Work Abroad

|Photo Courtesy of David Gray’s Brighton Images|

Great life: might suck in the winter http://www.flickr.com/photos/raaphorst/

Busking can be a great way to make a living and travel. You go out to the street and do what you love to do most and total strangers walk up to you and give you money. It’s like magic.

It sucks during winter though and if it rains all weekend then you might miss the most profitable days unless you can find a good sheltered pitch. There are also the days when you’re feeling like shit and can find no enthusiasm or charm to play. Your takings will reflect that and you’ll probably be hounded by drunks with nothing better to do than start applauding halfway through your favourite song.

On the plus side you’ll meet a ton of people and for the traveler it’s an excellent way to make contacts in a new town. People will come up to you, curious to hear your story and may invite you to meet up later on.

On the other hand there will be times when you grow so sick of playing the same old repertoire that you’ll lose the thrill of playing music altogether. What used to be your joy and passion becomes a tiresome chore that you have to do to pay the rent. The only cure to this is to do all you can to make the experience fresh each time you go out to play.

Remember, for your audience, it may be the first time they’ve ever heard you and someone just might get inspired to hit the road with a tambourine themselves. Just hope they don’t come looking for you when they crawl their way back, penniless and starving…

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