I Hate Mornings

sexy people tip

h3. An offline voluntary pricing experiment

The last few years have seen a host of interesting online experiments with voluntary pricing models for music. I came across the idea through “Jonathan Coulton”:http://www.jonathancoulton.com (internet superstar), who was himself blogging about “Jane Siberry”:http://sheeba.ca/store and “Songslide”:http://www.songslide.com/About.aspx. The system generally relies on an artist having an established and loyal fanbase who are sufficiently understanding and aware of the realities of the musical career that they are willing to patronize their favourite artists by volunteering real money in exchange for music that is available for free.

The idea has always intrigued me, but I have never had a chance to experiment with it myself. The other night, however, I was surprised to find myself at the centre of an offline voluntary pricing experiment, during which I rediscovered the long-lost phenomenon of “tipping”.

h3. “Tipping”: offline voluntary payments

It was 3am and I was sitting behind a grand piano in a hotel bar in Manchester, four hours into a set of singalong requests and going strong. Out of nowhere, a drunk guy in a suit sidled up with a glass and set it down on the piano. I was mildly disappointed to find that it wasn’t full of beer, but very pleasantly surprised to see that it was full of money. An impromtu collection had taken place, and my new best friend had created what you might call a “tip jar” from a Belgian beer glass.

Now I’ve had coins thrown at me before, but this was different. No coins. Notes only. I quickly wrapped up my hilarious rendition of “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book, and counted my winnings. £240. That’s right. Two hundred and forty pounds. Of course I carried on playing until everyone was passed out or ordering breakfast.

h3. A useful income stream?

There are certain parts of that situation I can recreate: the drunken crowd, the late night singalong and the pockets full of money. But the drunk guy with the tip jar was a magical catalyst. Enough of the crowd knew him to start off the generous tipping, and he was drunk enough to persist (but not drunk enough to accidentally spend it all on more beer…). Without him I would have woken up the next morning just as hoarse and hungover, but none the richer.

We’ve all heard stories of piano bars in distant lands where tips are as forthcoming as applause. I hear there might even be a couple in London. I’m going to find them. If there’s one thing I can do better than anyone I’ve ever seen, it’s playing five hours solid of requests in any key (and 90% of the lyrics intact), including shameless covers of Neil Diamond, Disney, Tina Turner and Billy Joel. There’s no depth of musical populism to which I won’t sink for cake and/or cash.

So who knows a good piano bar…?