Guitar Lessons in Tulsa | Performing at Weddings
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
For about three years. I have focused a lot of attention on marketing and performing at weddings as a guitar player. And the reason that I focused my attention on specifying towards weddings is that weddings are actually really fun. It’s always a good time. People are in a good mood and to provide music for that environment is such a fun thing to do. And so I spent some money getting connections with the wedding industry and advertising for different bridal magazines here in Tulsa, Oklahoma and it was a great experience. I really enjoyed getting connected to that group of people. And as far as actually performing for weddings, it really is an enjoyable experience. I really haven’t had any situations that have been ridiculously terrible. Because I took guitar lessons in Tulsa, I was able to perfect my craft and caused me to be interested in performing at weddings.
I really do come prepared so there’s never really a chance that I’m going to screw up or play the wrong song at the wrong time or whatever. I make sure that the entire day is meticulously prepared throughout the practice. So that’s kind of what I do for the guitar. Every once in awhile, a couple will request me to play not only guitar, but also piano, which usually isn’t a big deal. That the most difficult thing about that is just the fact that typically there’s not a piano provided. So that causes me to have to bring my giant keyboard and it’s kind of a hassle to, to bring that. But other than that, the set up, once it’s set up, it’s not a big deal jumping back and forth between piano or a guitar. The only reason I play guitar far more than piano is that typically pianos are not provided, so that wouldn’t be very easy to do that. Um, but yeah, there’s lots of bridal magazines and we’ve also had the opportunity to play at the Tulsa wedding show, which is a, an event that happens twice each year.
It’s typically about four hours or so notes, six hours. And that’s a long day. But it’s awesome getting to be in communication with different brides and hear what other people are planning for their wedding. And that’s, that’s a great time to be able to do that. So I highly encourage you, if you’re planning on getting married, go ahead and go to the Tulsa wedding show. So usually at the Renaissance Hotel and you can go there and get your tickets early because they do go quickly and you can check out different vendors and you’ll probably see me there. But anyway, as far as the actual preparation for weddings, uh, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk about today. And as I prepare for weddings, what I do is leading up to the wedding, I typically practice about one hour a week if it is any time before a month from the wedding.
So for instance, if it is June and I have a wedding in December, I’m probably not going to practice more than one hour a week for that wedding all the way in December. Once it becomes November, then I’m going to start preparing quite a bit more and to spend a little bit more time on that wedding in December. But prior to those months, it’s not going to cause me to spend a lot of time practicing. However, some wedding packages I offer to actually record myself, claim the songs that they have requested during pivotal moments in their wedding day.
So for instance, if I am playing for the bridal entrant during the ceremony, that’s definitely a song that I’m going to end up recording so and I’ll send it to them about a month before their wedding. That way they can hear it and make sure that it sounds good for the bride as she’s walking down the aisle. Because you definitely don’t want to just be hoping that it’s going to sound good, especially because some people have an idea of what a song is going to sound like, but when you’re just playing it on acoustic guitar for better or worse, it’s going to sound much different than the original song, which was probably recorded with drums and electric guitars, pianos, you know, it will have many different instruments. And so because of that, I want to give them a demo to make sure that they enjoy the song and that that’s the song that they want to pitch. So that is something that is very important. That’s not just going to happen for the bridal entrance. That’s also going to happen for the wedding party entrance. Recorded demos are very important. In fact, recording yourself performing in general is very important. Even if you’re just taking guitar lessons in Tulsa, it’s important to record yourself playing.
If they have a different song for that, if they’re going to have a first dance where a father daughter dance or a mother son dance, um, that is definitely going to be something that is recorded because you definitely don’t want to just be guessing what the song is going to sound like and then you get up there for your first day on and then it’s way faster than what you had been practicing your dad’s on or it’s way slower. It can just be a very difficult thing if you have no idea what that is supposed to sound like. So if you take guitar lessons in Tulsa, one of the things that you may be interested in as your goal is to perform. And so I highly encourage you if you’re taking guitar lessons in Tulsa, make it your goal to be able to play at different venues at different locations. For me, I really focused on weddings and it was a great experience. I still do play at weddings. In fact, I just got done recording two different wedding demos today. So today I spent some time on my normal day off to come to this studio and record two separate ceremony music sessions. So, um, I still do weddings. It’s enjoyable. I don’t do it quite as often because as a guitar instructor in Tulsa, I teach full time. That’s my main source of energy.
So that’s where I typically spend my time. But maybe you’re taking guitar lessons in Tulsa and you’re just thinking, I don’t necessarily want to perform anywhere. I just want to be able to sit with my family at a family reunion and play some of our favorite songs. And that’s a great goal for you. And even if weddings, is it your goal, it’s a great opportunity for you to learn an instrument and to play it in front of your family. And you may, once you start performing and you start playing just for your family, it may be such a great experience that you might actually be motivated to take it the next level. And who knows? You may end up playing at weddings. If you are interested in taking your music to the next level, I would love to help you get to the place where you could color perform at weddings, especially for the guitar or for the piano.
So when I send the demo, I haven’t actually had many situations where they write back and they want the song done a different way. But you never know. There’s some people that might not like the way that I have prepared this song, which would be unfortunate since I’ve worked so hard on it through guitar lessons in Tulsa. And if that’s the case, that’s okay. I’m glad that they told me rather than just pretending like they like it and then come to their wedding day and they have no interest in the song that is being played. So you just never know. But that is something that you have to be mindful of. If you’re going to send a demo, make sure it’s really good because they could come back and tell you that it’s not something that they like. So that’s kind of my main spiel for today.