Busking on the fiddle (Old Aunt Jenny With her Night Cap On)

It is very hot today in Baltimore and I have the air conditioning and the fan turned off so they don't interfere with the sound of the podcast . But , holy cow , I got to run through the rest of the recording here and get it off , because it is quite warm right now in Baltimore and , I believe , in the rest of the country too .

We're talking about busking today . Busking is when you play on the street for money . I used to busk when I was in college mainly . I did a few times in Rochester for various reasons , but the main time I busked I would buy a ticket to New York City . I had some .

Especially just after college a lot of musicians from my school went to New York to try to make it in New York and I would fly there and visit folks .

But I didn't have a lot of money , so I'd get myself a ticket on JetBlue and fly in and then busk in the subway to make the money for my trip , to have food to eat and kind of help pay for the expenses , have something to buy concert tickets with , et cetera . I did a lot of busking in New York City .

Most of the time didn't get a lot of attention for it . I think I was mostly playing fiddle tunes , but people would stop a lot and they would ask is that a violin or a fiddle ? So I had to . You know , learn jokes and things to say about that .

I think I have a podcast episode called what's the Difference Between a Violin and a Fiddle , With a collection of some of those jokes . There wasn't really anything to it . I never got a license , which you probably need now . This was back in the early aughts . I just got off the plane , got into the subway , have my backpack on my back and my violin .

Those were the only things I had . So open the case up and play the fiddle and get money in the case . These days you often need a license to busk . There's also a pretty new phenomenon now that happens that I've seen quite a few times , which is the sort of fake busking . I don't know if any of you have seen this .

Someone will be holding a violin or a fiddle and it'll be plugged in and amplified but the sound coming out of the speaker is canned . It's just some recording . You know , if you play you can tell . I've seen a few people playing amplified where it's real , but a lot of times when the sound is amplified it's not .

And sometimes a person knows how to play the violin and is playing something sort of similar to what's coming out and sometimes it really seems like they uh , yeah , like they're just pretending , like those actors on TV who sort of move their arms back and forth Like you would if one were playing the violin .

There's no , uh , there's no evidence of muscle memory or familiarity with the motor movement . I see that I guess I try to give money to buskers , but I don't think I've given money to people who were just faking it with the violin . You get requests when you busk .

Probably the biggest request I got was just Devil Went Down to Georgia , which is a hard thing to pull off . On solo fiddle I had a couple things I could do . I could play that fire on the mountain part and I could do a little bit of the devil's solo , a couple special effects . It was usually enough .

People ask for stuff like Cotton Eye Joe or Dueling Banjos or Turkey in the Straw . If I was playing a lot of fiddle , you know , one thing I like to do is sometimes if there was a background , there's a background sound that had a pitch , like a horn or a motor or something I'd play along with that A beep playing with a beeping noise . I've done that .

I've gotten gifts . I've been sketched when I've been busking . I don't still have any of those sketches , but I remember that happening . That's something that's really nice actually if you're an artist and you just sketch a little picture of someone and leave it for them .

I got a couple of stories on the Facebook Fiddlers Association when I asked this what have I got ? Devin Ledger said he was given a beautiful and expensive ukulele when busking . That's amazing . I've gotten random things for presents , but never a musical instrument .

Mark Caudill said that he saw a wonderful violinist busking in Charlotte , north Carolina , and while he was listening a couple of kids snatched a couple dollars from the case and ran away . And he says the busker set down his probably $60,000 fiddle and effort it is to learn to play them and , frankly , how little we often get paid for doing it .

It's a strange set of incentives , I guess you could say . John Kerr says that he had an experience at a conference where there was someone busking on the mandolin and he went out to hear this guy play and eventually the guy said well , hey , do you want to just play for me right now while I go to the bathroom and get a cup of coffee ?

So that was how he got pulled into busking for the first time . That's funny , rob McGeorge . I went to Stewart Island off New Zealand with no return ticket and no money . So he busked and got food and a ticket , a place to stay and money . Yeah , that's yes . That's kind of how I used to do New York City Get down there , make the money to get back .

And Ed Pearson had maybe my favorite comment there is busking . And there is busking during Oktoberfest in Munich , germany . Yeah , so busking is a different kind of proposition , when everyone will be drinking heavily . I don't know , I don't know about that . Know , I don't know about that . I may be getting too old for that . You can try busking .

Probably my most memorable time as a listener to folks busking I heard some great musicians when we were in Dublin who were playing on the street . I really enjoyed that . But actually during the COVID lockdown we have a busker at a farmer's market that's right around the corner from my house . On Saturdays he goes by .

If you live in Baltimore you might know this guy . He goes by Merdolf , which he told me is Merlin and Gandolf combined , all the magic , and he plays a big variety of stuff , lots of sort of folk tunes , pop tunes , all kinds of things . He plays guitar and sings . So I've been seeing him and hearing him at the market near my house for many years .

You know , I've been coming to this market on and off for at least 10 years , probably 15 . And during lockdown he wasn't out there playing . They wouldn't let him . And then the first time they let him back he had I don't know , he had , you know , whatever he had to do for singing to try to cut down on spreading any germs .

But I hadn't really been hearing any live music at that point , except what we could play with you know the folks in our bubble . We could play with , you know the folks in our bubble . And yeah , I remember hearing him and listening to him and I was just , I was basically moved to tears .

The music just made me think about everything that was happening and made me feel connected out to the world at a time when I was feeling super , super disconnected , as we all were . Yeah , so that was probably my most memorable experience .

I think I was , yeah , just getting a little weepy , tearing up at the farmer's market listening to Merdolf play the first time he was back after lockdown . Really sweet guy , anyway , busking . If you have a good busking story you can send it to me . Our tune this week is Old Aunt Jenny with Her Nightcap On . This is a popular tune . I like this one .

It's from West Virginia , also played in Kentucky , passed on through . Bruce Green said he learned this tune from Estill Bingham who lived in Bell County , kentucky , near the Cumberland Gap . We're going to play Cumberland Gap another week but that's , of course , where Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia all come together

. A lot of tunes called Cumberland Gap but he played it in G but some people play it in cross A . I guess Lella Todd , kentucky player , played it in cross A . Clyde Davenport played a tune in G kind of similar . There are words to it , nothing too exciting . Who's been here since I've been gone ? Old Aunt Jenny with her nightcap on .

There was probably more at some point . Some folks have a crooked version of it , but this is how we play it here in Baltimore . Here we go . Thank you . Thank you for listening . You can find the music for today's tune at fiddlestudiocom , along with my books , courses and membership for learning to fiddle . I'll be back next week with another tune for you .

Have a wonderful day .

K