Funerals and money

By Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene (get free updates of new posts here)​​​

Have you ever didn't get payed for playing at the funeral? Vidas has.

​Last Thursday he accidentally went to our church for practice and found out that a guest organist will be playing pre-service music for the funeral that day.

It turns out that organizers thought this organist will play for the funeral service but because of some sort of miscommunication he had some schedule conflict and had to be in another place during this service.

Vidas told me that because he is the person who closes the door when it's cold in the room without being asked, he politely offered for his colleague to jump in an save the day by playing at the funeral which he did.

​After the service obviously everyone left for the cemetery and Vidas didn't get payed without any explanation or feedback.

Because he is polite and understands that during funerals people have so much stress and grief on their mind that it's natural to simply forget to pay the organist (or perhaps they thought the organist should play for free).

However, I think it's important to not be silent about it because not paying for music might become the norm in your church.

Obviously, if one hates asking for money in person, then after the initial call from the organizers or relatives of the deceised one could send a simple text message with some information about organist's rates and payment method, perhaps also with titles of music selections.

Have you ever been in such situation? If so, how did you handle it politely and with respect to everyone involved?