Guitarist Florante Aguilar

I got paid with stacks of quarters!

Scene: Outlying provinces off Cebu, Philippines more than 15 years ago. I was on tour with a pair of ballet dancers, a classical pianist and a local singer named Phrolo. It was a Government Outreach Tour whose noble mission is to bring arts into far-flung provinces. About 4 stops in one day were scheduled – all in public elementary schools, which meant kids!

We started performing at 7:00 AM (7:00 AM!!!) right after the flag ceremony, a daily morning ritual in Philippine public schools. My guitar playing was the main act so I always had to start the program with the other performers playing in between. Playing very early in the morning turned out to have a lasting lesson bec. I realized if I can play J.S. Bach at 7:00 AM, anything else is a breeze. This thought always gave me confidence bec., trust me, you couldn’t create a more adverse situation for me to play in.

What the organizers didn’t tell us was that they were charging the kids 25 cents, which was fine. It was really like charging them nothing. But what we didn’t know was that those very quarters were our payments too. And we’re talking about hundreds of kids per school, these were big, I mean BIG schools.

So, we collected our payments after the first stop in the form of about a dozen bags of quarters. It was already pretty hefty but we didn’t care, it was manageable. But we slowly realized after each stop the ridiculousness of our situation. After the 2nd stop, we were hauling quarters, the 3rd we thought we needed wheelbarrows. By the end of the day, I couldn’t lift my guitar case, quarters were coming out of it. We jingled all the way to the jeepney that took us back to our motel.

The next problem was counting them. Since I was the main act I got the highest percentage of the quarters. I think it was the only instance in my life when I wished I got paid less. But we were all such good sports we even played this silly game of distracting each other in the middle of counting, causing us to recount and throw coins at each other.

All in all, I think I played well that day. I can tell bec. they clapped whenever I played a difficult passage. Strange yes, and I did feel a bit like a circus performer but at least now they know there is such a thing as classical guitar. I like to think that the Outreach Tour made some impression to some of these kids.

To this day, whenever I do laundry and get upset about missing a few quarters, I think back to that day … and get upset no more.

Scene: Orchestra pit of the Meralco Theater in Manila many years ago. Opening night of Philippine Repertory’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. It has a small guitar part which I was hired to play.

It was a full orchestra but since it’s a play/musical, there were lots of breaks in between the talking scenes. And of course, we can’t entertain ourselves and had to be quiet in between those interminable rests. So, what do we do? We ate lanzones. Lots of them.

To those unfamiliar with this tropical fruit, here’s some photos…

It has smooth, light brown skin and transluscent white flesh inside. Occassionally, you’d get a bonus of a seedless fruit, all flesh and nothing to spit out. Yummy! And since it’s in season, which lasts for only 5-6 weeks, I swear all orchestra members brought bags of this popular snack.

Sometimes, we’d look forward to the breaks so we can chow, the music was just something that prevented us from feasting. However, there was one problem. There were no trash cans in the orchestra pit to discard the skins – remnants of a once-succulent fruit. So, we thought why not just chuck them on the floor? Even though it was an incredible mess, we figured we’ll clean up after the show.

Finally, the play ends and the main characters took their bows. The rigor of the applause indicated it was a success. All is well that ends well.

When all of a sudden, the floor shook. Is it moving? Wait, what’s happening? Is the orchestra pit rising up? Oh yes, the conductor and musicians need to be acknowledged. Why weren’t we told about this?

So, there we all were, in full glory for all the world to see, basking in a sea of  – lanzones skins! It was a complete mess! Did I mention we looked completely unprofessional?

Yes, we were beaming alright, but not because of pride. We swallowed that along with several kilos of lanzones.