On my first busking train tour in 2023, one of my deepest fears was of dealing with street people. Specifically, mentally ill/violent ones, or thieves drawn to my gear. My fears finally came to pass in Chicago, as I described here. But having “paid my dues,” and successfully run the gauntlet that every busker dreads… I found I no longer worried about it.
That was one of several changes in mindset I gained from my long, slow journeys. On my second and third busking tours of America by rail, traveling thousands upon thousands of miles and improvising every day with where I might play and where I might stay, I experienced three profound changes in perspective around status, access and speed.
1. Status: The inmates running the asylum
When you play on the street, your primary audience is going to be street people. As I became increasingly comfortable, I noticed how street people themselves noticed me in their milieu.
“Should I know who you are?” a woman who had been pan-handling all day outside a mall near Lake Michigan asked me. (I assumed she was homeless based on her look; she then said she was eager for a hot bath when she got home — so I was wrong!)
“I can’t believe I found you!” said a man who spent two hours listening closely to my music in a park in St. Paul and telling me how he was going to manage my career (he claimed to work for the Mexican government representing the avocado cartel. He showed me his IMDB page as someone with music and film contacts in Hollywood. My deep knowledge of Eddie Murphy’s oeuvre came in handy.)
While corporate types on lunch breaks power walk past me to get to important meetings, street people immediately notice that I’m a professional musician. They don’t see someone who’s “just a busker”. I’m breaking the rules of status, which are rampant in music (see the story of a world famous violinist busking in the NYC subway as a social experiment; he was utterly ignored by commuters).
Busking reminds me of the doctor who goes undercover at an insane asylum; all the patients immediately figure out he’s not one of them. The other doctors never do.
2. Access: How do you hop the train?
I was set up in front of a wiggly blue sculpture across the street from a moderately active mall in Milwaukee. It was evening and the fog was beginning to blow in off the lake. Milwaukee has the feel of a city that was once ravishingly rich and has since fallen off. The boulevards are so wide, the buildings so majestic. Yet even the St. Paul street people had told me Milwaukee was rough, and to be careful.
(“Milwaukee feels like Mad Men, the shell of a once vibrant center of American manufacturing” I later told a Milwaukee woman on the train.”That’s exactly right,” she said.)
As always, those who were most curious were the street people. A ruddy-faced young man swayed and smiled as he listened to me. He was drunk and eyed my tips bag.
When I’m feeling concerned that someone might grab my tips, my strategy is to proactively give them a dollar. I gave him one. He looked both surprised and relieved and said thanks. He peered at my sign. “So, you’re on the train?” he asked. I said “Yes, I’m taking the train across America and busking on the street in every major town.”
He looked dumbfounded. I’ve often repeated what he said next:
“How do you hop the train with all that stuff?”
3. Speed: Faster than 18 knots
One of the many lovely aspects of train travel are the social moments. Amtrak riders are gentle, friendly folks.
On my way back home, crossing the Utah dessert, I had dinner with a couple who looked to be in their 80s. They were returning home to Idaho from Florida after four months on a round-the-world cruise.
They made friends very slowly on the ship, to their surprise — it took weeks and months to get acquainted. Not like the train, where dinner conversations can last two hours. Now that they were returning home, I asked if these three days crossing America felt like a long haul.
The husband laughed and gestured toward the window, where the gazelle-dotted land scrolled by at Amtrak’s top speed of 79 miles per hour.
“Not at all! Compared to cruising out on the open ocean, the train is really fast.”
Reframes for musicians
Another way to describe a perspective shift is the psychology term called a reframe. Indeed, these three concepts — status, access and speed — are extremely relevant for musicians. These are core to many of the pernicious judgments we make against ourselves, and against other musicians.
Status: Only the greats, the “monsters”, the “new cat who just arrived in town,” are worth admiring. Music can be separated into “good” and “bad” categories.
Access: Only musicians who are rich, famous, or playing the most prestigious venues are good. Only those praised by critics, gigging with other big names, or with the top streaming numbers have really “made it.” It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
Speed: Only child prodigies or people in their twenties need apply. After age [insert age], new skills can’t be gained. Playing a lot of notes really really fast means you’re a monster (that means a great musician).
It should be obvious that these are merely beliefs, and each of them can be turned on its head. Outsider art (open access), busking (low status) and deliberate or meditative or fun practice (slow integration) are some of the many ways to go against the grain.
And remember, the beliefs are only important in so far as they limit you. Who cares what anyone else thinks.
Catch you out there at my favorite venue, the sidewalk.
