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V.com weekend vote: How many times have you tried busking?

May 16, 2008 at 6:14 PM

Journalists certainly have seemed to take an interest in the subject. Most recently, Los Angeles Times journalist Steve Lopez wrote a book about a homeless and schizophrenic busker, a Juilliard-trained musician whom he found playing on the streets in skid row with a 2inged violin. The book is called The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, and it's already being made into a movie starring Jamie Foxx.

And who can forget, a year ago, when Joshua Bell went busking during morning rush-hour in Washington D.C. on a kind of dare from Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten, who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his story about Josh's experiment. Our favorite 40-year-old violin hero (besides me, right? ;) made $59, plus he made everyone turn blue in the face talking about it.

Yesterday Debra Wade wrote a lovely blog about the subject, which made me think even more about busking. Put simply, busking is performing at its most elemental level: get out the instrument and go. What do you play? Whatever comes to mind. Whatever comes to mind depends on everything you've ever studied and heard, not to mention what your environment asks of you. If a three-year-old toddles up to you, perhaps it's "Pop Goes the Weasel." Or perhaps someone comes up and requests "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" or "Happy Birthday," and so you just play it by ear. Maybe you've been studying some solo Bach, or a virtuoso piece, so you just air it out. Maybe you just played your virtuoso piece and need some filler, so you play all of Suzuki Book 3 because it's just still there in your brain.

I love hearing live music in such a spontaneous way. My favorite rendition of the slow movement of the Bach Double was when I heard a couple of students playing it in Aspen during a summer sunset, outside an ice cream shop, their cases open for donations. No doubt they were students at the summer festival, and they were clearly enjoying playing in this informal and unofficial setting. Funny how a one-time experience can prove more indelible than a recording heard hundreds of times.

Have you ever tried busking? To be honest, I haven't. I'm thinking I should!

Vote in our poll, and tell us about your experiences: (BTW in this poll, if you busk on a regular basis, you can mark two choices, that you busk regularly and also the number of times.)

Perhaps the best part were the American tourists taking pictures of us (if only they knew we're true Chicagoans...)!

After a very difficult semester of undergrad, this is what is took to help me love playing the violin again. It was redeeming to play what I wanted to play, rather than what I was required to play. I experienced a new freedom of learning music by ear.

You know--music is truth and others appreciate.
How could they not ?
Tradition counts and attempts thereof will NOT go unnoticed by the public.
Your heart and soul are bared to the bone.

Busking is the oldest of musical professions and will,hopefully,continue in future and this is very good !!!

Give others a chance to release themselves from daily drudgery of their
attempts at living.

Be humble in your gifts,play your very best..Make your violin sing as a voice sings--that is WHY we are here !!!

True story- One night Eugene came to visit me, took my violin (actually one of his being loaned to me) and played through the Tchaikovsky and several other pieces. It was a lot of fun.

Another night, Steven Tyler came up to me (from Aerosmith) and talked to me for a while.

And another day Israel Baker came up to me, listened for awhile, and invited me to his house. I took a few lessons from him as a result. What a great player, Israel Baker.

I don't busk much anymore, but I still miss it. I felt very alive, very free, very at home on the street playing. More comfortable than the stage for me. Unfortunate perhaps, but true.

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