My first performance for the big spending customers of one Japanese credit card company

Some of Hachioji’s geisha were called to  perform at a  party hosted by a Japanese credit card company for their important customers at a  famous hotel in central Tokyo.

Since most of our customers are local people from Hachioji and it’s surrounding area, it was rare to be called to a party in central Tokyo.

In addition, it was our first opportunity to perform that credit card company’s customers.
We realized that it was not just an ozashiki party, but a big opportunity to get new customers.

Prior to the party, my geisha mother had a meeting with the staff of the credit card company, and after the meeting, she said to us that the party would be more important than we had expected.

She added some additional joint practice session for the party.
She also added one new song which I had not played before.

I practiced hard for all of the songs for the party almost everyday, however I couldn’t spend so much time practicing, because January is the busiest month in the year.

Even after the last joint practice session, I still felt anxious.
I thought that if I was nervous at the party, I might forget parts of the song.

On the actual day, I went to the hair salon early in the morning.
We were scheduled to leave Hachioji at 1pm.

We could arrive at the hotel earlier than scheduled.

There were three stages of the party; the first part was our performance to open the party,
the second part was entertaining the customers by talking with them and pouring them drinks while they were enjoying dinner, and the third part was the main part, a famous Rakugoka’s performance.

The entire schedule of the event, which including rehearsals for both Hachioji’s geisha and the Rakugoka had been fixed well before the event.

In the rehearsal, we could only check our positions on the stage, do a sound check and confirm the flow of our performance. I wanted to rehearse all of the songs, however we couldn’t.

Our opening set was determined by how long it took for all customers to finish entering the venue. If all customers entered the venue quickly some of the songs would be cut from our performance.

We couldn’t decide our exact set in advance, as the credit card company’s staff were to let us know our finishing time just 5 minutes before we would have to finish playing.
I thought that it would be very difficult for me to notice the sign to stop playing, because I didn’t have any previous experience of playing the shamisen under such circumstances.
Furthermore, I was also not familiar with playing the shamisen professionally at such a big event.

Finally our turn came.
My geisha mother started playing the shamisen, even though only a few customers had started entering the venue.

I was playing the shamisen feverishly, so I couldn’t notice the sign to stop playing in 5 minutes.
Therefore I was busy tuning my shamisen in order to play the next song which was actually cut, because the staff had already given the sign to stop playing in 5 minutes.

My geisha mother whispered to me not to tune my shamisen as she started to play another song. However I couldn’t tune my shamisen back to the original position.
While I was playing the next song, I tried again and again, however I couldn’t tune it properly
so I decided not to play the shamisen, and just pretended to play it.

After we finished playing, my geisha mother said to me in a stern voice that I must notice the sign to stop playing even if I am concentrating on the performance.

After our performance, we entertained the customers before the Rakugoka performance.
Most of them had had no experience talking with geisha.
So I tried talking to them with a bigger smile than usual.
They didn’t notice my mistake, however I regretted it from the bottom of my heart.

We left the hotel around 9pm.
My geisha mother didn’t say anything more about my mistake.
Nevertheless I decided to practice harder.