I think more important than what you play is your overall impression and how that fits in with the image of the person hiring you. Often, people have a Disney-esque image of what the Renaissance was and who knows what impression of the Baroque (wigs and make up). Of course you are in Europe where the level of understanding of this sort of thing by the general public is much higher than in America or Japan so your milage may vary. However, if there are a few pieces you know by heart or, like you said, can improvise, it might be cool to start your set with nothing on the music stand. To what extent you want to take this, eye contact, standing, walking around and playing, is up to you and the situation.
Hope you make some videos. My two yen, (which aren't worth too much, except against the dollar) On Aug 17, 2010, at 3:16 AM, David van Ooijen wrote: All Coming Saturday I am to play for two hours during a dinner. The request was for early-Baroque dance music, but I think that can be interpreted as anything between 1500 and 1700 of a lively nature. I'll bring a pile of music, so no fear of silence - and I can improvise music of a lively nature for hours on end - but could people with some experience in this sort of thing tell me what they usually play? Ideally I'd just put one or two books on my music stand and play through these. I'll now walk to my music shelves and see with what sort of one-stop solution I can come up with, but I'm sure some of you will be even faster. ;-) David - lively by nature -- ******************************* David van Ooijen [1][email protected] www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [2][email protected] [3]http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ -- References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. mailto:[email protected] 3. http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
