Street Musicians, Busking And What We Can Learn From Them

I'm going to be performing in London as a street performer next weekend (18.09.13) and It got me thinking about the incredibly talented street musicians that perform the streets everyday. With the aid of twenty first century technology, there is a wealth of videos online that capture performances that you would have otherwise never witnessed.

Daniel Wapels introduces the beautiful Hang from Switzerland and the Ghanian Kas Kas. I love the subtleties of this piece and his foot bell is a new favourite!

But what does it take to take to the streets and play your heart out to passers by? I guess one of the pro's are the unlimited amounts of free exposure. There are quite a few towns and cities where it is free to busk and in some places you do not even require a license.

I would LOVE to know the ratio of people who walk on bye without batting an eye lid though. Despite the extraordinary amounts of talent that can be right in front us, I believe technology also works against the busker. In some cases, we are desensitised by the sheer volume of talent that we see just by flicking though pages like youtube- and what we once thought was amazing isn't that impressive anymore. Please let me know if it is just me who feels that way! Either way, the work is still on the street performer to work hard for those extra pennies.

Here's another guy who's got quite an interesting set-up.

In some ways, I think this video sort of sums up a percussionist's role. It is incredibly important to develop your own ears, and find out how to make different sounds work for you in different scenarios. In this case, this guy has been accumulating sounds over time and managed to build his own miniature drum kit, which he could have only done through time, patience and experimentation. After all, most of us don't have the glorious percussion room and budget which some studios, schools or universities have; and the truth is, this goes to show that you don't need to spend thousands of pounds to get something sounding awesome!!!

The other thing I want to add is that it can be quite tempting to focus on one primary instrument at a time and spend all your efforts getting really GOOD at it (like a guitarist for e.g.). However, the percussionists role isn't just about being amazing at one thing!! We have to try and find an assortment of textures that is going to make a piece of music sound interesting without distracting the ears away from what the track is all about. And to do that, we also need to learn how to play it well enough. Like a jack of all trades.. just on steroids :)

Therefore, I believe that one of the secrets (and something I'm still working on) to being a great percussionist (or in some cases the producer) is being able to add subtleties to a piece of music that the untrained ear may not even register. Sounds odd, I know, but when I think back to a time before I started playing, I tell you.back then I didn't even know half the tracks I liked actually had percussion going on in them!!! I might be wrong here and this is just MY opinion, but I think for me that is the magic of percussion; something you may not even know is there is working away, and it is only until you break a track down, layer by layer, do you start discovering what is actually contributing to making a song sound so good.

Let's not forget about some of the other pro's to busking.

a) Free exposure and a little cash

b) A great opportunity to show off your skills and highlights what areas need work. It might be your showmanship if your not used to working in these types of situations. Im certainly not.

c) Experiment with building yourself percussion for different scenarios.

d) Opportunity to play with different people

e) A massive confidence builder

One man who is one of my favourite drummers in the street drumming world is Oded Kafri, AKA The Drum Machine Project. I hope to get an interview with him in the next few weeks about the highs and lows of street busking. For now though, check him out here.