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"I didn't know a trombone could sound like that."
At a restaurant, playing a trio gig.

Then, the one and only time I have ever played my sousaphone on a gig, a Trad jazz group at a wedding (it was during Octoberfest and no real tuba players were available), as we were leaving the reception people were telling us how great we were and somebody called out "especially the tuba player!"
That gig left me totally exhausted, I'm not used to holding a sousaphone and playing for two hours straight.

1974, playing Sibelius 2 in Nova Vista Symphony at De Anza College in Cupertino - home of Apple Computer. There was local newspaper review of the concert in which the reviewer said that he would love to hear me play the dragon solo in "Siegfried" (and he named me, too). I think I still have the review (I should frame it).

In the San Jose Youth Symphony - roughly same time - the conductor had me play the contrabassoon part on Brahms 3. I played it on my MW BBb tuba. After the concert, the conductor said that I wasn't just a tuba player, but an artist.

About 1977, I auditioned for the Disney All-American Band. The guy who auditioned people (I forget his name now) said that I played better than all the Arnold Jacobs students he heard. Believe me, I took that one with a real grain of salt!!!

Maybe best of all: I was playing in a pretty decent brass ensemble in some funky church near Red Bluff or Redding, and I heard one of the congregation say to her friend: "that tuba player is really good". That one truly felt good.

Perhaps more than anything, all the standing ovations for all the many orchestra and band concerts I've played in over the years. I'm sure there are many others here who feel just the same way.

Enough of me, but thanks for askin'!!!

"You don't sweat much for a big ol' fat boy!"

Mine was during my freshman year of college when I played Air and Bourree on a student recital. A composition major walked up to me afterwards and said he never knew a tuba could play so fast and clean at the same time. It's funny because I was playing on a big ol' Thor at the time.

"You blended so well with the ensemble!" - during intermission after I was tacet for the 1st half

The best compliment for me actually was worded as a criticism.

I had with very short notice moved from baritone to bass trombone in a good brass band. No previous trombone experience at all. At the first rehearsal one of the pieces was a transcription of Rossini’s overture for La Gazza Ladra, which had been moved from the original E minor to F minor.

In one of the bass runs I had to play an octave below the tenors, and was corrected for playing a D instead of a Db.

My reaction was that, if it made sense to pick out one single wrong note, then the rest of the notes must have been better than I had hoped for being possible with that little preparation.

Klaus

I think the best compliment I have ever had was from a music critic who said my performance of the tuba solo in the 4th movement of Mahler 6 quite as good as that given by one of the leading tuba players in the world at the BBC Proms the week before

After the first set of the evening at a Mardi Gras brass band gig, one of the bar patrons told me he was pleasantly surprised to discover that what he thought was a bass guitar was actually me on the sousaphone. I consider it a massive compliment to my flexibility, articulation... and the Sennheiser tom mic clipped onto my bell!

In college, the teacher I took some lessons with (a retired "household name" in the tuba world) told me something like: "You sound great. People should pay to hear you play." He then tried to convince me to change to be a music major, but since I was in my last semester of college, that just wasn't going to happen.

That was a thrill to hear, but as someone else said above, VERY much taken with a grain of salt!

"If I ever write a book, you would defiantly be in it"
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Thinking back......That might not have been a compliment

"The band sounded great last night", said a friend the next day. I told him I was sick and couldn't play. "Oh", he said. "Well it still sounded great".

A comment from a singer who had the pleasure of standing basically inside the low brass section during a performance of Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem: "There's a lot of nuance in what you do, isn't there?"

Although I have received compliments for my playing, the one that sticks in my mind most was from a conductor who presented a musical riddle to me that had been posed to him by Charlie Pikler, former Principal Viola of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Not meaning to hijack this thread, but I felt very gratified when I solved this--especially when the conductor admitted that he hadn't come up with the answer and that maybe only approximately 2% of even musicians will get the answer. I'm also usually not very good at riddles.

Here's the riddle. The answer requires a few steps of fact finding and/or knowledge of symphonic music, so I'll supply clues if no one gets on the right path.

If Brahms had composed a 5th Symphony, in what key would it have been written?

(Orchestrations of other Brahms works by Schoenberg and others do not qualify, nor 4-movement piano concertos.)

OK, GO!

After playing the opera Candide at Indiana University, someone told me that they had not heard a tuba sound like that since the last time they had heard Arnold Jacobs play. I was truly flattered.
Roger

Steve Marcus wrote:... a musical riddle to me that had been posed to him by Charlie Pikler, former Principal Viola of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra...

Pikler said that he had an undergraduate major in mathematics, by the way.

After playing bass trombone in a jazz band- "I couldn't hear you"...

Two rank as the best compliments I've received on my playing.

1) When my timpani-playing friend commented on how much he liked a single 4-bar-long note I played.
2) Anytime someone tells me my sousaphone playing sounds like a bass.

The thing that makes those compliments special to me is not the words that are/were used, but the sincerity with which they were said. I like my role in whatever group I get to play with. In each case I wasn't doing anything particularly spectacular; it's my job to take care of the music first and make it feel good without people really noticing. But it sure is nice when others notice AND say something.

Two guys knew me from two different places. They were asking about this player and that, trying to figure out who they both knew.. (then) Current classmate thought the other guy ought to know me. Past classmate needed some details, he wasn't sure what my name was anymore. Current classmate said, "he has good articulation", and the other told him, "oh, him! I remember him". Those guys played better than me so it was much appreciated.

Steve Marcus wrote:
If Brahms had composed a 5th Symphony, in what key would it have been written?

Clue:

Consider the keys in which Brahms' four symphonies are composed.

Well, it's not a playing compliment although I've had those. It is when people are brought to tears listening to something I wrote and recorded and give to people who like ethereal music.