This past Friday night, Dan (we perform together as The Hot Baloney Boys) and I spent a few hours playing busking on the corners of St. Louis' Central West End district. It's a very hip area of town with a lot of galleries, bars, restaurants, and clubs. The weather Friday was beautiful and there was a lot of foot traffic on the streets. Even so, we made very little money. People seemed to enjoy the music, and we had one woman who spent a considerable amount of time taking photos of us and telling us how great we were. Then she left us a dollar.
Now, I'm not in this for the money. Dan and I get out and busk as often as we can, mostly because it gives us a chance to play together and gets us out into the fresh air. Usually we make enough to buy a couple of beers when we're done, and that's just fine. But for gosh sake, show a little love, people! What I noticed on Friday was that people who sat at nearby sidewalk cafe tables and were obviously enjoying the music; tapping their feet, talking and nodding or pointing to us, waving at us would then get up from their table and walk past us even averting their eyes in an attempt to pretend that we were no longer there, not even throwing a single into the fiddle case at our feet.
We had one guy stop and talk for a while to let us know that he thought it was great that we were playing on the street, that it really adds something to the life of the neighborhood. Said he couldn't figure out why there wasn't more of this going on in an area with such great night life. Shook my hand and then walked away without tipping at all.
Don't these folks make the connection that maybe there aren't more musicians on their streets because they don't tip the ones that are already there??? Come on, people! Give a little more and you'll get a lot. It's a basic rule of things. Art and music aren't free, no matter how much you'd like for them to be. Musicians are not all hippy-dippy artists with no need for cash. They're working folks just like you with families to support and mortgages and rent to cover every month. They spend hours and hours learning new tunes and practicing to constantly get better on their instruments. But, if the local residents and folks spending time in the arts and cafe districts don't make it worthwhile for local musicians to get out and busk and contribute their talent to making St. Louis a vital, hip, living city, they're not going to do it. You're at least half of the equation.
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2 comments:
Being what you might call an interested party, I thought I’d pile on a bit:
Of course we’re not in it for the money, and we both know better than to think there’s any meaningful amount of supplemental income to be made as a street musician. The tips I take away from the Hartford more or less compensate for what I throw at musicians on the street in University City, so that’s pretty much a wash. If there was ever a time when a musician could make a living by busking, that’s long gone.
I suppose most people must realize that they’re not depriving anyone of an actual livelihood by withholding tips from street musicians, so in theory it shouldn’t matter that much whether people throw money or not, but the equation is not actually as simple as that. Although the money isn’t very near to the heart of it, it really does play an indefinable and important part, such that, if on some occasion nobody at all threw me any money, it would be fairly hard to persuade me to try again for quite a while after that. I’d imagine that a lot of people who’ve tried it would feel the same way. So anyone who likes the music, or even who just has a sense that having live music on the streets is a sign of a healthy artistic vitality in a city, acts against his or her own interest by being stingy. As a side observation, what I took home on Friday was less than the price of my busking permit, and as I believe that was the first time I’ve busked within city limits this year, that means the permit hasn’t paid for itself yet.
One thing that I think bears mentioning is that in some people, playing music on the street for tips is mentally conflated with panhandling. I mean that these people have never given an instant’s thought to the obvious differences between panhandling and busking. Whether they’d be able to perceive those differences if they were pointed out, I do not pretend to know. But I’m sure that some unthinking people don’t throw money for that reason.
I myself don’t always throw money. In the Delmar Loop, a lot of the street musicians are Washington University students who can’t really play, or have lousy (or perhaps just immature) taste in music, or are trying to emulate a hackneyed (and unreal to begin with) stereotype in their quests for identity, or all of the above. There are some pretty predictable ‘types’ in the Loop that do not generally get a lot of love from me. But I don’t care who it is, if they’re doing something that’s unusual, or original, or passionate, or if they’re showing signs of having put in some hard work, then even if they don’t play especially well, I tend to be generous. If I see any two or more of the above in addition to a convincing appearance of authentic financial strain (I can usually spot make-believe poverty), I might just make that person's day with a hamilton. Your mileage may, as they say, vary.
Give me a year, and I'll come play with you guys. I'll wear something low cut. That will either bring in more tips or scare people away, we'll just have to wait and see. :-)
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