The sites we serve keep paper or digital "comm books" where they notate any happenings with their residents and this information gets passed from shift to shift, with aides and med techs initialing the entries as they read them: Bessy fell and broke her hip this morning at 11:00am on the way out of the dining room. Is now admitted to which hospital. Clark is returning from his hip surgery and care at a skilled nursing at 03:00pm. Mable got into a fight with her table mate Josie at lunch over the cute new guy who just moved into apartment 311 and Mable now has a minor skin tear from Josie's fork. Josie is banned from the dining room for the rest of the week. (Okay, not sure how that works exactly. But these things DO happen.) As we progress as performers and business people, the demand for our services goes up, and keeping good communication records that make life easier and not harder for ourselves, AND our clients needs to be a priority. I brought this up in another thread, but here's a recap : Some LED's are notorious for replying to your latest invoice, or an unrelated thread, with a service request. I'd prefer they start a new service request email thread, with ALL details laid out from the start, but this would create more work for them, and we don't want to be "difficult to work with." So yes, we CAN in fact be there for your event on May 29th, but at what TIME do you need this? 03:30pm, great. But what's the budget? And is this indoors, or outdoors? Okay, it's at 05:00pm, and 90min@$200. Was this a themed event, or just general music, and is that "wallpaper" or "featured entertainment." We now have all the details, spread over five or six different emails, under a subject heading that has nothing to do with May 29th (and which year, but the way???). So my newly adopted "comms protocol" is to immediately reply with the following template (if you use Gmail, or probably most other email services, you can create templates to quickly reply to common inquiries without typing them all up every.single.time.) AND in every reply to that thread after this is inserted, I am copy/pasting the "event specs" so they are always in my latest reply for easy review.

At my show this afternoon, I met the new activity director of the community, Samantha. She was very young-maybe 24. She told me several people on her team handle activities for the community and if she wasn't at the show, not to worry, one of her staff would be. Throughout the show, I saw a rotation of staff members, all young like the director, coming in and sitting down and using their phones. Then I watched them leaving and it was hard to determine whether they were actually doing anything with the residents or just babysitting them-or me. During the show I noticed one lady who passed by who looked older and had big black rimmed glasses and she stayed for a song or two and waved at me then went into a door marked 'Executive Director'. It's always good to meet the executive director. So after breaking down and packing up my gear cart, I passed by her door and noticed it was open a crack and she smiled at me and waved me inside. Sarah sat in her small office working on her computer and smiled as I thanked her for everything she does for her residents and asked if she liked the show. We bantered a little bit and she gave me her business card and I left. Something I've learned about staff at senior communities is that it's good to meet the older employees and befriend them. Younger people tend to leave quickly and do not stay very long at one community, which makes it harder to do business if contacts are always changing. Do yourself a favor and try and introduce yourself to older staff members and create relationships with them. They are the ones you can usually count on to be there for the long term.

Hi, Gang. I've seen videos on the topic, but was wondering if I might get a quick comparison from any of you already gigging with seniors... Among these four types of senior audiences: Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care, Skilled Nursing—what are, simply, the biggest differences among these audiences with regard to 1) song selection, and 2) banter/stories/song setups/jokes, etc. 3) anything else? eg: chat pacing, music tempo, subject matter... Any experience and insight you might share is much appreciated. I don't need a whole book on the subject—just a few tips, as I am getting ever closer to reaching out to ADs—next few weeks.

Here comes the deluge of last minute requests for NOV 11th. Some LED's are more organized than others, thankfully. But here at Music We Remember, we seem to bail folks out quite frequently who are a little, shall we say "disorganized?" Or maybe new to the field? SURPRISE! Veteran's Day is happening NEXT month. And here come the emails... Now, a decade or so ago, demand was high for the female vocal trios with tracks, singing about Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys in Company B. But as The Greatest Generation fades away, and their children are populating the communities where we serve, we find a mix of Vietnam veterans, and also the flower children and hippies who may have very mixed feelings about seeing anyone honored for military service. It's getting to be an interesting blend... And some veterans were likely in both camps themselves. Who's got a Veteran's Day Program lined up that always goes over well? What do you include and what do you leave out? "Give war a chance!" - The Smothers Brothers (Perhaps this is mis-attributed to them...)

Here's a heads up for all of us to consider (yes me too)... Senior Communities are quickly aging out from nostalgic songs of 1940's - 60's UP TO the 1970's and 80's. The day is coming fast when the Baby Boomers are going to have to share space with the early Gen Xrs in Assisted Living and even Memory Care. These Facebook Videos (below) are examples from the largest retirement community in the World called "The Villages" in Florida. (83,000 residents) They have live music 7 nights a week year round in 4 different town squares. (that's 28 different bands per week) The average age in the Villages is 74 years old and they are demanding to have the music of their youth played by live performers. These reels (below) are "average" level bands. They have other groups that are so much better than these guys you would swear you were listening to the original performances of Aerosmith, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Boston, and John Cougar Mellencamp. I'm just sayin'... I'm already mixing The Eagles, Steve Miller and Bruce Springsteen into my senior shows and seeing people singing along to every word. I would encourage us all to open our minds and songlists to newer songs because time is quickly running out on Rock Around The Clock. I agree that the Memory Care shows need some special kid gloves but with many Assisted Living and Independent Living situations we shouldn't be afraid to "Let'Er Rip". (just ask the Activities Director for permission to stretch your style - the one's I've asked have said "Please Please Please") https://www.facebook.com/reel/1082933464369169 https://www.facebook.com/reel/1646077297175778 https://www.facebook.com/reel/1087145053801513