Peforming Guerrilla/Street Music
 

So I just finished playing some street music for a couple of hours at my university by the polling place. Me and my brethren were trying to create spontaneous community and fill our public place with live music.

live music in a public place makes it public, it converts a walkway and a path to somewhere into somewhere to be in and of itself. Live music brings the people passing by together into a common experience. I love it.

Even better for musicians, the street performance is spontaneous, often improvised. There is no real pressure on you to perform, you can play what your heart's content. And even better than a gig, you get a REAL audience, of REAL EVERYDAY people, who best of all were not expecting it at all. There is a risk to this however, because what if they don't like you? What if they don't like the kind of music you are playing? They are not as socially obligated to be polite as people at a gig, because after all, people at a gig came to your show voluntarily looking for music of some variety, whereas with guerrilla music on the street, you have invaded the people's place with music.

For me today at the university it went well. the people were positive, they shared the love of community for at least a moment. and they all accepted the message on my sign, "VOTE FOR YOURSELF."

any other guerrilla musicians out there?

I was thinking of busking with just my acoustic guitar and voice somewhere around my town. It seems like an easy way to make money, someone at my school does it and usually gets about $40 an hour.

I prefer to do it for free, especially around political times when $$$ is the corrupting influence. But this is not in disregard to those who make their $$$ this way, much love and respect to the musicians, we need to eat too!