June 2009

World Busk!

June 23, 2009 11:38

June 8-14 2009 was World Busk week, organised by Musequality. We in Goa, India had a lot of fun participating.

Busking is not exactly a concept that has caught on here, so it was not easy in that respect. Also the month of June is not great for outdoor busks as the monsoons have already begun. So we sensibly chose indoor locations.

Most of us hadn't busked before, and some of us hadn't played solo in public before, so we were understandably nervous.

But we grew more and more confident as we went along, and on June 14, the day of the world record, we really let our hair down.

We learned a lot of lessons from our experience:

1. If you're playing from sheet music, make sure you've got enough clothes pegs to fasten it to your music stand.

2. Know where you keep the rest of your music, so it doesn't fly all over the place while you play.

3. Wear comfortable clothing. It's awful having to play for long strecthes of time if you're uncomfortable.

4. Get a friend along if you can, n case you need to be videotaped, to keep you fed and watered, to mind your violin case and any money you may have collected along the way, and just for good oldfashioned moral support.

5. Choose your spot so that it generates the most interest, gets a lot of people "traffic" and is not a hindrance to said traffic

6. Publicise it well in advance.

We'll be well-prepared next year round.

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