4/11/2008
Jazz Trio
Entertainment Articles
| You may find this set of articles useful if you are organising a wedding, corporate event or party in the UK... Wedding Band Wedding Band information. |
| Wedding DJ / Wedding DJ Music Wedding DJ information and Wedding DJ Music. |
| Wedding Entertainment / Wedding Entertainer Wedding Entertainment information and Wedding Entertainer. |
| Wedding Marquees Wedding Marquee information. |
| Wedding Photography / Wedding Photographer Wedding Photography information and Wedding Photographer. |
| Wedding Reception Band / Wedding Reception Song Wedding Reception Band information and Wedding Reception Song. |
| Wedding Reception Dance / Wedding Reception Dance Music Wedding Reception Dance information and Wedding Reception Dance Music. |
| Wedding Reception Location / Reception Location Wedding Reception Location information and Reception Location. |
| Wedding Reception Venues / Wedding Reception Venue Wedding Reception Venues information and Wedding Reception Venue. |
| Wedding Florists Wedding Florists information. |
| Wedding Services and Wedding Services Directory Wedding Services and Wedding Services Directory information. |
| Wedding Venues / Wedding Venue Wedding Venues information and Wedding Venue. |
| Church Wedding Music Church Wedding Music information. |
| Harp Wedding Music Harp Wedding Music information. |
| Popular Reception Music Popular Reception Music information. |
| Christian Wedding Music Christian Wedding Music: Tips to help you plan your Christian Wedding Music.. |
| Jewish Wedding Music Jewish Wedding Music information. |
| Muslim Wedding Music Muslim Wedding Music: Tips to help you plan your Muslim Wedding Music. |
| Hindu Wedding Music Hindu Wedding Music: Tips to help you plan your Hindu Wedding Music. If you have original articles related to music, bands or entertainment, you can submit them to be published on the articles page by email to admin@lastminutemusicians.com |
3/31/2008
Bands for Hire
Bands for Hire
How to choose your band for hire and how much should it cost?
Choosing a band for hire is a major part of organising your event and making the right choice can often mean for your guests the difference between a successful, memorable occasion and a wasted evening out that should quickly be forgotten. There are, however, thousands of bands out there, as well as numerous agents trying to convince you to part with as much money as possible. Here follows some advice to help make the right choice and avoid the price pitfalls.
Deciding on style and some ideas.
The style of band you choose to hire will reflect the atmosphere you are trying to create at the event. You may be interested in our article on live music entertainment, which will offer more information on this. Style will firstly reflect the purpose of the music in the event; background music, dancing, show case, homage etc and will secondly be in keeping with the tastes of the expected guests. Any themes designed into the evening should also be reflected by the choice of musical style. For example a rat pack band might be suitable to accompany a 50’s theme night or a movie stars evening, but would not be suitable for an English country garden, or 70’s disco!
For background music, options may include a jazz trio or swing band, a palm court trio, woodwind ensemble or cocktail piano player. A rock band, tribute band, 60s-00’s band, function band, funk band or latin band might cater for dancing, although other popular choices to hire are a bigband, a ceilidh band with caller or even a Mexican Mariachi band!
So how much should you pay?
Generally speaking, the price of your band will depend on two things: a) the number of musicians and b) how long they are required for. Remember that you are paying professionals for their time, so even if they are not performing they are still entitled to charge for their time. Keep this in mind when planning your entertainment and try not to have the musicians hanging around for too long. By the same token, however, bands will also need breaks, usually at least 15 minutes for every hour and an experienced event planner will plan these to coincide with other entertainment or interim periods such as speeches. As a guideline, individual musicians will usually charge between £150 and £300 for most functions. This will be more if they are required for long periods of time. By multiplying this out therefore, it should be possible to estimate a reasonable cost for the band you a hiring. £900 for example, therefore, would be a high price to pay for a trio. Less than £450 and you might be getting a great bargain, but be sure to exercise caution here. You usually get what you pay for and scrimping on the price might mean scrimping on the quality too. General good advice for any entertainment service is to make sure you have as much information as possible on an act before engaging them. Professional acts will have promotional packs with information, photos, repertoire and normally audio or visual samples of their work.
Significant extra charges to the above are to be expected if you are booking a ‘name’ or if the band use any particular equipment or include spectacular displays in their performance. Other reasonable additional expenses, which may be added to the total cost, include travel expenses and any parking. It is customary also to provide bands with food and refreshments, so this should also be budgeted for.
Good luck in choosing your band for hire.
What next?
If you live in London or the South East try browsing live bands for hire. If you live further a field, search the directory for live bands near you.
Related Articles:
Choosing the right music for your corporate eventHints and Tips for choosing corporate event music.
A selection of articles on topics relating to weddings!
Trying to find music for hire? Read on.
Live Band
Live band or DJ at your event?
Live Music Entertainment
Are you planning live music entertainment at your next event?
10/09/2007
Wedding DJ
The job of the wedding DJ is not simply about playing music. The job of the good wedding DJ is about playing music that continuously reflects and enhances the mood of the room whilst simultaneously appealing to all ages. A good DJ should be able to cater for most requests and blend them well into the overall mood of the evening.So where do you find your DJ? Well the first thing to do is to search our directory for a wedding DJ. Contact a few and ensure that you speak to each directly and at some length. Deciding on which DJ to employ always carries some risk, but you should be able to gauge a lot from speaking with them on the phone. Firstly how interested do they seem about accommodating your specific taste in music? How large is their collection? How do they organise it? Are they adept and prepared to accommodate requests? Try to assess their professionalism; how do they react to the idea of drinking on the job? Some cowboy DJs care more about any free drink they can get than the job they are supposed to be doing. In conversation it is easy to drop in a few questions or comments about music that you know about or are interested in. Are you satisfied that their answers reflect a genuine knowledge of music on their part? Also ask about the equipment they use. If you haven’t heard of any of the equipment brands this is probably a good thing. If you have you may have to worry. Most commercial sound equipment is designed for home use and not necessarily for playing loud music for long periods of time. Professional sound equipment is much more powerful and versatile. Jot any equipment down and check it for quality. The most important thing is to ask lots of questions and preferably see the DJ in action before the event. Best of luck choosing your wedding DJ.
Wedding DJ Music
Wedding DJ music: prepare in advance.
Don’t give your wedding DJ music lists to play throughout the night! Place some trust in them. They are after all the expert and should be experienced in entertaining at all manner of functions. Yes of course it is your special day and you should get exactly what you want, but don’t forget that your taste in music might differ considerably from that of your guests. If your guests don’t hear music that they like you might find they start to make excuses to leave early! Providing all the music in advance also does not leave any room for requests. It is normally considered appropriate to give the DJ a list of 10-15 songs that you would like to hear and also any specific ‘must haves’ such as a song for the first wedding reception dance. If you are still thinking that you want more control over the music the other thing to bear in mind is that over a period of 4 hours a DJ will only play 40-50 songs and most brides and grooms are so busy talking to all the guests that they don’t end up hearing half of the music anyway! The focus should be instead on choosing a personality who you can rely on to entertain and do their job well, rather than trying to do their job for them. See some of our related articles below for more ideas on wedding DJ music.
Wedding Band
The wedding band! It strikes me as sad that such a concept now exists. Yet there it is, hand in hand with the balding DJ and the drunken Uncle. Although granted statistics would most probably prove that a classical string quartet, or an 18 piece jazz band feature more often on the big day it remains that mention the term to anyone and they will dextrously paint you an image of a shoddy bunch of casual, sloppily dressed individuals of very mixed ages, parading tight trousers, mullets and handlebar moustaches like the 80’s never ended, busking together arrangements of Abba’s Dancing Queen or something from the soundtrack of Grease, whilst gyrating their hips and inappropriately shouting things like “Hey…..Everybody on the dance floor”, “Shake your hands in the air like you just don’t care” and “ Aww…look at all the happy couples!”
I first started thinking about this the other day when I read an article about a wedding band from somewhere in the less liberal parts of the great USA, which had been banned from weddings in one state, because the 60 something year old drummer had married the 15 year old singer. Some people were offended and yada yada yada, but I won’t go into that, as ‘critique’ of conservative Americans is not really the point of this article. The question is this: Is it in fact that this musical crossbreed of popular culture is, despite much deliberation and consideration, the only form of entertainment that will appeal to all ages and cater for all tastes? Is this jack of all trades master of none solution the only practical answer to the wedding entertainment problem, or has the wedding band in fact succeeded in wrapping itself in that tenacious self-knitting shawl of wedding tradition? Do mullets and moustaches now belong at weddings as much as white dresses and bridesmaids? The thought is a scary one, though I guess they would count as the bride’s ‘something old’!
One reason for generic wedding band popularity has to be that by the time the band get around to performing everyone is so drunk on the free wine they don’t notice the S-club medley that segues neatly into Axel F. People in the end like music that they know; music that they can sing and dance along too. The actual quality is often somewhat of a moot issue. This is a shame.
For a diverse and varied selection of quality musicians who are campaigning to redefine the meaning of wedding entertainment and who do know their Sinatras from their Spice girls search now for your wedding band!
Music for Hire
Music for hire can mean you are searching for any one of a number of things. We at lastminutemusicians.com can hopefully point you in the right direction for any of them. Firstly and most obviously, are you looking to find and book musicians or a band for your wedding, corporate function, party or other event? If so you are definitely in the right place. Listen to bands here, or search for what you are intere sted in. With everything from a cocktail pianist or solitary violin to a large party band or 20-piece bigband at our disposal, we aim to provide our clients with top quality professionals and excellent and efficient service.
Perhaps you were looking to hire a sound system for your event? If so we can help with this also (click on sound system for detailed information). Along with staging, lighting and stage decoration materials such as Starcloths, we provide an inclusive service and will send our experienced engineers along to your event with the equipment to set everything up advising all the while on the best placements for optimum sound and effect.
Perhaps on searching for music for hire you were in fact looking for sheet music to hire. Sheet music can be very expensive and particularly for larger bands or ensembles, but due to copyright infringements it is not generally available for hire. You may have some luck at local public libraries. Click sheet music to browse the music we have available for sale, or alternatively if you would like a specific arrangement designed for your ensemble by our experienced musicians, simply email: admin@lastminutemusicians.com and we will be happy to discuss this in detail with you. I hope this helped you define what you were looking for in the way of music for hire.
6/11/2005
Wedding Music Advice
Here you will only find quality energetic wedding entertainers, who all perform regularly in London and throughout the UK at wedding ceremonies and wedding receptions.
Most people have some sort of music during their wedding ceremony, and then again at the wedding reception. Read more - http://www.lastminutemusicians.com/services/wedding_bands.html
5/03/2005
Must See Gig!
One of the most charismatic and influential jazz pianists on the planet returns to the Barbican for a rare London concert. Ahmad Jamal was cited by none less than Miles Davis and Bill Evans in the 50s as a key influence. A jazz hitmaker (his Live at the Pershing Lounge from 1958 was a million seller), Ahmad Jamal, now in his mid 70s, remains at the height of his powers, creating an intense and absorbing atmosphere in his live concerts. Bassist James Cammick and drummer Idris Muhammed are perfect partners, carrying with them an uncanny understanding of the pianist’s ability to create dramatic rhythmic and melodic twists and turns - ‘from whisper-quiet meditation to hurricane force’ ( Jazziz ).
4/19/2005
Music and Musicians Resources
3/21/2005
London Jazz Trio
