Help me understand subway music (buskers)

Subject: Help me understand sub-way music
From: lloyd61
Date: 06 Jan 00 - 09:43 PM

Help me understand Sub-way Musicians.

Why would someone spend every day in a sub-way playing music? A sub-way is dark, noisy, and dirty. How much money can a sub-way musician make in a day. I can half way understand a Street Musician. Do you have to have a permit and how much does a permit cost? Can you run music business in a sub-way?

You street and sub-way musicians out there, tell me why you do it.

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 06 Jan 00 - 09:46 PM

There was a thread on Street Musicians, Buskers?. Click on the blue title and it may answer some of your questions.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: Helen
Date: 06 Jan 00 - 11:22 PM

I remember, years ago, walking along a long subway/walkway tunnel and hearing some really eerie, haunting flute music which sounded a long way off. It was quite a walk before I actually got to the flute player but the music carried amazingly well in the acoustics of the tunnel.

I thought then that it was a great place to play for the acoustics alone, because there was plenty of pre & post music for the passers by - value for money, really. You only hear acoustic buskers in the open air when you almost in front of them.

There were lots of people passing by too, sort of a captive audience really, so the money would have been all right, I think.

Helen

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: Roger the skiffler
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 04:56 AM

When I worked in central London (well Regent's Park), the subways at Baker Street were filled with music from buskers from one of the music colleges. They made pocket money (mostly from the tourists going to Tussauds or the Planetarium, rather than from th e harassed commuters, I suspect), got some practice in and, I suppose, enjoyed the accoustics.
RtS

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From:
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 05:21 AM

they don't have to worry about the weather.

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: Banjer
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 05:33 AM

Not only no worries about the weather, but when time comes to go home or find another spot it's not far at all to get to the train!

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: InOBU
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 08:27 AM

DON T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE WEATHER!!!
Being (as Arthur Kenoy would say) a peoples lawyer, I had to supliment my income playing the Uilleann Pipes in New Yorks subways. I even rased money to carry on several fights for American Gypsies on money made in the noise and the dirt, as I think of the Subway. It is too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer, When it rains, it is humid and the pipe reeds get soft. After a days work, your ears ring from the noise, and there are few nice stories to tell, as there often is busking in the park. The money is OK, but not as great as one would think, and not as good as twenty years ago, when there was respect for street music. Today, after the cultural aftermath of ReganBush, street musicians are treated like bums in many places. In Quebec and in the NYC Subways there is a licence. I refuse to get one, as we of this particular music tradition have been in charge of our industry since before recorded history. Licensing street music robbs us of control of our industry, handing the rules to the Mayor and the heartless buerocrates who dole out the licences.
A while ago, I was playing at the Astor place station, a good spot, when an old fellow with a horn case gets off the train. He tells me he will LET me play till his mates get there, but they have the spot at three. I look amazed and he shows me a piece of paper from the Subway, that he says gives him the right to shift me.
I told him, I would move, that I wasnt about to cause trouble, but I have busked in England, Ireland, France, Canada and the US for the past 30 years, and I have been shifted by many a badge and blue uniform, but I have never shifted or been shifted by another street musician. We always lived by first one there gets the spot, and his selling out to the licence, well, makes him a scab. The old boy just didnt get it. He sold us all to Mayor Guiliani.
I hope all you with a soul resist chaining us to the plow.
All the best
Larry

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: lloyd61
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 12:25 PM

Great acoustics, No weather problems, and Ready made audience are all good points. I hope the income is good for the folks I find in the Chicago Subway, some of them are very talented, except for the guy with the GREAT BIG drum that beats on it in a small tunnel between two Subway tracks. Every one who walks past cragginess, this poor guy always has an empty hat. The others seam to do OK, I would guess that they make $20.00 during a rush hour. Two rush hours plus a long afternoon, should bring in $50 to $65.00.

Playing, off and on, over a 10 hour day is $6.00 to 7.50 per hour. My local McDonald is paying $8.50 per hour, but you can't play your instrument

While in Denmark I met two young men who play in the Queens orchestra at night and in the Streets during the day. They must have had at least 100 people standing around as they played. When I purchased a CD, I asked them why? They said "To meet people who love the music like you." I looked into the Violin case, at least 200 Kroners was the other reason. They deserved every Kroner.

To all you Street and Subway musician, thanks for bring a little sunshine to our other wise drab commuting, and I think I'll move up from a quarter to 50 cents, except for the guy with the BIG DRUM, for him $1.00. He needs the help.

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: lamarca
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 05:11 PM

Here in Our Nation's Capital, Metro does not permit ANYONE to play in the subway, or anywhere on Metro property. I don't know the reason for this - I always enjoyed hearing subway music in Boston, even if the player was a tad on the talent-deficit side. Metro is more concerned with the "visual purity" of the design of Metro stations than with making a truly functional public transit system - they fought tooth and nail against putting in strips of textured tiling along the platform edge to warn visually-impaired travellers of the edge because it would "damage the aesthetics" of the stations. After a couple deaths, the tile went in.

A number of years ago, Metro's head of Public Relations was a member of FSGW, and he got us "Special" permission to go Christmas carolling through the Metro. Wonderful acoustics! Since Cody retired, we haven't done it anymore...

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: InOBU
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 06:17 PM

Sounds like the ecconomics of the subway in Chicago is about what it is in NYC... Lloyd... However, every once and a while, some great fellow or grand girl, drops a twenty in the case, and Genie gets taken out to Tandori Chicken, on 6th Street...
For of all the trades a going
sure beggin is the best
when our poor man gets knackered
he can sit down and rest...

Not to intimate that buskin is beggin...
Larry

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: InOBU
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 06:19 PM

As far as understanding?
Like any art, dont try and understand, just enjoy
Larry

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 06:23 PM

Say, is it true that ELO records all their stuff while standing on the third rail?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 07:09 PM

I think the best instrument for a subway is a saxophone - it seems to be a perfect match for the resonance of a subway tunnel. You'll always find a sax or two in the long tunnels that lead to the subway at O'Hare in Chicago. If my layover is long enough, I head for the subway so I can listen to the music. I keep hoping I'll meet Candy Dulfer down there some day. So far, I've only come across male sax players in the subways.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help me understand sub-way music
From: Mbo
Date: 07 Jan 00 - 07:17 PM

And WHAT is that supposed to mean exactly, Mr.'Spaw? Mudcat's biggest (and only) ELO mega-fan wants to know!

--Mbo