tookatooka
2618 posts
Jan 10, 2012
8:39 AM
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I'm determined to busk this year and have been organising my kit, more of which I'll discuss later.
My main concern is this. I want to use backing tracks and have come to the conclusion that most blues backing tracks are fairly long. I want to shorten some in order not to bore any audience. I think about two minutes or so would be good.
Just asking whether anyone has attempted this yet and how they got on. I can convert my mp3's to wav files then edit them in Creative Wavestudio and convert back to mp3.
I haven't tried this yet but just thought I'd throw it out for comment or discussion if you've been down this path.
Oh! forgot to mention, I just want to cut a bit out of the middle and keep the beginning and end.
Over to you.
Last Edited by on Jan 10, 2012 9:11 AM
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lumpy wafflesquirt
504 posts
Jan 10, 2012
8:42 AM
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do people stand and listen to buskers or just hear them as they walk past.
I think in general it is the latter [depending on location I guess].
If they aren't stopping, it is better if you play long songs as there will be less 'dead air' and people won't pay if you aren't playing as they walk past.
this is from the point of view of a punter, I have yet to pluk up courage to actually busk.
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"Come on Brackett let's get changed"
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Honkin On Bobo
882 posts
Jan 10, 2012
8:43 AM
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I'm nominating this for thread title of the year (yeah i know, we're not even through january)
Last Edited by on Jan 10, 2012 8:58 AM
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tookatooka
2619 posts
Jan 10, 2012
9:07 AM
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Lumpy. Agree to a certain extent but I'm old school. If I see a busker that I want to listen to, I'll hang around and see what they do and how well they do it before I put my hand in my pocket, hence the need for variety.
Just to stand and play and hope passers-by will donate to the hat is just musical begging in my opinion because they haven't really heard much unless the busker is kicking out a few hundred watts and can be heard for hundreds of yards down the road.
Thanks Honkin. Got have a catchy opening title to get 'em in.
Last Edited by on Jan 10, 2012 9:09 AM
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HawkeyeKane
608 posts
Jan 10, 2012
9:27 AM
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@Tooka
In terms of snipping the middle out of your backing tracks, you can save yourself the pain in the ass steps of conversion between Wav and MP3. A free editing program called Audacity can be downloaded from download.com.
With that, you can edit the tracks far more accurately than, say, with Windows Sound Recorder. The program is very useful for many other applications, and for what you need, it's pretty darn easy to figure out. More extensive applications will take some time to learn to use though.
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Hawkeye Kane
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tookatooka
2620 posts
Jan 10, 2012
9:37 AM
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Thanks HK but I've had Audacity in the past and for some reason which I haven't been able to fathom Audacity and my system just don't get on. All sorts of weird things happen.
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HawkeyeKane
609 posts
Jan 10, 2012
9:40 AM
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Odd. I myself used to use Nero Wave Editor, which came in a bundle deal with Nero Burning ROM. I liked it a lot. Been thinking of getting it again.
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Hawkeye Kane
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isaacullah
1722 posts
Jan 10, 2012
9:56 AM
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"I want to shorten some in order not to bore any audience. I think about two minutes or so would be good."
"do people stand and listen to buskers or just hear them as they walk past.
I think in general it is the latter [depending on location I guess]."
This is something I've thought quite a bit about, and I have picked up some anecdotal evidence during my short stint so far as a busker. First off, some numbers:
On the whole, no matter where you are playing, not more than 50% of the people on the street will like what they hear. You can't please the other 50%, so it's best to discount them. Bang. They're gone!
Okay, depending on the street, the time of day, the event, the particular crowd, etc., there will be a variable % of the population who even has any cash in their pockets at all. We are mostly a plastic-based society these days, so during the day on a typical city street not more than, say, 20% of the people will have any change whatsoever, and it could b considerably less. At night during the bar scene, or at a street fair, the proportion will be much higher. Perhaps even 90% if it's a cash-only street fair.
So, doing the math 50% x 20-90% = 10-45% of the people will be inclined to listen to you, and also have some change to throw in the hat.
Of those, I've noticed that it's about a 50-50 split on people who are willing to toss a coin in only hearing a little bit of a song, versus people who wait to the end of a song. I think this split comes down to the difference between people with short attention spans, and those with longer ones (pun intended!)
So, my strategy is to play stuff that is catchy enough to grab the attention of the short-spanners, but which has enough structure to keep the attention of the long-spanners. You have to play long enough for the long-spanners to think that they've got their donation's worth, but you can't do something that takes so long to develop that the short-spanners get bored and walk away.
Looking back at my videos from last friday's busking session. I see that I vary between songs that hit at about the 2 minute mark, to songs that will go as long as 4 minutes. As a solo performer, that's about as long as I can go without it starting to sound stale to me...
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tookatooka
2621 posts
Jan 10, 2012
10:15 AM
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Good feedback and analysis Isaac. Thanks. I think 4 mins would be my absolute max but I'd do a longer noodle if things were quiet.
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oldwailer
1818 posts
Jan 10, 2012
10:29 AM
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to answer the thread question first, before my meandering on--I would use a sound editing software--I use Reaper, and I edit Mp3, WAV--most anything I want to with it. I think Nero would work too--but I just use that to edit video with sound.
I've never tried playing with backing tracks--but I've been thinking about trying it--this thread brings up an interesting problem that I had never thought of--I would lose control of the length of the song.
When I'm playing guitar, singing, and playing harp on a stick--I just play for as long as I want to and stop when I want to. If I get bored with the harp part, I just take a solo on the guitar, and vice-versa.
Sometimes a song can last 15 minutes if I have a good groove and the traffic is moving fast--sometimes I probably don't last 2 minutes. I always try to keep on playing as long as somebody is standing there listening--even if I have to change songs in the middle without stopping--I just try to make it sound like a well-planned medley while basically pulling it out of my ass.
It might be worth it to just have nice long tracks--with a foot switch to just turn it off when you want to. That wouldn't cut out a middle section, but it would put the length of the track under my control.
This brings up another question for me--How do you know when the song is going to end when playing with tracks? A good ending is as important as a good beginning--you have to know when the end is coming don't you???
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Oldwailer's Web Site
Always be yourself--unless you suck. . .
-Joss Whedon
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boris_plotnikov
680 posts
Jan 10, 2012
10:34 AM
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I'm not happy with my playalongs, even the best ones. My playalongs don't listen to my playing and don't follow my dinamic. My playalongs sucs.
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KingoBad
1019 posts
Jan 10, 2012
10:48 AM
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You couldl always use the amazing speed-upper and jam any song into two minutes...
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Danny
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nacoran
5089 posts
Jan 10, 2012
10:51 AM
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"sometimes I probably don't last 2 minutes."
Quote of the day to go with the title of the year. :) Sorry to hear that.
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Nate
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BronzeWailer
360 posts
Jan 10, 2012
1:58 PM
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When people are rushing past you have to be catchy; Adam's Sonny Terry riff (AG09 on Youtube?) is brilliant in this respect. Catchy, danceable.
If people are dancing, stretch it out. One of my buddies and I were playing Rock Me a couple of weeks ago and this group of kids started pair dancing, so we just played on and on, well past the "ending" of the song.
I will happily play the same song with variations for 5-10 minutes. As Adam says: "repitition, with variation; repiTItion, with variation; REPitition... with variation.
I haven't been using backing tracks even when working solo, but was actually thinking of looping some to make 'em longer.
I submit that it isn't the length, but how you use the licks that matters.
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