Just Do The Music

dave d. was playing the streets of Shrewsbury last September during the town's weekend of street entertainment. He started playing five years ago after being made redundant. "I was a property supervisor in a stately home and before that worked as a stage manager at a theatre."

I was still trying to find the courage to make a start on the street and told him so. 

"It's all right," he said. "First time it's a bit scary and hard, but you've got to just do the music. Never mind the money - just enjoy the music."

Sound advice.

Sunday collection

I used to receive sixpence to put in the silver salver, passed from pew to pew amongst the congregation of Llansteffan church, as a boy. My donor’s role mystified me. Was I giving on my parent’s behalf? Was I meant to pretend to be generous with my pocket money?

The blues in Ludlow courtesy of Reverend Ferriday

This Sunday, tho’, I’m happy to pop 50p (is that a 200% hike on the old sixpence?) in the plate of Reverend Ferriday, busking with his steel guitar in Ludlow Market Square.  (myspace.com/revferriday)

I’ve been playing round the corner from the Reverend. While an endearing 18 month-old performs a slow dance to Ain’t Misbehaving, and I’m photographed five times, my playing is weak and woolly. That darned reed needs replacing.

Buskers are friendly towards each other. (Nice guy with a violin, dog and roll-up in Leominster last week told me: “Give us half an hour mate, then you can have this pitch.”) The Reverend and I agree: today’s a lovely Ludlow day. Plenty of people and the sun’s shining.

Bloody Buskers

Buskers are annoying us, reports local newspaper, the Hereford Times.
The musicians who "normally come in pairs or threes," says complainant Andrew Meek, director of a Ross-on-Wye, England software company, just play the same tune all day.
"They do get quite a lot of money from shoppers, who probably like what they are playing, but for people trying to work it can be annoying."

I was a bit annoyed yesterday when I found the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI: www.rnli.org.uk) - our gallant lifeboat service - occupying my favourite spot in Monmouth, with orange inflatable and collecting tin.

The RNLI in action; give generously!

So it was off to Church Street to try my luck there. Despite the poor accoustics of an empty shop doorway there were plenty of nice comments, including one from a RNLI volunteer:
"I've been standing over there for forty minutes: made my job easier listening to you," she said, slipping a coin in the pot.

Made my own donation to the lifeboats later: never know when you're going to need one, do you?

Gypsy musicians at the Derby, Epsom

Musicians at the Derby (Surrey History Centre www.surreycc.gov.uk/surreyhistorycentre)

Gypsy street musicians at the Derby, Epsom at the turn of the century are a far cry from the Travellers Got Talent event at this year's Derby.
As our newly-wed Royals (including the former Kate Middleton) swan around and the jockeys' helicopters swarm in and out of Epsom like flies, around 100 Travellers and Gypsies gather to perform and judge one another's performance in the first round of this event.
Travellers Got Talent came out of the Gypsy Roma Traveller History month and has become a startling celebration of the culture. Maybe it also serves as a timely reminder to my mates in the media that most of our reporting of Gypsy issues is racist. 

Whatever. Here on Derby Day, in between the races (a flash of silks, thundering hooves and an arc of turfs sods flying through the air) professional Gypsy musicians including Kerieva (left) are followed by amateurs like Claudia (above) and Tracy (who wins this round) belting out their own music to an appreciative crowd.
Reminds me of another Traveller musician, Alex Stewart, who died last year a few months after sharing his final interview with me. I'll come back to him.

Saxism?

Did I mishear that? On The Archers, BBC radio's long-running soap drama, Brian asks of ex-offender Matt on tonight's episode:
'What was he like? Was he a bit odd?'
'Well he hasn't got two heads. Or a saxophone,' replies Matt.
Is the sax weird? The clarinet normal? 

This from Collins Encyclopedia of Music  (Wm Collins, 1957): '(It: sassophone; Ger. Saxophon). In 1846, Adolph Sax patented the saxophone, an instrument, although made of brass, belongs rather to the woodwind group.'And mark this: 'Of the seven members of the family the little used soprano in E flat is straight like a clarinet.'
Here we are, already deferring to clarinet (Fr. clarinette, Ger., Klarinette; It., clarinetto), a single-reed instrument, dating from the late 17th century.
'Why does Matt not say - "Well he hasn't got two heads. Or a clarinet."' 
I may write to the BBC advocating an anti-saxism approach to programming.

Wet busking

Too wet to busk. In Leominster the street slicked with rain. No passers-by passing by.

In Teguise, Lanzarote, this guy found a novel way to busk in bad weather. He plays from an upper window, but leaves the pot downstairs in the street. 

Teguise is home to the Casa-Museo del Timple, the world's only timple museum. The timple is the Canary Islands' national instrument, a cross between a guitar, mandolin and cuatro. 

Here's mine: wish I was competent enough to busk with it. Check out  http://youtu.be/n_qonKQSE9o

Monmouth – an hour

Dinamic playing in Hereford's High Town

We checked out the lie of the streets; now the market’s been misplaced in the municipal car park the town is uncomfortably divided between the old and new town. So, while my partner goes furniture foraging, I set up in an acoustic corridor adjoining the Co-op midway down the High Street. In the entrance.

Town side.

In the sun.

Pause.

Set iPod running with my recorded backtrack playing through Roland.

‘Blue Moon’

I take the sax out, run the duster over it, watch and am watched. Adjust the neck band (they must have a name) and . . .

‘Blue Mooooon’

A little sharp, soften the embouchure, better

‘You see me walking alone’

Better, hitting the high notes now, relaxing, a touch of vibrato, letting the sax do the work

‘Without a love of my own’

The sound of small change dropping into the case.

‘Diolch. Thanks you.’ To an older lady. Does she like it? Do I look poor? I’m just delivering a service. Did she, maybe, once have her own Blue Moon?

It was a slow old hour, but the change kept coming (‘Thanks, thank you, diolch yn fawr’). Sometimes I forget how to play, then the notes come back. Not too many bum ones.

Try A Little Tenderness comes with the serendipity of the Shuffle command, but I’m losing my lip-o-suction. Time for a coffee.

Thank you Monmouth.