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Originally posted by bluesmode

any of you buskers, busk out of necessity? I do! In May 2012 I came down with a disease called polymyalgia rhuematica severe, almost crippling joint pain. it went away after about a year, but it left me with some kinda nerve/anxiety/sleep disorder which I'm on disability for. without my extra busking income, life would be very hard.

I think one looks at busking a bit differently from this perspective. not all fun and games.

...just saying...I hafta push myself to go out and play for 3 1/2 hrs. 25 days out of 30

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I'm sorry to hear that you busk out of necessity... While my health is good I use my busking money to keep my son's auto running and his rent paid while he gets on his feet.. I don't care to discuss the details publically but the busking income is a big help..Sometime I feel like I'm getting close to panhandling and need a sign that say "anything helps', because yes, anything helps... On the other side, I LOVE busking.  Bluesmode, my heart goes out to you...

I love busking. I meet people and mom,unities I would never encounter in the concert hall, and some have gone on to follow my career and come to my recitals. Film stars advertise their wares on chat shows, I do as a busker ??????

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Originally posted by SimonJordanViolinist

I love busking. I meet people and mom,unities I would never encounter in the concert hall, and some have gone on to follow my career and come to my recitals. Film stars advertise their wares on chat shows, I do as a busker ??????

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Hey, and welcome to the Hangout.  Hang onto your hat, it can get crazy around here...!! Tell us some busking stories..!!

I've chosen to make busking my main source of income at various times in my life. I don't think I ever did it 'for fun', all though, on the whole, I enjoyed it. Sometimes, if you need the money, it's not much fun - if you show up at your regular, profitable spot, and find some other busker there, or if you get kicked out of said spot at the whim of some bureaucrat or rent-a-cop, or some radio station has been permitted to set up there for the day and pump their annoying noise into the air - um, how much time do you have?

well, now that I've done a bit of venting....I do enjoy it, and I'm grateful that I can do it . I usually get 'that's beautiful' a couple of times, every time I go out, so that's nice. I have about 25 tunes (older jazz standards like When You're Smiling & Sunny Side of the Street, and other melodic tunes like The Godfather or Somewhere My Love from Dr. Zhivago, but I play them very close to the vocal melody) I've done these tunes so many times that I don't hafta look at my finger board much, so I can People watch...I do learn some new ones every so often. Last years additions were Once Upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty and When You Wish Upon a Star. that one is fun cuz I do it mostly on the D & A strings, shifting fairly high up on the neck.

a 'set' takes me about an hour and then I take a 10 minute break. The first hour is pleasant. the second hour I sometimes begin with a sigh. the 3rd hour can be more like 'keep going, you can do it, just one tune to the next'. I feel more energized and positive if there's more paper in the case. Funny how that works, eh?

I don't think I expend as much energy as a fiddler would, with the tunes I do tho. and yes, I can certainly relate to many of the things Old Scratch said. All in all it's not too bad, it's pretty good, and I'm doing the thing I love the most...play that violin.

It's great to have a busking thread, Tune Weaver. Thank You.

I had a great time busking today.. One passer by was named Andrew Baerlocher and he said that he was a street magician.. He told me that once a kid watched his magic act and as a tip, the kid gave 1/2 of a broken golf tee...Andrew was puzzled and noticed that the kids parents were in tears.. It turns out that the kid was autistic and had been holding on the broken tee for some time and the parents were touched that he would give it as a tip to a magician....Must have been a great performance..

Today it was COLD.. I wore gloves with the tips cut out.. I had planned to busk for two hours.. at 1 hour and 45 minutes I was ready to call it 'quits'... I told myself that (inspired by Dave, Bluesmode,) I would stick out those last few minutes. It is a good thing that I did.. Tips exceeded $20 in the last fifteen minutes... I had only brought in $20 the entire previous 45 minutes...I think that the shoppers felt sorry for us. BUsking is like a box of chocolates.. You never know what you are going to get..
Which brings me to a question..Do any of you know much about these new credit card busking tip machines? I've seen some but they cost $400...It is going to eventually happen that they will be in common use...

I forgot to mention.. At one point today there were 4 kids all about 7 years old jumping and dancing while I played.. Then I said, "Hey, what if I play Old McDonald Had a Farm".. Well, the kids went more wild.. I've got to remember that for future use...Sometimes simple is better, apparently.

Lee, I don't know much about card readers, but there are lots of smart phone options nowadays. Squareup.com is a common one, and offer a free basic card swiper. Not sure how practical that might be while busking, but they do offer other swiping/chip reader devices for more money. I dont think anywhere near $400. I think they just take a flat percentage of every transaction.

There are a few other reputable companies that do the same sort of thing, at similar costs. PayPal and I think intuit.

I think what you want would be a self-service paystation for your audience, but im not sure I've ever seen an ideal solution.

Maybe look at Clark Howard's website or send him a message? This would be right up his alley.

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Originally posted by amwildman

Lee, I don't know much about card readers, but there are lots of smart phone options nowadays. Squareup.com is a common one, and offer a free basic card swiper. Not sure how practical that might be while busking, but they do offer other swiping/chip reader devices for more money. I dont think anywhere near $400. I think they just take a flat percentage of every transaction.

There are a few other reputable companies that do the same sort of thing, at similar costs. PayPal and I think intuit.

I think what you want would be a self-service paystation for your audience, but im not sure I've ever seen an ideal solution.

Maybe look at Clark Howard's website or send him a message? This would be right up his alley.

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Currently, I tell people that if they want to pay by credit care, to just write their pin number on the back of their card and drop the card into my tip basket.. No takers so far...!!!  I'm aware of the Square thingy.. and yes it would be inconvenient to use..

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Originally posted by TuneWeaver

 BUsking is like a box of chocolates.. You never know what you are going to get..

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this is so true. you never know when a $20 bill might show up. many a time my day has been rescued in the last half hour.

Today was the First Farmer's Market in Bloomington..35 degrees... I went and did a busking stint anyway.. $25 to show for two COLD hours.. I now have the skill to play my fiddle with gloves on BOTH hands...no joke. I did my busking right by my daughter's booth.. Got to see her 'do her thang'... SELL COFFEE..  She did well....

A college student freshman approached my today while I was busking.. She wanted to just take a few photos and get my name . She also said that she was doing an article for the school newspaper, the IDS..... Not so fast.. I reminded her that I had contacted the University paper that she was reporting for that they never responded .. I contacted them about doing an article about busking vs panhandling.. She had never heard of the word 'busk'... She has now.. Hopefully she will get the word out...So many college student have never been exposed to either buskers or panhandlers... There IS a difference..

first day busking this year. did pretty good, but the best thing was..... first time I've busked with Evah Pirazzi Gold strings, and they sounded absolutely marvelous. one Lady said I was attracting Angels. That's a first!

When I was a young man in Richman VA I used to see beggars.. I guess on the sidewalk going into town... I never thought of them tho..just some other people. I asked my Mother about them she told me...they were beggan for food. Those two words changed my life forever....Glad to hear you hade a good day Lee

I missed afternoon busking today so I decided to go out early evening. not 3 minutes after I started playing at the transit station, two late teens girls stopped and gave me a fiver each. and five minutes after that a mid twenty's girl gave me another fiver. the rest of the evening also went well.

young girls like Once Upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty.

Fujers: why do you bring up begging and beggars? Don't tell me you don't see any difference between playing music for money and begging?!

Today was fun.. The tips were not coming in because, basically, the sidewalks were empty.. HOwever, at about 3:15, a school bus stopped in front of me and a window opened and two quarters came flying out.. Harry Hare and I WAVED a lot in appreciation.

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Originally posted by Old Scratch

Fujers: why do you bring up begging and beggars? Don't tell me you don't see any difference between playing music for money and begging?!

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I don't know about Jerry.. if he thinks about it I'm sure he'd see that busking is NOT begging.. but it is surprising just how many people CAN'T see the difference.. even among my friends.  I compare busking to being a waitress.. they make virtually nothing in wages EXCEPT for tips, just like buskers.  They are providing a service and so is a busker. A busker's service is entertainment...

I think the two key words the changed him (as a positive) were "for food", but I could be wrong, especially about Jerry. 

Sorry, don't follow ... ?

Originally posted by fujers

When I was a young man in Richman VA I used to see beggars.. I guess on the sidewalk going into town... I never thought of them tho..just some other people. I asked my Mother about them she told me...they were beggan for food. Those two words changed my life forever....Glad to hear you hade a good day Lee

He hasn’t disparaged busking in any of his other comments, right? Maybe, I didn’t go back through it all, but probably not. I feel like he didn’t give us a complete thought here, like it’s missing: “forever....from that day on....” and then maybe he looked at the beggars through different eyes or some such. I’m not speaking for him, I just know sometimes his posts get misunderstood and this one seems incomplete.

Yeah ... I guess I just don't see what beggars have to do with buskers, one way or the other. But, not everyone sees things my way ... !

I think Lee brought it up, only he used the word 'panhandler'. But I agree, not germane to the conversation ultimately.

Lee, keep it on topic! ??????

That was said in jest  I don't trust emoticons anymore. 

I have no idea why those question marks are there.