Play Somewhere Weird Every Day month: July
Every day in July, I will be playing music in some unexpected place. A street corner, a cafe, BART station, anywhere reasonably quiet with foot traffic. This is not an existing movement, and it may end up being just me that ever needs to do this. If any other musicians want to take it up, awesome, let's use the twitter hashtag #PSWED and we can see where other people are playing too.
The point of this exercise is to force me out of the house, into playing for people every day. I know I have more than my share of confidence and boldness, but a few years ago I realized one thing that terrifies me is playing in public where strangers are walking by, hating, loving, ignoring, giving money, or trying to talk to me. Playing shows has never been a problem. As soon as I know that at least one person in a place wants to hear me, and that I'm allowed to be there, I have no fear, just heightened awareness while I play. The problem, though, is that I am not wanted many places many times, or at least I am seldom asked. I play out about 3-4 times a month these days, which is not enough to live on or to satisfy my need to communicate. And since I am finally accepting that the need to communicate my music to a lot of people is a valid need which I can stop trying to squash, it's time to push past that final barrier and start playing where I'm not invited, trusting that people will either welcome me or shoo me away and that I can handle either scenario gracefully.
Every day I'll be tweeting my location about 30 minutes beforehand, except for a few planned shows. Thursday is when it starts. I don't know where I'll play Thursday but it'll likely be in SF in the late morning. Unfortunately this means I may not do a ustream concert for a few weeks. However I hope to be blogging briefly every day about the playing experience & occasionally posting audio and, if awesome people come video me, video of performances.
I'm taking location suggestions as well (Bay area only). I have a few ideas but could use more.
Friday I have a plan -- I'm bringing my cello banjo to the street corner by the DNA lounge (uninvited) to play songs about vampires, most of which I'm just about to start learning, on the street corner while people are heading into the True Blood Ball. I'll be playing from 9 till about 9:30, 10 at the latest. Busking on public property without blocking the sidewalk is a 1st amendment right, so they will not legally be able to chase me away. [ETA: Jill Tracy has also invited me to sell CDs on her merch table, cool!]
I must become a lion-hearted girl, ready for a fight
The point of this exercise is to force me out of the house, into playing for people every day. I know I have more than my share of confidence and boldness, but a few years ago I realized one thing that terrifies me is playing in public where strangers are walking by, hating, loving, ignoring, giving money, or trying to talk to me. Playing shows has never been a problem. As soon as I know that at least one person in a place wants to hear me, and that I'm allowed to be there, I have no fear, just heightened awareness while I play. The problem, though, is that I am not wanted many places many times, or at least I am seldom asked. I play out about 3-4 times a month these days, which is not enough to live on or to satisfy my need to communicate. And since I am finally accepting that the need to communicate my music to a lot of people is a valid need which I can stop trying to squash, it's time to push past that final barrier and start playing where I'm not invited, trusting that people will either welcome me or shoo me away and that I can handle either scenario gracefully.
Every day I'll be tweeting my location about 30 minutes beforehand, except for a few planned shows. Thursday is when it starts. I don't know where I'll play Thursday but it'll likely be in SF in the late morning. Unfortunately this means I may not do a ustream concert for a few weeks. However I hope to be blogging briefly every day about the playing experience & occasionally posting audio and, if awesome people come video me, video of performances.
I'm taking location suggestions as well (Bay area only). I have a few ideas but could use more.
Friday I have a plan -- I'm bringing my cello banjo to the street corner by the DNA lounge (uninvited) to play songs about vampires, most of which I'm just about to start learning, on the street corner while people are heading into the True Blood Ball. I'll be playing from 9 till about 9:30, 10 at the latest. Busking on public property without blocking the sidewalk is a 1st amendment right, so they will not legally be able to chase me away. [ETA: Jill Tracy has also invited me to sell CDs on her merch table, cool!]
I must become a lion-hearted girl, ready for a fight