"Can You Play That Instrument?"

Today was finally a hot summer day!  That means I was down to only two sweaters, and it went two hours without raining!  Hooray!  I'm really not exaggerating here; it's currently 53 degrees Fahrenheit, and hasn't been above 60 in ages.

After spending the morning arranging, I headed out around 2:30.  The other male violinist who stands on an earplug, wearing general magician garb, was the only other one out.  These two guys with guitars were at my spot as I arrived, but then were packed up to leave, talking to Stephen.  Perfect timing!

It was a pretty good day; I still felt like I was rested so I played pretty well, and the 4.5 hours I spent out there went by really quickly.  However, I didn't make great tips.  I didn't last Sunday either, a session of similar length.  I'm trying to diagnose this, and I'm a little stumped.  I'm thinking about implementing an idea that a resident of the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco gave me last year; to ditch the "freaks and circus" look and go for something super-sophisticated.  Nice black clothes, pearl earrings, generally serious demeanor.  Tom presented an overlapping idea today as well, to pretend that I'm on stage in front of thousands.  I might actually give this a try, possibly even hide my box and present a classy tip container, and maybe give Flaca a baton.  Hm.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012
1.  Some kids stopped by and showered me with questions, namely, "How do you play it?"  I tried giving a quick explanation before the parents yanked them down the street.  Oh well.

2. I had a nice interaction with an adorable little girl named Ruby from New York.  She was checking out everything, so I showed her Flaca and the shakers.  Once I heard her called Ruby I invited her around back to see my feline Ruby painted on the box, and she in turn took out a stuffed panda to show me.  I asked if it had a name, and she said, "Little Panda."  She thinks I should bring my parents to the Edinburgh zoo next week.

3. The woman who I believe is named Helen walked by three times; the second time she had a steaming mug of tea.  She said to me, "I always seem to get tea easily."  Apparently!  The third time she went on about something, but I couldn't understand a word of it.  And I don't think my reactions were satisfactory. 

4. I met an interesting gentleman named "Glasgow Jimmy."  He's an older man who looks quite sophisticated; a professor type.  After I played "Fly Me to the Moon" he stopped and said, "Fly Me to the Moon, eh?" and opened a folder that evidently contained sheet music.  But then he didn't follow up on that, but rather changed the subject.

He told me he is a street performer as well, and he does two acts.  In the afternoons he "paints portraits with words."  And at night, meaning 11:00pm-4:00am he "tries out his original music."  Jimmy explained that he draws a chalk semi-circle around his pitch and sketches different shoe sizes, including a pair of bare feet and a shoe next to a little circle to indicate someone with a peg leg.  If someone wants to hear his show, they must find the feet that most match themselves.  "It's a trap," he explained, "Before they've even heard anything they know they have to tip!"

Jimmy also told me that he has a spare room that he rents out to performers during the Fringe.  He calls it the "Edinburgh suite," and charges competitive rates: a bag a cashews for all four weeks, and if the occupant wants to stay longer he charges them a little chocolate too.  Wow!  I've never seen him working here; the name suggests he works in Glasgow.  I'm going to try to get to the bottom of it.

Later he walked by again and put a bundle of white napkins in my box.  He caught my eye and gestured that it was something to eat.  Oh, awesome.  Turns out it was half a cinnamon roll!  Score!  (Sorry about the sticky hands, squeezebox.)

5.  Behind me is all offices, and sure enough when 5:00ish rolled around a woman said that she had been in a meeting all afternoon, and that my music had been nice.  That bodes well for me to keep that spot during working hours!

6.  SPOILER ALERT!  Because I'm arranging "Call Me Maybe," I've been thinking about "Friday."  Even though no one has ever recognized it on the street, I ought to keep playing it.  The Youtube video has over 20,000 views, after all.  So I decided to start playing it again on Fridays.  But I did it today anyway, and sure enough a group of young people seemed to recognize it.  Okay, it's back!

7. I was at street level on one knee to give a little kid a Flaca demonstration.  Those people were leaving as another family arrived, and the daughter asked, "Can you play that instrument?"  I said, "Yes, but can you play this one?" and extended Flaca out.  Didn't really make sense, but oh well.  She gave her a go, but pretty soon the mother indicated that it was time to move on.  The mother took Flaca from the daughter, but surprised me by giving her a go herself before handing her back!  No one can resist that painted smile!

8. An adorable little boy and his dad stopped.  The boy was wearing a navy blue jumper with white stripes under a matching navy blue raincoat also with white stripes!  Nice!  I showed him Flaca, but he was a bit shy and let his dad do it, but he wholeheartedly accepted the shakers.  Turns out they're Swiss!  My favorites!

9. Folks haven't been recognizing "Dynamite" much anymore, so I was pleased to see two young people singing along today.  When I finished I told them of the absence of recognition, and another woman chimed in saying that she had recognized it too, just didn't know the name.  So there's still hope for the hits of 2010!

10.  There's one man who saw me doing percussion, and would always tap his foot along.  Today, he yelled from across the street to get my attention, and tapped his foot in regard to my percussion.  But it's gone!  Good to know it had one fan.

11.  At one point I realized that it was incredibly quiet.  There were no other buskers, no circle show going on, no street cleaner, no trucks.  No pipers.  I truly had the airspace to myself.  Awesome.  That is all.

12.  My first accordion "hit" was "What is Love?"  I played it for a variety show early in 2010, but it has never been a serious part of my repertoire, for no good reason.  I've decided to give it a try again, and it got a good response today.  At least, the hair wrap lady and Tom like it.  I'll have to rearrange it, since this arrangement was from my very early days as an accordion-player.

13.  Now that I have a set setlist, I'm aware of when I'm playing the wrong song for the present crowd.  Usually it's playing the old standards for young people or just the opposite, serenading pensioners with "The Final Countdown."  But today I got lucky; I had just begun "Beyond the Sea" when a nice older couple ambled by.  They actually sat on earplugs to hear the whole song!  That never happens!

14. Today was apparently International Look Like Ms. Godsey Day!  On many occasions I found myself doing double-takes, thinking I had just spotted my former fifth grade teacher.  Like seriously, a dozen times at least.  Weird.

15.  I was playing Dynamite (different time from before) and I saw a group of young foreign-looking people recognize it from across the street.  They stopped at one of the tour places and sort of danced along.  I wanted to keep their attention by playing another pop song, but I didn't really want to so I just played what was next on the list: Tico Tico.  I was sure I had disappointed them, after letting them think I can do a lot of pop songs.  Then two of them came over, surely to compliment me on Dynamite from before.  They asked, "Where are you from?"  I told them, and reciprocated the question.  They're from Brazil!!!!  "So you know that last song...?"  "Yes!  Tico Tico!"  Score!  I loved that; I hadn't disappointed them at all.  Victory for traditional music of the world.

16. I kept making this mistake during "La Vie en Rose" but I actually really liked it.  That song has a long of complicated, moving chords, with lots of room for mistakes.  Sure enough, there was one I kept doing, but when I fixed it it actually sounded cool, going from the wrong chord to the right one.  I'm going to try to do it on purpose from now on!

17. An older gentleman recognized Paint it Black, and came in singing on the chorus!  It's his demographic for whom I arranged it; "cool" former hippie geezers.  Glad it paid off.

18. I checked in with hair wrap lady, who I learned is named Jackie, about playing more.  She said that she can tolerate me, and told me some of her favorite songs which included "Losing my Religion."  I was glad to hear that, since it's freshly back in the repertoire!  She had been doing a long hair wrap on a girl, and she said that the girl had been guessing songs as I played them, correctly identifying a lot (including Wallace and Gromit!). 


19. I finished off the day with sort of a confusing interaction.  A parents-aged couple, I think from Finland, asked what I study.  I told them.  They explained something about their daughter; I think she's studying architecture but she also plays the accordion.  But she cried when the father saw me yesterday?  Didn't quite follow that bit.  I'm not that threatening!

20. I transcribed "Singin' in the Rain" this morning to bring along, and tried it out when it started to rain.  Didn't go very well.  But I think it'll be nice once I know it!

That's all for today!  Next time I have to reduce the time I spend chatting with co-workers so I constantly give my professional impression.

One last thing: it has totally warmed my heart that two people have contacted me saying that they missed seeing me play in Provincetown.  My former busking cities aren't even on my radar, but I'm so happy that I made enough of an impression on tourists past that they notice my absence.  I did, however, have a nightmare recently where one of my Ptown nemeses decided to come busk in Edinburgh for the summer.  Nooooooo!

Till next time.