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I just thought of an interesting topic that might offer a few chuckles among us. This is an invitation to post your most interesting/comical musical transaction. Think of a gig where you were paid with other than money. How about a trade of instruments or music involving a humorous story?

Here's mine:

Many years ago when I bought my Besson 981(1992)I also got a bag of dubious quality. Eventually the bag started coming apart and I needed a proper bag for the horn. A fellow I was in college with at the time(a poster on this board) just happened to have lying around a sweet Reunion Blues leather bag for a 981 that he had long ago parted with. We talked about it and he sold me the bag for $100 and a bottle of Cuervo 1800 Tequila. What a deal! I still have the horn and bag. That bag is at least 15 years old now and is in great shape. That's quality workmanship baby! I teach with that horn and I schlepp that horn to at least 2 different schools 5 days a week.

Doc wrote:I played some gigs when I was still in high school where I was paid in food and beer...Doc

Hell, some days I wish I was paid in food and beer

If food is involved in full or in part, it's a "Grocery Gig". It's always nice to partake in the festivities afterwards.

Great post Kevin! Here's mine:
One of my orchestras is a good ways from Boston, so they always put me up at the same, really cute hotel during the concert weekends. The third cycle I played there, I got into a nice conversation with the Swedish owner...he played euphonium years ago, and just started to play it again. I now give him lessons in trade for an extra night at the hotel so I can stay in the Berkshires and "relax" after the concerts.

I once traded a St.Pete BBb for a Yamaha Clavinova at Mr.Tuba in Wales. Pleased the woman in my life greatly!

JB wrote:

Doc wrote:I played some gigs when I was still in high school where I was paid in food and beer...Doc

Hell, some days I wish I was paid in food and beer

That kind of eliminates a step, doesn't it?

I will accept an F tuba as partial payment toward a new Steinway Grand Piano...

Seriously!

Steve Marcus
Director of Sales, The Beautiful Sound, Inc.
Chicago area Steinway Dealer

This wasn't a tuba gig, but I did sing at a benefit for the the Cleveland Opera. It was a freebie, but I did it just because I wanted to support the Opera. They "paid" us in Champagne and cheesecakes. That was the best d*** cheesecake...

-T

Erin wrote:

JB wrote:

Doc wrote:I played some gigs when I was still in high school where I was paid in food and beer...Doc

Hell, some days I wish I was paid in food and beer

That kind of eliminates a step, doesn't it?

After the way these last coupla days have been going, I kinda wish they'd deliver brew and stuff BEFORE the gig!

Haven't done bartering yet, but I would glady barter lessons on the instrument of your choice for well-done "honey-dos" on my house.

MA, who wants to put an apostrophe in "dos" but it doesn't look right that way either.

When I was in grad school, there was a young doctor from Japan in medical residency with my wife. We talked for a while and I discovered he was in a "euphonium club" in Tokyo when he was a kid. He found out about Tuba Christmas and we traded for lessons. He would come over once a week and cook traditional Japanese food for us, and I would teach him to play by note (he had learned by solfegge). Come to find out... if a Japanese man can cook well, it is because he cannot find a woman. This guy was an awful cook, but an O.K. player. We had a blast at T.C.

I once played a show with a famous R&B star. I was with my mother backstage and decided to introduce her because she had been a fan back in the fifties and sixties. He flirtedher with all of his famous charm and then offered her some cocaine, which I didn't know he was doing at the time. She was cool about it and just said "no thanks" but I'm sure it made her uncomfortable. It was a strange situation to say the least.

I haven't taken her to a show like that since.

I have played gigs for gumbo,beer,a warm place to be on a cold night,friendship,and a chance for love but after my discharge from the Marines,the only job I could find was a straight commission vacuum cleaner salesman.I showed a cleaner to a farmer and he wanted it but could not pay the required $125 down payment until his bean crop came in next month.Feeling the time to close the sale was now or never,I asked him what he might like to trade in lieu of the $125.He offered me a young calf he had in a nearby field.Why not?I took the back seat out of my old Mercury and tied the trunk lid down on it and we shoved the calf in the back behind the front seat.I raced to the Robertsdale,Alabama live stock
auction before the calf did something unthinkable on my back seat floor.
I got $150 for the calf at the auction and drove home feeling that fortune had smiled upon me.
tubatooter1940

tubatooter1940 wrote:I have played gigs for gumbo,beer,a warm place to be on a cold night,friendship,and a chance for love but after my discharge from the Marines,the only job I could find was a straight commission vacuum cleaner salesman.I showed a cleaner to a farmer and he wanted it but could not pay the required $125 down payment until his bean crop came in next month.Feeling the time to close the sale was now or never,I asked him what he might like to trade in lieu of the $125.He offered me a young calf he had in a nearby field.Why not?I took the back seat out of my old Mercury and tied the trunk lid down on it and we shoved the calf in the back behind the front seat.I raced to the Robertsdale,Alabama live stock
auction before the calf did something unthinkable on my back seat floor.
I got $150 for the calf at the auction and drove home feeling that fortune had smiled upon me.
tubatooter1940

Now that's a story that will be difficult to top!

Well, not as interesting as previous posts, but I have traded for 3 of my 4 horns. 2 of those trades have Tubenet connections.

An even swap with Steve in Alamogordo: My 3/4 Weril CC for his Yamaha YEB321.

An even swap: An 1870ish Boosey Ballad Horn for a c. 1900 Eb Boston Musical Inst. Co. helicon with David Neill at the Brass Players Museum

I traded in an Eb Pan Am. sousa that I bought from Tubatinker (plus some cash) to Roger Lewis (WWBW) for a new Amati alto horn.

For my 4th horn I traded 750 hard earned dollars for a 4v Eb York sousa that a volunteer fire dept. band sold on eBay.

sorry this wasn't more exciting....(picture a yawning emoticon here)

I have a student whose Mom is a Chiropractor, I do free lessons for free adjustments at her office. It really helps to keep me going since I am also an Instrument Tech as well.

Dennis

Bought an oboe once at an estate sale. They let me have it cheap because the mouthpiece was missing.

LOTP wrote:Bought an oboe once at an estate sale. They let me have it cheap because the mouthpiece was missing.

Now that one made me laugh!

Wen I was in college the first time around, I went out with a very cute girl from Argentina (or was it Peru?) who was a Pathologist prior to coming to the US to study opera. I gave her music theory lessons in return for her giving me lessons on anatomy related to breathing. (Our anatomy lessons usually stopped there .)