… beg for money but where I don’t come right out and just ask for it. Let’s start with a scene. Madison, Wisconsin. First warm day of spring. Class has just gotten out and so I cross library mall to State Street. The sound of a guitar reaches up and down the block around Gilman or maybe Gorham. The scent of incense and patchouli and just a soupVon of weed is in the air, but this is not exceptional. This is just Madison. The outdoor seats are all full of people eager to enjoy the weather after a long Wisconsin winter cooped up inside. These are the moments that it felt like I could never take anything for granted.
Except for, I could and I was.
When was the last time I lived someplace where I could encounter someone playing live music in public on just an average day? The city is too pricey and the suburbs where I do live don’t have that kind of culture.
A few months ago, my daughter and I were waiting for our order at our local filipino bakery when a man carrying a guitar and speaker approached us. I think he must have been performing out on the sidewalk before coming inside. But that area doesn’t really have a lot of foot traffic. He held out his cup to us and I put a few dollars in. “You want me to play you something?” We said sure and he warned us it was going to be loud, gesturing to the speaker he had just set down. Our halo-halo arrived before he could plug into his amp and we had to be on our way. That’s the last time I remember dropping a tip in a musicians jar.
Back in Madison, Catfish Stephenson, a musician who often played on State Street once told me that a big crowd is actually worse in terms of income. No one wants to step out of the crowd to throw money in. Or else everyone assumes someone else is going to do it. People just don’t know what the protocol was. Catfish always threw a few bills into his guitar case when he was first setting up and before he started to play. Get the ball rolling. Show them how it’s done. No one wants to be the first.
At the end of last year, I started taking guitar lessons. It’s fun. I enjoy it. I’m working on Let It Be. I’m not bad at it and I really enjoy it. It’s already paying off dividends. Just yesterday, I had a bit of a panic when I realized that a prescribed medicine I’d taken was counter-indicated for another prescribed medicine. I put a call into the answering service at the cancer center. “I’m going to go play guitar while I wait for the call,” I told my husband. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to do my other calming activities like reading and it was raining too hard to go for a walk.
But it’s been two months that I’ve been working on Let It Be. Give me another month and I’ll be confident enough that I’ll be able to take it out to the sidewalk and open my guitar case for some dollar bills. But, well, it will be the only song I’ll be playing. I’m more likely to earn tips to make me stop.
The point being that I have an appreciation for the work, time, energy, and effort that goes into performing on the street. And I wish I had taken the time to appreciate it more when I was living in places where it was more commonplace, like Madison.
I hear that tipping culture has gotten out of hand these days. At least, that’s what people say. And to be honest, if my mother knew I was out here busking on these internet streets, she’d probably be pretty embarrassed. I don’t know. I don’t mind the opportunity to show my appreciation for the hard work that people are putting in. And I’ve never felt like I have to tip. It’s just a nice thing to do.
Rhena Writes 