Hi gang. Sorry for the delay in following up on this thread - too busy being an opportunistic bastard.

Georgeward, that's really nice of you, thanks on behalf of your local buskers.

Dermod, sorry if I've ruined the romance for you. I see where you're coming from - but I'm sure we can agree that marketing is a necessary evil.

Gypsy makes a good point about learning to talk while playing, especially to say thank you. I've found a difficulty in listening while playing: if someone stands in front of me and talks in a normal conversational tone while I've got a fiddle under my ear, I simply can't hear them. So what I had to learn to do was a graceful stop in the middle of a tune so I can ask them what they just said: trying to find a way to resolve the melody in a few beats. It sounds terrible if you just stop the tune cold, but if it takes too long to come to a natural stopping point they'll think you're ignoring them.

Guest Lala, we did have a thread about the laws in various locations: Busking permits, but I skimmed through it and the only mention of Spain is Alanabit's caution not to look poor. You might want to start another thread called "Busking in Barcelona?", or become a Mudcat member (it's free) and write to Alanabit for advice. Buena suerte, let us know how it goes.

Jess A, I think it's certainly true that some tunes will pay better than others, but I'm not too sure what to do about that fact. Sometimes I think I'd make a fortune if all I did was alternate between Redwing and Danny Boy (both in G, BTW...) but I resist the temptation for two reasons. First, as I said above, the real key is patience and stamina, and I believe that I have more patience and stamina if I'm entertaining myself as well as the listeners. If I were to just go through a short rotation of hits again and again (I know you didn't suggest this, but people do suggest it sometimes), I'm pretty sure I would burn out on busking. The other reason is that I like my busking to be valuable practice time as well as an income-producing activity, so if I have an unproductive day, it wasn't wasted time because I got in some practice of recently memorized repertoire.

(Aside: that reminds me of what I forgot to put in my list: don't use a music stand, play from memory.)

I liked your story of the Marilyn Monroe skirt incident, but I'm not too sure about the short skirt suggestion. When I busk I dress as my normal frumpy self, and even so, I get a lot more sexual attention from men than I do at other times: sometimes polite, sometimes obnoxious, and always unwelcome. Maybe they think that a girl who would busk is likely to be free and easy, or maybe they think I'm desperate for money. But either way, I consider the men problem to be busking's biggest drawback, and I expect it would be worse if I showed a little leg (or a big leg, in my case).

Foolestroupe, your post was factual but not very helpful. What can you tell us about identifying a good location?

Joybell and PoppaGator, thanks a lot for sharing your experiences. The few times that I've busked with other musicians, I didn't feel that they earned their keep (i.e., we didn't make double my normal income), but those were ad hoc jam sessions, not a tight act. I would like to work up some tunes with a partner and see how it goes, once I'm settled again.

I don't recall that anyone's ever told me they admire my guts for busking alone (they do for travelling alone, though). But there have been several times that passersby have said something like "You must be hot," or "You've been playing all day!" and I felt that their tip was in tribute to my patience and stamina rather than my fiddling.

The other thing that I often hear is other musicians telling me they think it takes a lot of guts to go out busking. For example, in the "Busking and begging" thread Brucie said: It takes a serious set of cajones to put your talent on the line that way, and I admire people who have the 'brass' to do just that. I've never really understood this. I only had stage fright the first ten minutes of my busking life - I think playing gigs is the stressful thing. After all, no matter how bad you screw something up, in five minutes anyone who heard it will be gone and you have a fresh new audience.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone - keep them coming.

Cheers, Marion