Busking on the fiddle (Old Aunt Jenny With her Night Cap On)
Jul 09, 2024Season 1Episode 95
Meg Wobus Beller
Busking is playing in the street for money. I've done it. In fact, I've done in New York City in the subway! A few thoughts on busking, and some busking stories.
Fun tune this week, Old Aunt Jenny With Her Night Cap On.
Busking is playing in the street for money. I've done it. In fact, I've done in New York City in the subway! A few thoughts on busking, and some busking stories.
Fun tune this week, Old Aunt Jenny With Her Night Cap On.
Welcome to the Fiddle Studio P podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Meg Wobus B Wolvespeller and today I'll be bringing you a setting of the tune Old Aunt Jenny with Her Night Cap On from a jam in Baltimore, M maryland. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. 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.
Meg Wobus Beller:
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.
Meg Wobus Beller:
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.
Meg Wobus Beller:
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.
Meg Wobus Beller:
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
