A man of no importance: The attraction of street music is its spontaneity. It is all about that interaction you can only get up close and personal. If you record music, you can overdub, rerecord and try again, but live—or on the street—there is no chance of a rewind; what the listener gets, they get, warts and all. All kinds of tricks, feats and performances are taking place on the street, some to the delight of the crowd, some to their annoyanceFrom violinists, flute players and saxophonists to drummers, dancers and strange dummies moving to ethereal sounds, these street provides almost every kind of music genre for free ( apart from a voluntary donation of a couple of pounds, kr ,doller or any currency in the hat when it inevitably comes round) .The powers that be understand the importance of street music and if you travel in Oslo our any other city Underground there are areas set aside for buskers where you can be entertained by really good players (usually). I am always astonished and pleasantly surprised by the quality of the music to be found on the streets all over the world. Whether it’s the classical musicians and opera singers , Street music is an old tradition .. What is clear though, is that street musicians don’t have the right to ask for money. If you choose to reward a performance by street musicians by dropping some loose change into one of the boxes that adorn every street musicians pitch then that is up to you but the musicians can’t ask you to or even suggest that you might. It’s one of the sad facts of life that whilst many people watch and listen to street musicians performing and obviously enjoy it, a large number walk away without leaving some token of their appreciation. Whether it is legal or even wise to try and record street musicians is quite another matter! I am currently building a “Street Music” page which will include some of the recordings I’ve made of street musicians mainly in Oslo. Over the coming weeks I will add more sounds to this page ranging from individual players standing on street corners to outdoor music festivals and all points in between. So, if street music is what you want to hear you won’t have to trawl through all my posts to find it. :)
Posted on: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 11:35:40 +0000
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