Ten Tips for Busking :)

I see busking as an art and a science, and it grants me an insight to how people respond to what's happening around them. 

When I am in a giving state of mind, and focusing on creating music it creates a harmonious atmosphere that people feel happy to walk into and is uplifting and warm. 

When I'm in a taking state of mind, and focusing on making money it creates a thick and grasping atmosphere that people feel violated by. 

I usually float through both states of mind while I am playing for a few hours, sometimes changing from one minute to the next. My aim is to cultivate the positive atmosphere because it is far nicer for me and for the audience that listen to my music! 

These are some tips that I find help create a nice atmosphere, based on my own experience.


 1) Choose your pitch to match your mood. If you are feeling energetic and loud, that's a great time to play in a busy or open space like a high street or a town square. If you feel calm and quiet a narrower street means you can play and sing more gently and still fill the area with your music. I like to play in lanes when I feel like this as it's more intimate and relaxing. Try and find a place that suits your volume and style, if you are singing and have a quiet voice avoid playing where you have to SHOUT because this is not singing!


 2) Create your pitch however you like. At the moment, I arrange a rainbow scarf into various shapes and place my hat on it, occasionally I light a couple of incense sticks. I generally try and keep it neat and tidy so my mind feels clearer and more creative. I used to have a small stool, recently I have preferred to sit cross legged on the floor again. But it is all yours, you are creating your own stage out of thin air in the street, let it reflect whatever you want it to :)

3) Play music that you love, whether it's your own or covers, and it will sound beautiful regardless of your level of skill. I hear people playing songs that are currently on the radio and trying to emulate the original artist's interpretation. People passing by will instantly compare it to the original and this makes the performer (usually) sound poor by comparison. If you're covering a song try to make it your own interpretation :)


4) Keep your repertoire fresh and learn/write new music as often as you can. A tired routine sounds very tired and the response will be of people tired of hearing your music even if they haven't heard it before! Performing music is a very reflective activity... Your audience will feel what you feel. Keep it interesting and new and it will be more enjoyable for them and for you. Love every minute!

5) Remember that the audience is transient, ever changing. Playing in the street is unique like this because most people will only hear several seconds of your music, maybe 30 seconds at most. This means you don't have to feel pressured to perform a perfect hour long set, each moment that you can stay in a creative and peaceful state is worth it for the listener. I always find myself becoming nervous one moment, and a few people will pass by unengaged, as I allow myself to let go of the tension it warms up again and a few people will pass by and smile and enjoy hearing the music :) .



6) Speak to those who speak to you.. Because usually it is helpful to hear praise or criticism to know how you sound to people passing by. Many people will believe that they can't speak to you, that it's rude to interrupt but some of the best connections I find are through making music in the street. When I have been travelling, and at a loss to know where to head next, I stop and play, almost every time the direction has become clear through meeting someone with the next piece of the puzzle.


7) If you're using an amplifier, be reasonable with it. Stick to a volume where people hear your music as they see you. If they hear you 50 yards down the street at full volume it will be a racket by the time they reach you, so be aware of your field of energy and how big your pitch really is.


8) Forget about the hat, don't look at the hat, don't even think about counting what's in the hat before you pack up to go home. I've made this mistake enough times, and if I have made a lot of money in the first hour, I feel disappointed if I make less the second hour. If I have made 50p in the first hour, I feel desperate to make more in the second hour to feel valued as a musician, and fall straight into the taking state of mind again. Forget the money, focus on your music!

9) Invest the money you do make carefully and creatively. The people who give you a drop are doing so in support of your performance, that is what they're choosing to contribute towards. To progress as a street performer, theres a whole world of equipment and tools available to make your performance captivating and different. Save some money towards a decent amplifier, a microphone, a stool, or whatever you want in your pitch. Let the people contribute towards your vision, and give them back a load more colour and vibrancy!


10) Speak to other buskers, share your experiences, drop some of your earnings to other buskers that you like. What goes around, comes around. Often you will see things that other buskers do that you'd like to include in your pitch, they will inspire you, and in new places they will often share good pitch locations with you and give you the lowdown on busking in that place. Collaborate if you like, it's always nice busking with other people because you carry each other and lift each other up.


The most important thing is to enjoy yourself as much as possible. The above tips are the methods that I use to ensure I don't get tired or frustrated by busking. There have been many times when I've been worried for money or unconfident in my ability as a musician, and through my music people hear feel that and respond exactly to that theme. When I am carefree, peaceful and happy the music can lift people passing into the same realm and as a result they show gratitude. After all, everybody loves a free gig, or at least one where they choose the price of their ticket :)


Donations appreciated, but SMILES ARE MY FUEL!!!

Happy Jamming

Seb <3 xxxxx

On the road... to Portugal 2011

At the end of July '11, I left my guitar on a train and got off at Guildford station (my home town). After realising my mistake a minute or so afterwards, I legged it back down the stairs to the train, tripped on the last few steps and tore some ligaments in my ankle. This seemed fateful at the time, as I was due to get a lift across the channel with a friend to begin hitching to Portugal for the European rainbow gathering in the mountainous Braga region. I did however retrieve my guitar before the train left the station :). Not to be defeated (and due to be hitching with an even more determined (Saggitarian ;)) friend of mine, Willow, I rested up for a few days, applied various oils and put on my steel toe caps and in a few days my good friend Blue dropped us at Porstmouth harbour to begin our adventure. Loaded up with our guitars and rucksacks and plenty of flapjack, we walked onto the ferry and started jamming on deck!

 

 On the ferry leaving England...getting away with it!

We arrived in Caen in the north of France and were given a ride by a dude who we met in Portsmouth, a few kilometres inland. By that time it was dark so we made camp by the side of the road and continued hitching the next day.

It took us 3 days to get across France, towards the end we went on a bit of a tangent and got lost in a thunderstorm, when some gardeners who spoke no English and didnt quite understand a word of my rusty French, they dropped us at a train station where we caught a train over the border into Spain (Irun). Here we made it as far as San Sebastian in the early hours of the morning, and finding no greener place, crashed out surrounded by flowers on a roundabout in the centre of the city.

Celebrating arrival in San Sebastian with a tune or two

 
Finding difficulty in hitching out of the city, we caught a bus along to the next coastal town where were picked up and taken as far as Bilbao. Here we met two guys from Cornwall on a road trip! I forget their names, but they were determined to find a festival and kept plying me with Foster's and spliffs. Cool dudes.

So, after getting out of their car and walking all of 20m down the road, two hippie vehicles on their way to exactly the same place as us picked us up, and we were set on course for Salto, Portugal! Hooray! 2 days later, we arrived on the side of a mountain which was home for the next month. That was the furthest I had ever hitched and was very glad to have Willow by my side, thank you sister! xxxx

The rainbow gathering was beautiful, many thousands of people passed through over the next month and beyond. There was music everywhere I went, I learned a lot of new songs and shared a lot of good times with a lot of good people, a lot of good food and a general celebration of life and love. It was one of the most joyful places I have ever been to and I made many friends a lot of whom I hope to see again somewhere across the universe. That's as much detail as I will go into in this blog.... but heres a cheeky pic :) <3

 Foooood Circle.... :D

When the time felt right to leave the gathering, I had the opportunity to hitch alone for the first time, to look for a girl friend, Llara, that I met while I was there. It turned out the place she went to wasn't where I thought it was at all, I went a few hundred kilometres south due to a miscommunication but ended up in the beautiful city of Peso da Reguas. It was the smoothest transition from car to car that I had seen so far, so I felt as if I was flowing along a river taking me to the right place. When I arrived, I played my guitar and ate and drank coffee beside the river Douro, and as it grew dark began to wander around the city looking for Llara. I didn't find her, but I did find some rainbow brothers and sisters who had also come from the gathering a few days before, including my friend Esther who I had met in England at a gathering. I felt really at home in my tent by the river with these people :)

We spent about a week there together, and as most of us had instruments, we formed a busking group and would play together in the day and into the evening, and then go and buy drinks at some of the bars. We recycled a lot of food from the supermarkets and had a really lovely time, despite not finding the person I had set off to find here I instead met Walter, Ana, Luis, Mihael and Esther. Heres a photo of us lighting up the street...

(Left to right) Luis, Walter, Myself and Mihael. Photo taken by Ana, our poi spinning legend.

After a week or so in Peso da Reguas, we decided to head to Afife on the NorthWest coast of Portugal, where there was an "aftergathering" in an old watermill. I stayed for an extra night by myself while the others headed off, and did some solo busking for my train fares and stocked up on food, then headed along the train line, first to Porto. I met another musician on the way and had an interesting conversation about life... She was called Mafalda and was a reggae DJ for a collective called Celebration Sound, if anybody's in Portugal check them out, very cool.

From Porto, after a bit of busking I headed up the coast where I spent 2 days in Afife, washed all my clothes in the mountain streams and eventually set off into Spain, having discovered that Llara was in a place called Ribadavia. That night I walked across the border into Spain, over the river Mino and after camping with some English friends that I bumped into, parted ways and arrived in Ribadavia. Here we set up camp near the river for a few days, and were performing in the plaza with a wide variety of street art, including guitar, singing, one clown (!), fire poi, violin, dancing, and craft selling. It drew a lot of attention and people wanted to buy us drinks, offer us food and it felt so warm to be welcomed so kindly by the people there.

It was here I met up with Llara, Vera, Nikko, Nikko, Miriam, Miriam, and Sebas. We were a group of 8 different nationalities but with a lot of name symmetry going on. We travelled on from here, to Ourense, a city which for me is like a mountain with plazas on each level of the mountain, and very maze like. It took me a fair few days to get my bearings. We all had a way to perform in the street, and over the next week we formed a Bossa-Nova-Rainbow-esque band. We would arrive at a spot in Ourense, explode the street with music and colour, whip our hat around the restaurant tables and then move to the next spot. When we had finished the circuit of the city centre, we had provided a lot of entertainment and made enough for us to drink and eat together until the next evening, it was epic, spontaneous, perfect!

After a week of this, I exchanged contacts with the others and busked my train fare for Santiago de Compostela. I arrived in the middle of the night, and went into a bar, where the deal was something like this. Buy 1 beer, get a free ham cheese and egg toastie. Buy a second beer, a plate of calamari would materialize. Buy 3 beers and get a plate of chips. I had to stop drinking eventually, because i was stuffed! Ha.

So in the early hours of the morning, I began to find my way to the hospital where I had arranged to meet some English friends, Sue and her big blue truck, which contained also Dean, David, Lis, Rory and Esther (the same girl from Peso da Regua :) ) as well as Esther's dog Jane, a kitten, and a strange looking Porcelain figure named Malcomb...

However, there are several hospitals around Santiago de Compostela and I chose the wrong one... I was followed around the grounds for hours by a security guard on a power trip and eventually asked to leave... I found another roundabout and settled down for the night.. heeehee.

The next morning I borrowed a phone at the hospital, phoned my friends and arranged to meet them at the Santiago de Compostela cathedral... a building with a huge amount of history, being the end point for all pelegrinos (pilgrims) walking the many hundred kilometres from various points in Europe to arrive at the cathedral gates and have their passport signed. My own Camino de Santiago (walk to Santiago) was all of about 3 km from the hospital to the cathedral, and after busking a few songs my friends arrived mid Pink Floyd tribute to meet me :)

 Lis and I outside the gates of the Cathedral. Peace man. Tourists....

We drove on, and parked up in a village near to the town of Lugo, and it was then that my guitar suffered it's first fatality... One of the cogs on the machineheads was worn thin to a smooth edge, so it was impossible to tune up the B string.

After hitching the the nearest city, Lugo, I followed my feet and eventually came across the "Arco iris musical" shop (Rainbow Musical Instruments) and bought some replacement machineheads and a screwdriver, a couple of new sets of strings and some lemon balm. By the evening my guitar was back in action and me and Lis were jamming again.

We travelled back into Portugal, zig-zagging our way down towards various Spring points and busking along the way in various small towns. I remember walking into a clothes store in a small termas (hot springs) town to buy some new shorts, when I took them to the counter the owner refused to accept my money, instead she requested I make some music for her. I played her some songs and the customers were loving it, she gave me the shorts for free, put 10 euros in my pocket and clipped various keyrings and tourist souvenirs onto them and sent me on my way! It was a testimony to the magic of music making for me... I still have the shorts somewhere :)

My guitar ran into its second fatality when I left it out in the sunshine, the bridge that had been manufactured poorly (glued onto the body AFTER being varnished...Wood glued to varnish=very weak) came unstuck. I thought it was completely ruined, though Lis had some Araldite which after a lot of deliberation, chipping varnish away, and holding the bridge tight in place, the guitar was re-strung and sounding as good as ever, now stronger with a wood to wood join :)

We visited Evora stone circle and spent a week there, the boys built a morning coffee shop and sat around talking while the girls "slept in". I think really they were having sneaky coffees and peace and quiet in the morning away from us boys, we were loud and irritating first thing for sure :)

Next, we moved on to a rainbow community in the very south of Portugal, the Algarve, called Pero Negro (black dog). For one reason or another, I never left the truck to go and check it out, instead playing a lot of chess and smoking lots of Herbs in the shade of the valley, but the other boys went up and made themselves at home. Sue, Lis and myself decided to head down to the beach on the south coast, a hippie/surfer beach called Barranco. I learned some more music with some German sisters, and after a few weeks and trying my hand at truck mechanics (to some degree of success... involving a battery just about starting the truck and a vice clip welding itself to the underside of the truck in the process) I decided it was time to head home.

However, on the day before I left, I was looking out across the sea and reflecting on my time since I left England. I wrote this song on the beach in a flash of inspiration :)

So, I hitched along the coast, stopping for a busk in Portimao, and reached Faro airport in the night time. I got myself a flight for the next day and saw the first Costa Coffee I'd seen in months!! I showed them how to make a flat white and got a free panini... then flew home to meet my Ma at Heathrow :)

Ive tried to stick to the music part of this adventure but I feel the extra detail fills in a lot of the gaps. Hope you enjoyed, soon to come are my musical adventures embarked upon since returning to England. PEACE!

One Love

Seb xxxxxxxxxxx

Seb's Music Blog is born :)

Hello, and welcome!

I have started this blog to share my travels and musical experiences with you!

My name is Seb, I was born in England in 1990, I am 21 at the time of writing this. Last April I decided to leave my employment (at Costa Coffee) to free up all my time so I could remain dedicated to learning and exploring music. I hope this journey takes me around the world so I can taste the music of a wide variety of cultures and learn a variety of styles as I go, not to mention meeting a wide variety of other people and musicians alike.

My main musical ability revolves around singing and playing the guitar, though I love strange and unusual instruments... I busk almost everywhere I go, I love it as a way to practise (a transient audience... each person will only be listening for a few minutes at most!) and provides enough money to cover at the very least my food, often travel expenses and other such things. Thank you to every single person who has ever dropped a coin in my hat because you've made it possible for me to continue this adventure. Another huge thank you to anyone who has smiled or spoken to me when I'm busking, because without you I would have given up on the idea a day or two after starting! BIG love xxxx

I guess that what I love most about music and playing is the message that is transmitted through melody. My friend Chris often sings stuff to me when I'm not paying attention...(It's in the boottttoomm cupboaaarrd....) and it works, yknow. When you sing or play with all the love in your heart it's so easy to see how that spreads to the people around you. The city streets are in my opinion in need of more colour, light, love, energy. So that's what I intend to bring to them, if you feel like doing the same I will see you there!!

Siempre en la luz, siempre en la calle.

So folks, that's all from me now, shortly I will publish a post that tells of my travels last year from England to Portugal and back but for now, WATCH THIS SPACE :)


ONE LOVE
Seb
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx