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Hi everybody! I just started busking last night, and it was fantastic!! I made lots of tips in 2 hours and people were SOOO friendly. I only know 7 songs by heart so I noodled and played scales a lot, and people just seemed to love all of it. I’ve met so many interesting people, too!!!
SO if anyone else has read this and wondered if they could busk, go for it! 🙂
Andee, THANK YOU for the “Help send me to Ireland” bit — I was planning to go to Europe next summer so this works really well. I also added (being Canadian, and in a tourist-y town) this to my sign: Do you prefer … – Justin Bieber – Harp!” (with a little checkbox beside each, and obviously a big red checkmark next to “harp”! Younger people like the joke about Justin Bieber and older people like to stop and tell me about their trips to Ireland.
Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone — this has been a blast!
Thank you so much, everyone, for the suggestions and encouragement!! I’m not sure yet whether my little harp will be loud enough — it’s a 12-year-old 29-string Stanley harp (http://www.stanleyharp.on.ca/29string.html). I’ll just have to wait and see. There’s a really popular, quieter park on Lake Ontario right next to the downtown area, which might be better-suited to harp busking since there won’t be cars nearby (but still lots of tourists). Happily, Stanley and Stanley is actually based right outside my small-ish city, so I can also say the harp is locally built…! 🙂
I’ve decided my tip sign will read “Help me pay for harp lessons!”
It’s still very much winter outside right now — I think I’ve got until around mid-April before I can venture safely outside, and that’s being optimistic. My new goal is to memorize about an hour’s worth of repertoire that I can repeat for a couple hours while I’m outside. Do you think people will notice that the left hand arrangements aren’t too complex yet, or should I try to hunt down more complex music? I haven’t really figured out how to arrange myself yet. I also figure I can repeat a song two or three times with different dynamics and octaves to make it longer (a lot of my songs are only one-pagers).
I am going to buy that Renegade Harper book when I get paid next, too! That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for!
Hooray!! We’ll see how this goes. 🙂 Really, really appreciate your responses — it’s made me feel so much better.
Thank you, both of you! I looked up the lever regulation kit and the one I really need is the 5/64″ wrench ball driver (http://us.harp.com/info/products/pact_show/id_19395832/). I live in Canada, so it’s not the most convenient to order through harp.com — I’m going to try my luck at a couple local hardware stores and, if I don’t have luck there, then I’ll consider ordering online.
Thanks for all the advice. I’ll try unwinding the string, too.
