Are you travelling to a family event, or organizing an event at home which will be attended by family from far away? Now is your chance to record them all singing dancing and playing musi c instruments. They could be reciting poems. those not invited to give a speech could be asked for a quotation or proverb - in English or another language translated, a piece of advice for harmony at home for a married couple.
To open your video, you could use a recording of local music and picture of musicians taken on holiday, or even a sculpture.
To open your video, you could use a recording of local music and picture of musicians taken on holiday, or even a sculpture.
Amusing cartoon in tiled wall in the Ladies toilets in Singapore.
Harpist at Writers' holiday in Fishguard, Wales.
Uncle Ronnie
At a family event, our son's coming of age party in the 1990s, I wanted my beloved Ronnie uncle on my mother's side of the family to play at least one piece of music. He played the piano and violin and taught many other instruments including the trumpet.
My family vetoed the idea of anybody in the family playing music on the grounds that family were invited because we wanted to talk to them. They should not have the stress of needing to perform and carry along their instruments.
No Unpaid Work!
Nor should they be performing unpaid or thinking they were invited only because we wanted to them to play music and save us money. In the event, we invited a neighbour to perform a couple of comic songs which our son liked.
My uncle Ronnie on another occasion told me how he was asked to play in people's living rooms but always refused. He said, "It's very unprofessional".
What he meant was that you could not expect to get paid properly if you were constantly performing unpaid, like an amateur needing publicity, looking for work.
Rest Needed
Besides, you needed to rest, have a change of activity, on your evening or day off.
As for the rest, that cannot be entirely true. After Ronnie died, a friend of his told me that he often called on Ronnie but when he rang the bell could not be heard, because Ronnie, all by himself, was sitting playing away on the piano.
Undiscovered Skills
Now, looking back years later, I regret not having the uncles playing music. I had three family members who played music. The only one I knew about was Ronnie, who played in the BBC radio orchestra.
Musical Monty
Uncle Monty, related to both sides of the family (because I married a distant cousin, a second cousin), was considered just an amateur musician, who had a better paid office job. However, I later learned that Monty had a second job, possibly after retirement, as a session musician. (A backing musician for recordings of bands and soloists, himself not featured, often unnamed, uncredited, perhaps paid a one-off fee for performing.)
Musical Ken
Another pianist was Ken, a third cousin by marriage. He had married the aunt of my husband. Ken was also a very accomplished musician.
They are now all dead. I do not have recordings of any of them playing music. Two of the uncles never married.
Ken had two daughters who I see on Facebook. I am sure they would have loved to have recordings of their father playing music, both as a souvenir for themselves, to have shown his their stepmother when she was widowed, and their children.
Clearly, for any one uncle to have played music at length at a relative's wedding would have been tiring and unfair on him. To pick one uncle and not the other two would have had the opposite effect, to have given him a pleasure and prominence denied to the others, causing jealousy that he was chosen to perform, as if the others were not real musicians.
In theory, I could have recorded them all on video later. But at the event we had an organized video, not available later.
Piano Playing Parents
I still have my parents' piano. But no video or even a photo of either of them sitting at the piano. Most people have photos of their parents. Unless they are professional musicians, you are unlikely to have a picture of them playing the piano. On your next trip to see them, when looking for an interesting action photo, get them to play the piano. Maybe get all the musicians in the family to play an instrument, even the primary school child (called elementary school in the USA) with a recorder.
You can add in those who don't play music in the photo. Add the toddler with a Fisher Price baby piano. Take along a triangle or marrakas. Add your holiday souvenir castanets.
My parents at their wedding.
What I would have loved, would have been a compilation of all the musicians in the family, each playing a piece of music, or singing a song. One would need a tough m.c. to time limit each piece and tell them they could play a second piece later, after each person had played one piece. Or maybe time it with one person playing before dinner, one after the starter, one after the main course, one after dessert.
The moral for you is this:
If you are having a professional video, include a talent show so that all the members of the family who play an instrument or sing or dance or do stand up comedy can have their two minutes of recorded fame. At very lease, record yourself or the voice over asking them about their music tastes and abilities. Also ask them if they have appeared anywhere on film or TV or radio. In years to come you might be able to track down a recording of them acting, singing or playing.
You can then use that recording for later birthdays, or even to raise a smile as part of a funeral or memorial service.
Music Lovers Who Only Listen
If you have no musicians in the family - but you love music, what can you do. A video of your family holiday or honeymoon to an opera house could include a picture of you outside the opera house, inside the opera house, or by the statue of a musician.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have other posts on music, including Freddie Mercury, musicians' statues worldwide, Amy Winehouse, and Handel in London. Please share links to your favourite posts.
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