Busking, Sheet Music, and Updates
Hello Readers!
I've been focussed on some other project lately so album reviews and photography posts and the like have taken a back seat.
Over the last two weeks, I discovered music transcription (as in writing sheet music from listening to a song) as a tool for learning music.
I started out very inspired with this task, spending whole days on one song doing the vocals and guitar parts only to burn out and be inspired by a new song the next day. Songs like "From My Own True Love" by The Decemberists, "Love Will F**k Us Apart" by AJJ, "Lipstick on the Glass (Lullaby Version)" by Wolf Alice. But then I got hooked on "That Green Gentleman" by Panic! At The Disco.
The idea behind transcribing sheet music from recordings as another way to learn music pieces so I can play more songs when I go busking.
Because I really wanted to start busking, that is, street performing for tips or donations.
However I realized with a couple of great posts, that I just needed to get out there!
Yesterday (Saturday, August 3, 2024) I packed my banjo, acoustic guitar, and mandolin in the car with a foldable wagon from Walmart and drove into downtown Annapolis, paid for two hours of parking in the parking garage, and pulled my instruments to the corner of Main Street and Francis Street and started busking for the first time.
It was scary.
It was hot, but I found a spot under a tree.
I wasn't very good at my mandolin. But I started to remember songs on an album from Jack Jezzro that I like so much, "Romance in Venice".
(First of all, I'm really impressed with the ease of accessability that websites like Google Maps and Spotify allow me to embed music on my website.)
I played what I could remember, and then I started to just play whatever came to mind.
The most magical moment happened, where a boy (between 8 and 10 years old) came over with a handful of one dollar bills from his mother and put them in my tip jar. He seemed mesmerized with the sound from my instrument.
"What instrument is that?" he asked.
And I explained what a mandolin is. Tuned like a violin, but plucked and with two of each strings. Used for American blue-grass music but originating in Italy.
I kept playing for them as they walked away.
Eventually I got tired of playing my mandolin and it was obvious that I needed to practice more material for it to have more material to perform on the street. So I made a mental note and decided to switch to my acoustic guitar.
My guitar was tuned to play "Iris" by The Goo Goo Dolls, and even though I definitely didn't know all the words to that song, I thought I'd give it a shot. Because I didn't think anyone was really paying attention to me.
It didn't take long for a very drunk guy to tell me I was singing the wrong lyrics.
I'll say I wasn't exactly prepared to deal with a drunk person after half-assing a song I barely prepared for the first song I played that day at 2:15 PM.
I spent like 5 minutes trying to tune up my guitar to be able to play something that pleased him, and to be honest, I enjoyed what we came up with. I'm at my most authentic I think when I'm covering songs by the band AJJ, the sporadic strumming patterns, intense, slightly frantic tempos but very simple chord progressions with slightly disturbing lyrics. The drunk person was nice enough to wait for me while I tuned, and when I didn't know any Weezer or Green Day songs, he made up his own lyrics about being beat by his mom and dad when he was young while I hammered out G, C, and E min and D maj chords.
Eventually I think he got bored and walked away (his little brother was semi-watching over him/trying to get him to leave but I think was also enjoying the music slightly) but as I kept playing a few minutes after they left, I realized that they left a bag of some leftovers and what seems like a bucket bag made of recycled sail and a dog toy... with the receipt! The poor guy spent $65 on the two things combined dropped them somewhere and walked off without 'em.
I continued to play some AJJ, "Love Will F**k Us Apart" censored with "mess us up" and some other Panic! At The Disco songs ("That Green Gentleman" and "Northern Downpour") but I didn't know all of the words/chords for "That Green Gentleman" so that didn't go so great, but I sang my heart out for "Northern Downpour" while a man about my age walked by with a woman and what seemed to be a very nice film camera, possibly a Leica. I hope I enhanced their time in downtown Annapolis, hope he took some nice photos that day, it was very plesant under that tree where I had parked my things but I was very drained from playing downtown and appeasing the drunk person and I was just about out of material for the day.
Notes for next time:
- More Green Day and Weezer
- Harmonica holder
- Capo
- A built in tuner would be nice, or a different kind of tuner. One that clips on?
I had spent a lot of time working on a version of "That Green Gentleman" by Panic! At The Disco that had the tablature, fretboard diagrams, and lyrics aligned with the chords more rhythmically in time. Although the version I had didn't have lyrics, and was already five pages long, this version might not make sense, and not all of the lyrics are notated with the correct rhythm, I tried to double up the verses and choruses to condense it all down to just four pages including the lyrics now. This isn't a transcription because I worked closely with the tabs from ultimateguitar.com.
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/panic-at-the-disco/that-green-gentleman-official-2485785
This was a really big movement forward for me. When I'm trying to combat my learned helplessness and get closer to where I want to be in life. I'm so glad that I finally went downtown, parked, and took my instruments to a spot and started playing.
And my favorite thing, when I was too tired to keep playing and started packing up to go back to the car. As I was walking away, I noticed...
"It's really quiet... someone should play some music."
Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think of the sheet music I put together. I'll make another post eventually, but if I'm not making posts, then I'm working towards a goal! I'll leave you with this.