Is anyone hoping to do some busking over the Christmas break? I'm thinking about doing something if I can summon up the courage and if I feel I have enough material to play.
Being Christmas, I'm hoping people won't be too critical and just accept it as a bit of fun.
I checked out my Roland MicroCube and found that the batteries really do last a good long time and should pump out sufficient volume.
I'm thinking of creating a backpack type harness so I can be like a wandering minstrel but I need to check out whether this would cause too much feedback.
Anyone else toying with the idea of doing something?
I'm getting set to. I built a little foot stomp thing with a shoe box with rubber at the sole of it to keep the beat by rocking back and forth (bass kick back to the rubber, snare tap forward to the wood). Acoustic guitar, harp, and harp handle will travel!
"anyone else toying with the idea?" Oh deer, are you sending subliminal messages, Tooka? I think you should give it a whirl. No time like the present. Playing in public builds elf confidence. A-one and a-two and a-tree...
You're in London, right? Diary permitting, I'll come out to play. Drop me an email (captainbliss at captainbliss dot com) if you're up for some seasonal silliness.
I am at the age where part of my learning experience came from learning harmonica songs that were available on the inside of Good and Plenty candy. I never liked the candy, but I loved the tunes. I learned "Good King Whenses", "Oh Come all Yee faithful, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" along with "Oh Susannah," "Saints," etc.
I learned these tunes first by single note playing and then learned to play the TBing. It is a fantastic play to learn to play true. Then once I learned the tunes, I could jazz them up playing them as a reggae or a swing or a blues version. I found people like hearing tunes they recognize and will stop and drop a coin rather than when you are playing a jam rant.
Last Edited by on Dec 14, 2010 5:50 PM
Tooka. its not difficult at all. I did it last year in the lead up to Christmas & would gladly do it again if it wasn't for the local council disallowing any form of amplification. They strictly police it and we get fined. In the only precincts where busking is allowed the rules are so strict and the background noise so loud that its difficult for a lone harp player to be heard. Also we must pre audition and apply 3 months before in order to obtain a months licence however the one concession is it is free. I had no difficulty getting one.
That said, I have done it and early morning was ok but as the day progressed beyond mid morning the noise was hard to compete with. Ok if one plays a trumpet or a sax which incidentally are the only type of instruments now seen being played by buskers in our mall.
No nerves just frustrations! But if there were enough of us in one place we could do something like this:-
Hey Tooks, we're doing a few local markets, good time before xmas. Here on the Central Coast (1hr north of Sydney Australia) you can use battery amps till 10 pm, and there's no auditioning, ten bucks over the counter for three month permit valid immediately. Gotta do it! Which council Aussiesucker?
had our first preparatory jam here on Sunday...guitar/harp duo...not sure whether we can amplify or not here in hobart. sounded promising, but we are not sure how much material we need. Ad is talking about playing 2 hours...
I had some time to kill in a market in Kings Cross, there was an old guy doing blues on guitar. I tossed in some coins because I was liking it, but he did not acknowledge me. Thats all right, I have thick skin. But he also completely ignored the cute little boy that wandered up for a closer look. And ignored mum when she threw in some coins. Busking suicide!
I would have given all my change, I was going straight to the airport and had no more use for it, but decided against it.
The one thing that I did take note of was most of the people who threw money into my bucket looked as though they needed it more than me. An interesting insight into human behaviour. I didn't do it for money ie only for the experience and to help overcome nerves when playing in public but the money provided coffee, lunch & bus fares for what amounted as only a few hours work.
Not being able to use any form of amplification kills it though especially when from every store front there is loud music/ carols playing from their sound systems.
