Re: Strolling & tipping customs

[Ernie Gruner / Cathy Dowden <erniegru...>]

my experience is  playing jewish weddings in melbourne, australia.
strolling is favored by some weddings especially in the early part of the
night before the dancing happens - if we're also doing that we go and and
plug in else a specialist "covers" band comes along and does israeli or
rock or whatever after the obligatory horas etc. 
we either go to  tables and i ask for 1 or 2 requests or we just wander
near tables. some people don't like "intruding musicians' or "loud music"
More than once the bride has told me not to ask for requests but we've
ended up being coerced into it, usually by parents in law.
tipping is not the done thing in australia. very occasionally one feels the
notes being shoved into ones pocket though. i also play solo violin or with
others for australian,italian and hungarian etc weddings here and so i know
that the lack of tipping is not jewish-specific. i also have colleagues who
play who  find tipping rare, esp. russian/european jewish migrants who
bemoan the altered cultural habit.
interesting area, look forward to hearing more.
by the way is Ulano's book available anywhere?
ernie (our aurevoir party was last night -flying to sanfran/ny ->europe on
tue)

At 13:53 8/05/98 EDT, you wrote:
>In Sam Ulano's book _How to Be in the Music Business_ (NY, 1962),
>he says that strolling at (Jewish) weddings had been the fashion
>years before, had gone out of style, but in recent years was back
>in fashion.  True or not?  I was wondering also how similar klezmer
>strolling and tipping customs are to Hungarian Gypsy and Romanian
>Gypsy music, which I'm more familiar with.
>
>The Hungarian Gypsies (minus the cimbalom player, who either plays
>at his stationary instrument, doesn't play, or plays viola) stroll
>from table to table, playing requests (usually three), with the 
>customer sometimes singing the song.  Afterwards he tips the leader.
>The tips are afterwards divided equally (U.S.) or divided so that the
>primas gets a double share (Hungarians---this was true when Sandor
>Jaroka was in the U.S. in the '70s, anyway).  The strolling happens
>after the dinner is over and things are looser.
>
>Romanians sometimes stroll at restaurants, but not usually.  Tips are
>placed in a container like a jar on the stage floor, usually after a
>request.  Occasionally, they may do it Greek style and slap a wet bill
>onto the musician's forehead.
>
>I haven't been to a Ukrainian wedding, but the older tsimbalys had a
>little cut-out hole in the corner of the soundboard, so that the money
>could be emptied out after the wedding.  I've read that among the 
>Volga Germans, dancers would tip the musicians (putting money on the 
>dulcimer) before dancing.
>
>So----where tipping and strolling are concerned, how is (and has) it
>done at traditional Jewish weddings?
>
>Paul Gifford
>
>
>
Ernie Gruner ------------- Fiddler and Violinist (klezmer,classical,
jazz,celtic)
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