ESSENTIALS FOR THE QUINTESSENTIAL GUITAR BUSKER

 

SUMMERTIME BUSKING THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO

‘Tis summertime and my prime season for guitar busking. And for any other wannabe street minstrel, if your mission this summer is to be a solitary busker strumming guitar on street corners, then keep reading!

WINTERTIME BUSKING AT VALUE VILLAGE, REGINA SK

Busking is an art; busking is a science. The art of busking demands theater and stagecraft; the science of busking demands space and efficiency. To accommodate both the art and science of busking, based upon my personal empirical evidence, I shall comment on the essential elements for you to become the quintessential guitar busker.    

• YOUR PROFICIENCY

Your proficiency with your up-and-down guitar strums is in direct alignment to your self-confidence. The higher the proficiency, the higher the confidence. And the higher the confidence, the better the busker.

To be a successful busker, you need a fingering mastery of musicianship. You must be perceived as being able to play your guitar with a high degree of efficiency to be recognized as a quintessential busker. You must be able to strum with facile. Whether you are thrumming cowboy chords or fingerpicking complicated frailings, you must learn to play with proficiency, at least all the songs you have chosen for your playlist.

Factoid: Faux buskers with neither the vocal chops nor the finger savvies are just beggars with guitars. Allow me right now to decry those tyros who blemish and blot and stigmatize the real guitar buskers!

• YOUR PLAYLIST

Your playlist. For what it is worth, I play only original songs. And I play only original songs for good reasons. First, nobody can compare my songs to any other songs. Nobody can criticize my covers because my songs are never cover songs. My second reason for delivering only originals is that I can busk it and improvise, strumming off-the-cuff at random and anytime I want during any of my songs. I can do this because who is going to know? Nobody knows my songs but me.

Regarding the number of songs on your playlist, twenty is suffice. Once you are through thrumming your twenty songs, it is time to move on to another buskspot, and begin again. I like changing buskspots every hour. In municipalities where busking is regulated, there is usually a two-hour maximum stay at any station. Where busking is not regulated, you will cross paths with those beggars with guitars, who will literally keep the same spot all day long, or until the vendor shoos them away. (They will certainly not vacate upon a fellow busker’s request.)

Factoid: Your playlist ought to be out of sight and in your mind, not on a music stand. Keep it short, yet stretchable. Keep it cheery. Keep it whippy.

• YOUR APPAREL

You garb is important for guitar busking. Unless you are a virtuoso on your instrument, it is probably not good if people are staring at what you are wearing. Glam threads are typically reserved for the other types of buskers, jugglers, and mime artists et al.

Cap-a-pie, my signature go-to is a long-sleeved, crisp white shirt with a collar, faded blue jeans, and either work boots or sandals. Rarely do I wear a hat, and ofttimes I don sunglasses. The long-sleeved shirts and blue jeans and sunglasses are strictly for my sun protection. In years of yore, I was a swimming instructor at outdoor pools for a couple decades, which no doubt contributed to my developing skin cancer (basal cell carcinoma) in my later years. I am cancer free now, but I mainly strum in the shadows whenever I am guitar busking.

STILL LOVIN' OUTDOOR POOLS

Factoid: Dress matters. Comfort trumps costume when guitar busking. Busking, I dress as a ‘60s Bobby Dylan wannabe.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BUSK

• YOUR BUSKSPOT

Proficiency and garb are of no concern if you have no customers. When busking, location is everything. Busking is best when you secure a space packed with consumer traffic. Anywhere on a busy sidewalk, somewhere near a mall entry, any spot in a public park; these are the places I choose to go busking.

BUSKING THE CATHEDRAL ARTS FESTIVAL CIRCA 2012

In my home city, I busk mainly at two venues, the Value Village Mall, or the Shoppers Drug Mart situated just two blocks from my residence. Sometimes I strum at the local farmer’s market, but there I am charged a ten-dollar busking fee.

SELF AND AMANDA AT THE FARMER'S MARKET CIRCA 2016

When I am outside my home city, I usually pick the most popular public square for my buskspot. The Temple Bar in Dublin, the Dam in Amsterdam, and the Jemma el-Finaa in Marrakech are some of the places of where passers-by have tossed money into my empty guitar case.

Factoid: Location, location, location! The more pedestrian traffic, the more coin in your case! Setting up where you have a captive audience, for example movie theatre line-ups or outdoor bar patios are just plain intrusive. Being intrusive is bush-league and boorish!

                                                BUSKING IN DUBLIN (THE TEMPLE BAR) 2014

BUSKING IN AMSTERDAM (THE DAM) 2014 

                                                           

BUSKING IN MARRAKECH (JEMAA EL-FNAA) 2017

• YOUR SETUP

Clean and crisp is my motto. I do remember ponderous days, lugging my gear up and down the blocks, buskspot to buskspot. As a neophyte, in my setup I would have song sheets pinned to my music stands. My busking cheat sheets were not the answer, for they were forever blowin’ in the wind back in those days. These days I slip to and fro in stealth fashion. I pack only myself and my guitar and my harp (I do not own a dirty red bandana). Some days I have my PSYCHOLOGYBUSKING A LA WORDSWORDS cardboard sign as a sort of shibboleth in my guitar case, even though to date after hundreds of busks, only one person has ever inquired about its meaning.

Force of habit, I always set my guitar case down on the sidewalk, adjacent to my right-hand side. I do not really know why, except that is the overall look that I like to present. My consumers are simply those people just passing by, with nary a stop even when they toss their coins into my guitar case. My guitar case is always directly in my vision. This is my strategy to deter coin and bill thieves. So far so good.

Factoid: I personally know a busker who left his guitar, never mind his guitar case, unattended while he dipped into the Value Village Mall to buy a soft drink. On his return, all was gone. I have had people, mostly panners, stand and stare into my guitar case. When this happens, I offer them some coins for their coffee, for which they usually take and retreat. However, if they stay put, then I retreat. Every stranger is a wild card. My many years of martial arts training have taught me one thing for certain: A fight over some coin in a guitar case is never worth the cost of losing an eye or (yikes) my life!

• YOUR BEHAVIOUR

I am a martinet regarding behavior. Keep in mind that everybody near is a potential consumer. Give every passer-by a short glance and a smile. For serious kick-back you must be in kick back mode. Be serious about your craft but do ply your craft without seeming officious. Unsmiling buskers offer no joy to the world. No trifling here. Customer etiquette is everything. And when someone contributes to your cause, be sure to state clearly, a sincere THANK YOU.

Factoid: If you adhere to some of my sophic and manic busking suggestions, then you are on the road to become the quintessential busker you are longing to be. On that road that I love in my alterity, I often refer to myself as the planetary busker -- and in this blog entry I have posted some pics to prove my creds for being so.  

And to close, from a psychology perspective, ALL the above-mentioned essentials are bracketed as behaviors, and so remember ...

Busking is a privilege, so behave accordingly!