Pianist and singer hire in Australia: the complete guide

One person at a keyboard singing is not a pianist with a microphone added. It is a separate skill, a smaller field of performers, and a booking that does a completely different job in a room. Guests listen to a voice. They let piano playing sit in the background.

The prices on this page belong to performers who do both at once. Read them alongside the instrumental pianist listings and you will see why people compare the two categories and then pick based on the night rather than the number.

Holding a vocal line while both hands are doing something else takes years to make look easy, and not every fine pianist can do it. That is why this list is shorter than the instrumental one. It is also why a performer who does it well is worth more than the two skills added together.

The upside for you is that one booking covers two things. Background music when you want it, then a proper vocal performance for the moments that need one, without a second musician arriving, setting up and being paid.

This is the part people underestimate. Instrumental piano lets a hundred guests keep talking at a comfortable level all evening. Add a voice and heads turn, conversation drops, and the music becomes the thing happening rather than the thing underneath. Neither is better, but they are not interchangeable.

So plan where the singing goes. A common arrangement is instrumental through arrival and the meal, then vocal sets after the speeches when you actually want attention in one place. Say that in your enquiry and a good performer will build the night around it.

At a wedding, a singing pianist can carry the ceremony, the canapes and the early reception on their own, which is a lot of the day covered by one person with one setup. The first dance played and sung live, by someone in the room, is a moment worth more than the fee difference.

Corporate dinners use them differently, usually as the sound of the evening rather than a performance: recognisable songs, sung quietly, never loud enough to interrupt a table. Lounge and hotel bar work is the same idea over longer hours. Ask which of these the performer does most, because the pacing skills are not identical.

There are three parts now instead of one: the keyboard, the vocal microphone and a speaker that handles both. Most performers own all three, but check, especially if you are hoping they will use a house piano. Singing over an acoustic grand needs a microphone on a stand and someone who knows how to place it so it does not feed back.

If the venue has a piano and the performer prefers it, ask how the vocal will be amplified and who supplies that. It is a small question that prevents the most common technical problem in this category.

Do you sing and play at the same time, or alternate? Can I hear a live recording of you doing both? Can you play instrumentally for part of the night and sing for the rest? What do you bring, and what do you need from the venue? And can you learn a specific song for a first dance?

Ask for live audio rather than a studio track. A studio recording separates the vocal and the piano into different takes, which tells you nothing about what one person sounds like doing both at once in a real room.