Oakland Airport (OAK) has a Busking Program. You have to apply for it with your full information [to make sure you are not a terrorist] and a video or audio sample of your musical ability [so they know you are good. You get to play at one of the passenger luggage pickup terminals Which is nice since flyers have nothing to do but listen to your music while waiting for their luggage.

Colette Ogata (Silicon Valley Accordion Society President) and I had some duets planned for our 2-hour session. We played duets of: “La Paloma”, “Never on a Sunday”, “Unchained Melody”, “We’ll Meet Again”, “Que Sara Sara”, “I Love You Truly”, “Doctor Zhivago – Lara’s Theme”, “Spanish Eyes”, and “Boogie Boogie Swing”, plus solos like: “Deep Purple”, “Accordion Boogie”, “Adios”, “Au Revoir”, “Auf Wiedershen”, “Amapola”, “Amour”, “Anytime”, “Bella Notte”, “Ciao Ciao Palermo”, “Come Back to Sorrento”, “When I’m Sixty-four” and many others.

People were so nice. They would stop and say, “Hello.” People seemed genuinely happy to have us there. No one made requests but some mentioned songs they liked hearing us play while they were waiting.

This isn’t really a marketing opportunity, but it is always good to have business cards at the ready. Since we were at luggage pick-up, there were no TSA concerns.

Joseph Martin

The OAK staff were very nice, but the process to get accepted to play is very slow. After I first applied it took two months to get my first response, and even longer to get a date to play. If you plan on busking at OAK, plan ahead, don’t worry if you don’t hear from them right away and practice.

If you have an iPad for your music, bring a battery backup to keep it powered. And this is probably the most important about the location where we were playing….have a battery powered amp so people can hear you.

Colette and I were lucky that we had a splitter cable so both of us could use the same amp which is good since it is noisier than you might think.

Because they loved the music, Colette and I are going to be playing again next month. The organizer was so very nice and asked us back on the same day we played.

They have many different people playing at the airport, and on our day, they were also going to have a violin quartet playing. The OAK staff told us that these violinists were absolutely amazing and always brought down the house with their impressive playing.

Having another person with you is a great idea. It takes away pressure on you and you also have another person to pick up the slack. When Colette was performing I was getting my next song ready. And when I was playing, Colette was getting her songs ready, so it made it really nice. Plus Colette is a great amount of fun to play with and really talented accordionist.

Consider the OAK or explore your own nearby airport, if you want a completely different musical experience. It is definitely not like playing at a restaurant or private party. That is for sure. But it is great to do accordion outreach and reminds people how beautiful the accordion truly sounds.

Both Joseph Martin and Colette Ogata are excellent performers and San Francisco Bay Area accordion community leaders who had Lou Jacklich as their teacher.

E-mail: josephmac50@gmail.com