union issues even if you're sitting down to play a tune for no charge?

 

LOL

 

Especially if it's for no charge.

 

 

[MuzikTeechur]

In this part of the country I've never, ever been asked about the Union Card thing - Boston/North Shore, NH Seacoast.

I'm sure there's a lawyer here who knows better than me, but doesn't Federal Law say something to the effect that you cannot be compelled to join a union as a prerequisite for employment, and you cannot be excluded from working in any establishment/shop/factory on the basis of your union membership (or non-membership)?

Just because you're in a nightclub instead of an auto factory, the Labor Laws aren't somehow suspended.. or are they?

[Chris Link]

In this part of the country I've never, ever been asked about the Union Card thing - Boston/North Shore, NH Seacoast.

I'm sure there's a lawyer here who knows better than me, but doesn't Federal Law say something to the effect that you cannot be compelled to join a union as a prerequisite for employment, and you cannot be excluded from working in any establishment/shop/factory on the basis of your union membership (or non-membership)?

Just because you're in a nightclub instead of an auto factory, the Labor Laws aren't somehow suspended.. or are they?

 

IIRC, it's by state. In a "right to work" state, you cannot be compelled to join a union in order to work in a given business.

 

 

[ProfD]

I do not play on someone else's rig or gig unless they invite me and/or clear it through all concerned parties.

 

Otherwise, along the lines Kanker mentioned, even when cats know I play, if they ask me to sit in, my standard response, no thanks, I'd rather listen to you play.

[Threadslayer]

As far as management's involvement goes, I had the opposite happen once. I was in San Francisco visiting my brother and we spent the day at an outdoor blues festvial at Fort Mason overlooking the bay - an awesome day. We ended up at a well-known Market St. eatery seated right next to an unoccupied grand piano. Well, after an entire afternoon drinking beer, eating crawdads and listening to some fine blues I really had my mojo working and my course of action was clear. I hopped on the piano and unleashed the hounds of hell. About 5 minutes in, a young waitress flounced up and just went up one side of me and down the other. "You can't do that! We PAY someone to do that! If the manager were here he'd throw you out. Stop it immediately!". So I wrapped up my tune with a brief outro, got up and went back to my table to a very nice hand from the crowd. We ordered dinner, and after about 15 minutes I saw the bartender talking to a guy who was obviously the manager and pointing at me. I figured "uh-oh, here it comes". Sure enough, he made a beeline for our table, got right in my face and said... "I'm terribly sorry that you were treated so rudely. The employee who spoke to you is very new and doesn't know how to handle herself. I understand that you play very well and am sorry I missed the performance. Please enjoy your dinner on the house and come back to visit us the next time you're in town."

[Garrafon]

I will offer a different point of view. It was HIS piano bar gig. In that situation, I'm thinking that ego isn't a big issue. So, HE was getting paid for YOU to do his work. Works for me!

 

Anyone want to sit in on my "day job" and do my work for me?

[Bill H.]

You know you shouldn't have done that without asking first Dan, so let's not even go there. But hey - you're two thousand miles away from home and will never see the joint again, so why not huh?

 

If the manager wanted you to stop, believe me he would have told you so himself. That line is a typical ploy used by piano bar musicians to get drunks off the piano. It happens all the time. They usually aren't any good though.

 

When I played piano bars "Don't Stop Believin'" was a common request, but practically no one knew the title of the song. "Play street lights people" was the usual way it came out.

 

I remember this one guy who came up and asked me to play "Midnight Train". Cool song I thought - finally a decent request for the night, so I started right into "Midnight Train to Georgia".

 

"No not that one!" he shouted out. Then he started to sing in a loud off key voice "Midnight train going anywhere....."

 

[Tonysounds]

But before I start, I rip into a few admittedly hot-dogging blues licks, and the guy says, "Oh, well he plays jazz, he plays jazz!" (I can't play jazz.). The dude went away after I played for a little bit.....probably off to challenge his friends at doing watermelon shots.

 

 

GUNSLINGER!!!

[drawback]

I will offer a different point of view. It was HIS piano bar gig. In that situation, I'm thinking that ego isn't a big issue. So, HE was getting paid for YOU to do his work. Works for me!

 

Anyone want to sit in on my "day job" and do my work for me?

 

I'm with those who believe it is not cool. However, Garrafon's post got me thinking it would be helpful if it happens at my gig.

 

"Can you play Piano Man?"

"No, but I'm sure that guy can!"

 

 

 

[JeffLearman]

but it's rare and IIRC usually comes with "Unless you have a union card ...."

 

So you might get hassled over union issues even if you're sitting down to play a tune for no charge?

I was told that it was an insurance issue. I can imagine various reasonable possibilities, but don't know the facts.

[SK]

It's all in the attitude.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijioI5wQ4hM&feature=related :grin:

[DanS]

It's all in the attitude.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijioI5wQ4hM&feature=related :grin:

 

Sweety, go get your lips pressed, split!

[Adan]

It's all in the attitude.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijioI5wQ4hM&feature=related :grin:

 

I never considered how difficult it would be to lip sync if you're Jerry Lewis.

[Eric VB]

We were in the bar and a guy was playing the baby grand and was very good - playing jazz and standards, suit, the whole thing you would expect of a piano bar.

(Emphasis added.) I have to think that this is the reason management (and I do believe it was management, not the pianist) asked you to stop playing.

 

They must have a certain image they wish to maintain for their lounge. Imagine how another guest would feel, wishing to have a nightcap and relax to some jazz piano, when he rounds the corner to a rousing Top 40 sing-along?

 

It's like wanting to use the hotel pool for a few relaxing laps, or to relax in the whirlpool for a few minutes after a long, stressful day. Nothing more of a killjoy than to have the place full of misbehaving kids, running around and screaming.

 

Another possibility is your group may have been too loud and was disturbing other guests. (I've stayed at places where guest rooms were located above the banquet halls and you could hear the band at an ongoing wedding reception.)

[Eric VB]

OT: the union card thing.

 

We ran into this in Windsor (Canada) over a decade ago. The band on stage had challenged the audience to volleyball for drinks. (The place had an outdoor sand court.) We were in the audience, told them we were a band and wanted to play for one song on stage. Immediately they asked if we were union members and said we could not take the stage if we were not. We weren't so that was the end of that.

 

Sure, possibly that's a great way to keep people off your stage at your gig without any drama. (Union guys aren't going to ask to get on stage now are they?)

[MikeT156]

Maybe Musician Unions still have some influence in cities, but they certainly don't where I live. I belonged to the Musicians Union years ago and dropped out, there was NO benefit in belonging to the Union except it put money in the pocket of the local and national union. It is powerless to do anything of worth for its members anymore. The hey-day of unions is long gone. In a sense, that's too bad. Stores like Commie-Mart would not be as big and rich as they are if they could not exploit their workers as they do in the 21st century.

 

 

Mike T.

[Mickey Keys]

I've been in that exact same situation on both sides (as a patron being asked to play, and as a pianist responsing).

 

I was in the "patron asked to play" scenario once. Guess it depends on the circumstances. Turned out to be a memorable night.

 

Was vacationing in an all-inclusive resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica with my wife at the time. They had a piano bar that was pretty busy every night after the dinner hour. Sometimes the player (a local fellow in his mid-20's who liked to party) sang, often it was a singalong. Well, we befriended the guy and it wasn't long before we got to talking about playing. He was a big Elton John/Billy Joel fan, like me, and was bemoaning his inability to work out some of the songs or find accurate charts or sheet music.

 

One night we walked in and saw the poor kid with his face in his hands on the bar. The barmaid said he was hung over out of his mind with a throbbing head and needed a couple of hours before he'd be able to tell the black keys from the white ones. The crowd was piling in and the kid could have lost his job.

 

Into the breach I stepped, started with "Candle In The Wind" and moved on from there. He was ready to go in about an hour and a half and finished out the night.

 

By then I'd gone thru most of both "Greatest Hits" albums, and thrown in "Piano Man" and "Italian Restaurant" for good measure. I was a bit afraid that I'd hear calls of "play something else" but the patrons ate it up. I was a little looped myself (all-inclusive meant your bar tab as well), and so had stuck to stuff I knew I wouldn't screw up.

 

After getting back home, I sent him some EJ charts and got a touching letter telling me how that night was the most fun he'd had since taking the job, thanks for the charts AND for bailing him out, the patrons love the songs I taught him and he's my friend for life.

 

We never, however, continued the correspondence . . .

 

 

[Garrafon]

I can't believe these jerks had the audacity to take over at the piano bar....

 

 

What's the union going to do? It must be right after the video ends that management tells him to get off the piano...

 

 

[J. Dan]

I kind of eluded to it, but I was pretty hammered. In fact I didn't know if I'd be able to play - I don't drink like that at gigs, but it was OK, from what I hear (if you trust that). That being said, I attribute that to the fact that I even sat down in the first place - I wouldn't normally do that. But the fact he invited me back made me figure it was ok - kind of confused me to be honest.

 

As far as the tab goes, we have expense accounts - there were probably 10 tabs going, all Emerson, including one by me. I talked to a coworker from Louisiana yesterday who said he was next door to the bar and heard the whole thing transpire and enjoyed it and wanted to come see me but I was gone before he came over.

 

Probably another contributing factor was that we have a number of these kind of meetings, and everybody (across the country) knows I play, and always wants me to at the meetings, and I never do. In fact I had a co-worker from Houston ask if my band would be providing the entertainment. So it just seemed like the opportunity to entertain them.

 

The stars aligned and I did it, but I guess I know I shouldn't have.

[Dave Ferris]

It's all in the attitude.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijioI5wQ4hM&feature=related :grin:

 

 

[Moonglow]

.....there were probably 10 tabs going, all Emerson.....

So Carl and Greg weren't drinking?

[Pulse Field]

OK, so I was in Phoenix for 4 days for a meeting. It was significant, we occupied a large portion of the resort and most of the conference rooms during that time. Of course, everyone hit the resort bar in the evening.

 

A lot of my co-workers across the country are aware I play music. We were in the bar and a guy was playing the baby grand and was very good - playing jazz and standards, suit, the whole thing you would expect of a piano bar. Goes on break, nowhere to be seen, everybody starts rallying to get me to play somehting. I'm like no, I shouldn't do that - that's not cool, you don't just jump in, etc. Well I was pretty intoxicated too, so they talked me into it. So I sit and just jump into some Journey - sure to be a crowd pleaser in this group. And before long we got the whole sing-along anthem going on with everybody cheering wildly. Soon the guy comes over and says I'm sorry I gotta ask you to stop. I immediately stooped and apologized profusely and said I know I shouldn't have done that, they were all just really pressuring me. He's like no it was great, it's just management doesn't like it, otherwise it's fine with me. I made sure I told him how much of a better player he is than me, I just catered to the crowd, etc.

 

So then later he's on break again. This time he's standing there, and people are asking me to play more. I look at him and he's like, go ahead. I'm like, you sure? He says yeah go ahead. So I did, and it wasn't long before he's like, OK they want me to ask you to stop, sorry. And I just felt like I probably shouldn't have done it. I hope I didn't put him in a difficult situation.

 

So the question: what would you do, and what is proper etiquette in those situations. I've never really done that before - I always thought it was inappropriate. But the entire bar was our folks, so I figured it was OK.

 

 

this is a pretty interesting little "case study"!

 

Here's how I see the relevant points:

 

* big multiday corporate event at a dedicated facility

* serious, professional piano player goes on break

* no "please don't touch" sign on or near the piano

* you were drunk

* so were your coworkers

* after protracted urging you started playing

* piano player returns from break, asks you to stop playing

* you stop playing and apologize

* later on the piano player goes on break again but stays near the piano this time, obviously knowing exactly what's about to happen

* even drunker coworkers insist you play again

* even drunker you wants to play again

* even drunker you delegates awkward decision-making responsibility to someone else instead of making the call yourself

* professional pianist tries to find a diplomatic way to keep the situation from getting out of hand

* and succeeds by letting you play one more song before cutting you off again

 

 

The first time you sat down to play was perfectly understandable. There was nothing that clearly said you COULDN'T play there. Ideally you would have asked the bartender if it was okay. That's not really the bartender's call, but at least you're checking with the people who run the conference center.

 

But you buckled to peer pressure.

 

The piano player handled it EXTREMELY tactfully. That's one reason why he's a pro, that's why he gets solo primetime gigs at a resort like that instead of playing for beer at some dive.

 

But the SECOND time, you had no excuses. He'd already told you that it wasn't okay for you to play there. You and your coworkers should have respected that. But by even looking over at him for "permission", you were in essence calling him a liar in front of your coworkers, or at best asking him to overrule his management, which for all you know could get him fired. Did you think that the manager had suddenly changed the don't-touch policy during the second set because you did such a great job playing Journey?

 

Which, as other people have already pointed out, isn't the kind of music this guy was specifically hired in to play in that place at that time. That's not the kind of entertainment the conference center's management wants going on in their place of business.

 

The reality is that you were drunk, you wanted to be the center of attention, your coworkers were drunk and wanted a little mindless debauchery for awhile instead of having to follow all the rules and play the BS little nicey-nice games that people have to play at one of those kinds of events. They wanted to take over the joint for a few hours of anarchy, with no responsibility.

 

And the conference center staff are probably VERY experienced with this scenario, and they have pretty strict rules in place to keep their clientele from getting out of hand (which not only raises potential liability issues for the conference center, but also FOR YOUR OWN COMPANY).

 

This was not a local nightclub where people randomly wander in for a few hours and then go back to their lives. This wasn't a "vacation" resort or a cruise ship lounge. This was a professional meeting environment geared towards making corporate events (which by definition are very serious, VERY expensive things) run smoothly. So the "bar" in a place like that operates on completely different rules than a "real" bar. They may outwardly look very similar, but they are two entirely different places.

 

You didn't say when during the four days this happened, but I'm guessing it wasn't the last night or you would have said so. So you could have just waited until the next morning, asked to speak with the manager and possibly arranged a mutually convenient time for you to play for your coworkers, either in that bar or somewhere else on the property. Or the manager would have delicately explained all this to you without the pressure and potential for ugliness that was there in the scenario that actually occurred.

 

So here are some little bits of advice I can give you for how to handle yourself in situations like this:

 

* don't get anywhere close to intoxication at a corporate outing, nomatter how long or excruciating they are, and nomatter how much you like to party. You can get 'faced on your own time back home.

 

* Hanging around the conference center's bar after the day's activities IS NOT "your own time". Your company is still paying for you to be there, and you are still representing your company in public.

 

* Don't ever put yourself in a situation where your coworkers can use you as the "mark" to break the rules, which is basically what was happening here.

 

* when in doubt what to do in any situation, your best option is almost always to DO NOTHING until you have the time (and the mental state) to better size up the situation and come up with more options

 

* people do things and make decisions in a crowd, on the spur of the moment, that they would never dream of doing on their own. And 99 times out of 100, those decisions are VERY BAD ONES. That's especially the case where alcohol or other intoxicants are involved.

 

* when someone rightfully asks you to stop doing something, that means DON'T DO IT AGAIN. Period.

 

hth,

[Adan]

 

* don't get anywhere close to intoxication at a corporate outing,

 

Speaking for myself, it would easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to follow advice like this.

[David Loving]

PulseField is right on the bullseye. It's always a big mistake to get drunk at company events - as you can see here, chances are one makes a fool of one's self, and that will often bleed over into personnel decisions. Unless of course the day gig doesn't matter.

[J. Dan]

* even drunker you delegates awkward decision-making responsibility to someone else instead of making the call yourself

* professional pianist tries to find a diplomatic way to keep the situation from getting out of hand

* and succeeds by letting you play one more song before cutting you off again

 

This is not accurate. A couple coworkers were egging me one the second time and I was saying no. I did not ask the piano guy and was not talking to him at all. He stepped in and said "no, go ahead". I said "really, are you sure?". He said "yeah go ahead". I was flat out saying no to my co-workers before that.

 

I don't know if it makes a difference. But these are all sales guys and this is pretty much par for the course at these sourts of things. They all party pretty hard in the evenings, but know where to draw the line.

 

I felt like the second time was more acceptable because I had an invitation from the piano player and the first time I did not. I don't know why he jumped in and encouraged me to do it.

[SpaceNorman]

In my mind, your first tune was the major transgression. While it may have been a "furniture piano" - the reality is that you jumped up and started playing another man's gig rig without an invite. What would your reaction have been have somebody did that at one of your gigs? An unattended / idle piano in a bar is one thing ... jumping up while a guy is on break is another. Start playing my rig without an invite while I'm on break sometime and you certainly won't be wondering IF you crossed a line a couple days later.

 

Just saying....

[Cygnus64]

they were all just really pressuring me.

 

This is one of the times that a lil white lie comes in handy:

 

"I have a hand injury and gotta lay low, Doctors orders" or something similar. It's inarguable and people will stop bugging you.

 

Allow me to share some unsolicited advice to my musical brethren, the greatest bit of knowledge I can offer:

 

If there is anything in life, anything, that you don't wish to do, remember 3 golden words.

 

1. I

2. Have

3. Diarrhea

 

This will get you out of ANYTHING. Don't want to get married the day of the wedding? "I have diarrhea". Don't want to go to your bosses son's Bar Mitzvah? Diarrhea. Linebacker at the bar wants to kick your a$$ 'cause you spoke to his gal? Yup, you guessed it. The D word. Just uttering this most-powerful word will freeze a schoolyard bully in their tracks. It's the most powerful word ever, and those that have the cajones to dare and utter it reap rich rewards.

[SK]

Since I only posted an unhelpful Jerry Lewis vid, I'll try to be a little helpful (as a fallback, if Cygnus's solution doesn't work.)

 

I think you've given this enough thought. The fact that you questioned if it was the right thing to do is enough to make you more considerate next time. I don't think you did anything terribly wrong. It's also not a big deal - the pianist knew he was playing for a party and should have anticipated the unexpected - the nature of the beast when playing parties.

 

The posts that say you were too drunk to do this may be a little harsh. Unless you were, in which case, yeah, not a good call when inebriated.

 

Here's my take:

 

Ask the pianist. If he says the management doesn't allow it (which may or may not be true), or if he needs to ask the manager, say "Thanks, don't bother, I understand, but thanks anyway." End of story.

 

Go back and tell the party that if they really want you to play, they have to clear it with the manager AND the pianist.

 

If they want to hear you that badly, they will make the effort. If your party is making money for the manager, he would probably be fine with it, and the pianist will accept the manager's call. He may actually be glad you took over and gave him a break. (If I was playing for a loud, drunk party, I'd be thrilled to let someone else have a crack at it.)

 

But get the party to set it up. It's not up to you to go through that clearance, possible embarrassment, and play for free on top of it.

 

If you get clearance, I would play on one break only. Any further playing would be AFTER the pianist's gig is over. If the party demands that you play again, tell them "maybe when he's finished playing, not before." This way, you're in control of if and when you play, not any one else. (Refer to Jerry Lewis's crowd control tips.)

 

And it depends on the nature of the gig. If OTHER people are there to hear the other pianist, then taking over the room at any point is a BAD idea. If it happened on one of my gigs, the manager would ask the mystery pianist to stop, and if he didn't, he would be asked to leave. But if I knew the pianist and was comfortable with it, I might just ask him to sit in myself.