how to busk

so when you walk around to New York City like many major cities you might notice a number of musicians playing either in the street or in the subway that's a big part of the culture here this is called busking or the goal is hopefully to make some money from donations from the general public and appreciation to the music that is being made in other words it's kind of like a pre-internet loop patreon it's actually a pretty decent way of making a living doing what you love a street musician once told me that they would regularly make several hundred dollars in a given day so last week I went busking a couple of times with some of my musical friends to see if we could match that number alright I'm here with Ian Barnett I'm here with Mary spender that's busk so how did we do well not really all that well which is that sixteen whole dollars oh yeah I just quit my job how quickly they have fallen quite humbling we had to split this cash two ways so yeah we didn't really even make minimum wage for an hour's worth of work we didn't do so well why might that be could we just not be good musicians that's entirely possible but I think there's a little bit more to the craft of busking besides just showing up and expecting people to pay you I decided to talk to my friend Matt for pointers he plays trumpet in the band too many zoos abandoned us started busking in New York City I figured if anybody would know how to busk it would be him I think the biggest tip that I would give to anyone who's starting to play in the subway or on the street is to just do it as much as you humanly can the more you do it the more people know you the more you do it the easier it becomes like if you watch twitch at all and you see these dreamers it's it's like the reason of their success comes from consistency and doing it every day no matter what all day every day it's such a grind man and also being polite just kind of respecting the code the way things go down there giving respect you you deserve it I think our game plan right now is that there's this festival thing that's happening Union Square and we're gonna post up somewhere and hopefully nobody kicks us out you know typically what will happen is the cops will come up to you and say do you guys have a permit and if you don't they'll ask you to leave it if you do I'll be like alright cool you know without a permit you can't use amplification you know and it's not to say that you can't perform without a permit because we performed without a permit for years you're more likely to face police or MTA employees that are that will stop you just without having a permit take one take one why am I doing this but there's still laws within the permit - that you can get stopped for you can't go technically above I believe it's a hundred decibels it's gotta keep it but you cannot use amplification without a permit if the police comes up to you and respectfully ask you to stop say okay I understand that your sergeant asks you to ask me to stop no one wants to be an to anybody else quit yeah we gotta quit oh we got stopped for playing with fire okay so the reason why we didn't make that much money it was because we kept getting stopped because we were amplified which is mildly frustrating because I can't play my instrument without amplification so what about getting a permit part of the issue with getting a permit is that there's one audition a year if you don't go physically to that audition you can't get a permit okay so it sounds like there's a guy playing an acoustic guitar over there just to not step on anybody's turf do not step on other people's stuff the more you play the easier it gets right it's like lifting weights if you go to the gym every day and with lift weights for six hours a day it's gonna be ten times easier six months in than it is on the first day I did 15 15 full days in London and Canary Wharf one time one Christmas yeah it's hardcore because I did not live in London [Music] in 2007 the Washington Post devised a busting experiment with world-renowned classical violinist Joshua Bell at the time his solo recitals were selling for $100 a ticket but the Washington Post would put him in the middle of the Washington metro during rush hour to see if anybody would stop their busy commute to listen to a virtuoso play in a banal setting at an inconvenient time would beauty transcend so what do you expect of course not six people out of 1097 bothered to stop and listen only one person recognized who he was and he made fifty two dollars and seventeen cents the article that was written about this experiment frames this fairly philosophically if a great musician plays great music but no one hears was he really any good the story of how nobody stopped to listen to Joshua Bell has been reworked a bunch of times into we live in the society parables that violinist Albert finds I mean Joshua Bell the original article is actually quite good it won a Pulitzer Prize after all however I think there was a glaring omission in the article nobody bothered to interview actual street musicians for whom this sort of experience is a daily reality how might they think about this situation in the business world they have obviously you know focus groups will they bring six seven people in and they say do you like this cheese pizza this cheese beat so why do you like this cheese pizza public a lot and the subway is essentially deaf but on a way grander scale right you have these people who are like so brilliantly diverse which is so hilarious it's so hard to get that and then you have the ability to perform music for them and if you're smart you then can take that information and let I'm saying literally look at them [Music] you're playing on a stage especially the bigger stages it's harder to gauge like oh these people really like this thing individually so for us we would play certain things and I think all of us were really observant to the crowd and saying oh they love this part they they absolutely love this part let's do that more or they they did not like this song people left during this on let's just cut that song out this is what the city of New York likes or dislikes and they're really really honest [Music] I hate busters I don't care who they are I hate coming up the escalator at the metro into a wall of amplified music that makes me cringe and that I can't escape I hate the fact that the noise is so loud that I can't speak with my traveling companion nor hear the music of my choice which is already playing in my earphones I hate the fact that my taxpayer dollars is imparting this harassment because some pretentious idiot decided that the unwashed masses should be forcibly exposed to his choice of music there's a time and place for everything if Josh Waddell was playing on my porch at 2:00 a.m. I would call the police [Applause] [Music] the most important thing about being down there is showing respect to the people of New York the the reality of it is as a performer you're in a way intruding on theirs on their space when you're on a stage you don't have to worry about this sort of thing because people presumably have come to see you play when you're busking you're demanding the attention of people that might not be willing or able to give you any attention when Joshua Bell is on a stage he is creating art but when he is down in the Washington metro he is a Salesman salesman of a pretty amazing product his violin playing seriously check him out if you don't know who he is but he's a Salesman nonetheless one pound coins are coins not notes in England so if someone throws in any coins they are weighted down there was a guy who just put in like four pennies and those four pennies were worth like more than everything else they waited all the notes down so I was like thank you guys so when I've been busking for it and never had anyone join me yeah that was so cool when you saw him Saturday his saxophone was out he was so ready [Music] so there is totally for us at least a way that we used to do breaking which was like we had a nine-minute three-song set that we would play play for nine minutes in this crowd will build on the crowd will build you have to stop at a certain point because they'll be a hundred two hundred people standing there and if they don't leave no one else new will come it's like you want to fill the glass up all the way to the brim and then be like and stuff you know we could play for an hour and a half but we've now made this into this really condensed nine minute action packed set each nine minutes that goes by means a new set of people cycling those people in and out of there to get more exposure to get more cameras on you to get more money in the bucket if one person stands there they might give you twenty dollars but they're not gonna give you twenty dollars twice or three times no matter who it is so Joshua Bell virtuoso as he is does not have the same skill set that season buskers have people who one have the stamina to grind for hours and hours on end to know how to judge audience reactions in real time and play music according to those reactions and three know how to time sets perfectly with an eye towards making the most money for the longest period of time the beauty of the subway man is like it's paid rehearsal dude for the first three years of the band we never had a rehearsal we went down and just improvised take advantage of it man I always make sure that I have a wheel behind me so that no one can like freak but I did used to busk for hours and hours and at the same place because sometimes I would get paid to musketoon oh my is that a thing that can be a thing oh wow and so like with anything worth doing your ability to busk your ability to make a little bit of money for yourself doing what it is that you love is purely based upon the amount of time energy practice and work that you're willing to put into it yes you can read lists all day long on the Internet of busking tips the same way that you can read lists of bass-playing tips but until you actually start doing those things you won't get any better at them so what are you waiting for people are people are people no matter where they are in the world people love good live music people love music it's it's a second form of communication that almost everyone in the world speaks if you're good and you're confident in your art people who will respond to that typically happily [Music] face

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 998,637

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: DT4aeRQOY4g

Length: 11min 34sec (694 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 01 2018