THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT BUSKING

BUSKERS, PETE AND NEIL (ANOTHER NEIL, NOT ME)

Music is the shorthand of emotion. –Leo Tolstoy

Busking is the shorthand of elation. –Neil Child

There is something about busking.  But what is it?

• IS IT THE MONEY?

Am I a beggar with a guitar? or a thrumming troubadour inspired by adventure?  Factoid: People think that anybody can be a busker.  Factoid: Anybody who has the gumption to be a busker can be a busker.  Factoid: A guitar-slinging busker is not a guttersnipe. 

Moneywise, my usual take is usual 25 to 50 bucks an hour, as long as that hour is at noontime or suppertime.  Busking during other hours means the take is thinner.  Factoid:  I am a faux busker.  I already have a good paying job and don’t really need the busking bucks.  And so I’m a bit of a hypocrite.  I don’t need the money and I don’t play for the money.  There is within me, though, a certain philosophical capital bent, and insisting that you get what you pay for.  I won’t stand on the sidewalk and thrum for nothing because of this work ethic philosophy.

Is it the money?  Nope.  Money.  means.  nothing.

• IS IT THE NOTORIETY?

Some buskers are hitting the streets to be discovered, seeking a certain recognition to move upward in the music industry.  Such buskers sell their CD’s out of their guitar case, and also in their guitar case display signs that they are open to taking gigs.  For these buskers, their sidewalk strumming is just another piece added to their cumulate musical emprise.

In my city, Regina, there resides the famous guitar-slinger, Jack Semple.  Googling Jack will show that he has been nominated for Gemini awards, won a national guitar wars contest, and had even played the lead in the television movie, Guitar Man (1994).   

In my city, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Jack is a big fish.  He plays high-end gigs, writes musical scores for radio and television, and is known throughout our small pond. 

Rumor has it that Jack also renovates houses.  If Jack can’t make it solely as a musician on the Canadian Prairies, nobody can. 

Is it the notoriety?  Nope.  Jack has the notoriety.  Jack is a guitar genius.  I’m a tyro.  It ain’t the notoriety.

• IS IT THE PERSONAL GROWTH?

Wherever I busk is where I practice.  I practice only when I busk.  I never practice at home.  At every buskspot I’m paid to practice.  (I’ve long since realized that strumming while sitting on my keister on my comfy couch at home does not pay the bills.) 

Where I busk is where I burgeon.  I play only original songs and my buskspot is the absolute best place to thrum chords and think lyrics.  I strum and harp and sing only MY original songs when I busk, and when I gig I play those same songs.  So goes the saying, practice makes perfect. 

Is it the personal growth?  Yes!

• IS IT THE ADVENTURE?

Busking is just an autonomous therapeutic escape from my oftentimes mundane day-to-day regimen.  Strumming on the street I have the mettle to project my inner Bobby Dylan to the world.  Whenever I busk I imagine that I represent that stranger who comes to town, the guy who symbolizes the life everyone wants but lacks the moxie to live.  As a busker I fancy myself as that intrinsically and extrinsically motivated traveler who has the pluck to pluck.

Is it the adventure?  Yes!

For the most part, I busk in my home city and my province.  But I also busk in other Canadian cities and provinces, as well as other countries.  My dream is to become a planetary busker.  So far I’ve hit the street with my guitar or my pencil or both in Holland, Ireland, and Morocco.  Next adventure ... China!