Making a start. Ludlow. August 1 2010

Small change for the busker

I want to write a social history of street music. I want to know what it’s like out there. On the street. Are people unfriendly? Do the police move you on? Are other buskers antagonistic towards you?

I’m ready to find out.

I’ve mastered the soprano sax, enough to play along to my own recorded backing and we’re on a Ludlow, Shropshire street corner where the Sunday antique market causes a bit of a buzz.

‘I’m going round the stalls. Just go and play!’ says my partner.

I unbutton the horn, slip the harness round my neck, push the mouthpiece home hoping no-one will recognise this 62-year-old magazine editor preparing to make a fool of himself. I wet the reed and blow a scale.

Woow. Everyone’s looked round.

Go for it, into the opening notes of Misty. Slow, now, slow like Terry the Teacher taught me. (‘Keep ‘em guessing, linger on the first notes’).

Relax.

Argh, I’m blowing sharp.

Lighten the embouchure.

I stumble into Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, stumble in the third bar. Christ this is hard.

I collect myself, concentrate on the great, brassy bell of the horn and whip into my favourite, The Shadow of Your Smile.

Sometimes that bottom key sticks. It does now. I panic.

Can see my reflection in a shop window: T shirt (Objects of Mass Destruction over an image of a TV), shorts, Crocs. Would a costume help, something like this Scotsman (right) busking in Cheltenham?

My horn has £2.65 in loose change. I know because I put the money in when I started.

Hang on, someone’s coming towards me, is he going to drop a coin in my . . . No, he’s looking for a seat on the bench.

‘All right Bill?’

I stop playing.

‘Phil?’

‘Yeah. Come up for the Market. What you doing?’

He doesn’t mention the sax in my hand.

‘Oh, nothing much.’

I pack up, pocket my £2.65 and join him on the seat.

‘So, how’ve you been?’