Over the Holidays I visited Good Day Sacramento, part of CW31’s TV station in Sacramento,
to play holiday music for their morning show.
All in all, we did six segments, each with a different Holiday song. The segments were short… 30 seconds to 4 minutes, and the longest one I was talking with the host Cody for most of the time. And I pulled it off fine.
I didn’t use sheet music, just played from memory, and improvised the chords like I always do. The songs (in order):
- Let it Snow (weather truly was “frightful” the coldest day of the year that I could recall, “but the fire is so delightful…”)
- Santa Claus is Coming to Town (worked out perfectly because Santa Claus literally was at the studio!)
- What Child is This (a favorite of mine for most of my life, one of the inspirations for me to play piano)
- The Christmas Song/Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, I talked with Santa Claus about him singing this, but that didn’t happen, just did a short segment instead.
- We Wish you a Merry Christmas
- Feliz Navidad—- Santa sang along to this!
In the end, I stayed there for three hours hanging out on the set to perform for about 12 minutes ON AIR. Each segment had a long break in between. The thing is, I didn’t decide which songs I was going to do until I was already on the set. That’s because I didn’t know exactly how it would work until I got there.
I didn’t know I would have those six segments. I came up with the choices on the fly because they felt right.
The key was preparation. I have played these songs so many times, it was easy.
I came in with a clear mind and I just created a plan that worked.
My preparation helped me be flexible in the moment to solve the problem at hand.
I’m planning to get the links up on my youtube page to share, but for right now you can watch them here from the Good Day website.