Alstublieft in Antwerp!

Greetings from Antwerp, Belgium! Today was a glorious day of international busking; exactly what I had hoped for on tour.

I've been super lazy about busking. I did it in Liverpool, but then skipped London and was planning to skip Antwerp, simply because there's so much sightseeing to do!

(Disclaimer: I'm writing on an iPad for the first time, so I will certainly fall victim to autocorrect at some point! Too late to proofread this post. Also I'll be leaving out apostrophes not done by autocorrect because I cant be bothered to go to the other screen to get them!)

Anyway, todays busking began wth a phone call with my dear friend Sasha last night. I was telling her all about my travel plans, and she asked the question, "how are you paying for all of this?". Oh yeah. I'm supposed to be paying for it through busking.

Midday today I was walking through Antwerp planning on just sightseeing. but then a sound filled my ears! It took me a minute to find the source, but sure enough a young map was playing an upright piano on Meir street, the big shopping street. It was so lovely! THe piano was a bit beat up, and he had evidentially wheeled it along the sidewalk. I talked to him for a bit, and he said Saturdays are great for busking in this city. Apparently theres another piano player too! I was cursing myself for not bringing my accordion along, just in case. As I kept walking, I saw another busker: another accordion player. That did it. I decided to go get my accordion and put in a day's work. It was a gorgeous day, I was rapidly losing money, and I missed it! I hadnt played my songs in over a week (except for Happy Birthday several times last weekend and a quick concert for Freya's grandparents). I figured out the tram and went back to my cousins house for my gear. On a whim, I brought along not only my kazoo, but also my never before used mini tambourine. More on that to come.

I was going to go back to the shopping street, regardless of what I learned in Liverpool. Luckily I talked to my second-cousin-once-removed Ive who suggested I go on Hoogstraat, near the Groenplaats. In the historic center, touristy. I did, and it was great! I am quite satisfied, and here's why:

Saturday, 14 April, 2012

Right at the top of the straat was a frite (French fry!) shop that was closed. I didn't bother looking further, I had some space with no one to piss off, it was right near a big church and city hall, and there were passersby aplenty! I was directly under the sun, which is noticeably higher than it is. Edinburgh, and I was down to just my dress a couple of times. There are two big things that I want to talk about: percussion and languages.

I. Percussion.

As you know, Edinburgh is gearing up for the annual Fringe Festival in August. So many street performers will flock in, so I will really hav to be able to compete! My goal is to be a functioning one-woman band, plus Flaca dancing on her own. I will henceforth add kazoo and tambourine to many of songs. As you know, I quickly bought a wooden kazoo, a mini tambourine, and a bunch of elastic before hitting the road. I experimented with the kazoo in Liverpool, but the tambourines was so far employed exclusively to confuse baggage handlers. Today, however, I though I'd try it out. It was a big success!!

The idea I had had was to strap it to my inner ankle. I tried that, but it took a lot of effort to make it sond, and it kept sliding down. Next I moved it to the top of my right foot. This worked well, but far from flawlessly. I'll list the problems:

A. It still kept falling off. I hadnt yet sewn the elastic into a loop, so I just wrapped it around my foot a few times and tied it. It held it on, but didn't survive the constant shaking, so it was always falling out.

B. It was also digging uncomfortably into my foot.

C. Since my right leg was percussing, my left leg held all my weight. This made for a sore hip joint! It is more natural to alternate tapping both feet, so the solution is to get a second one for the left foot, and they will pass off the percussion duty at my hips' disposal.

D. Took away from my accordion ability, since it's a lot for my brain.

It was totally worth these problems. Here are the advantages:

A. It gave my songs a great fullness. They definitely sounded more complete with percussion.

B. Lo and behold, it helped me stay on rhythm! I am terrible about speeding up, which i never seem to notice on the spot but which drives me nuts watching recordings. It is easier to hear impurities in rhythm in a rhythm instrument, so the whole act stayed in tempo much better!

C. It drew attention. When it's just accordion, people are okay walking by and listening. But when it's accordion and tambourine, people look up to see how it's done! I definitely noticed more attention.

D. It kept me smiling! I do much better when I'm smiling throughout, but often I space out and forget to. But while negotiating the tambourine, i was having fun and couldn't help but smile! And the crazy rattlesnake finale I was doing on every song is just so silly that I had to smile. And i was losing my balance and falling over a lot, which is always funny.

E. It was just so inspirational in terms of building my act. I am so sick of my songs and my routine, so I'm looking forward to honing this new act!

Here are the mechanics:

On some harder snags, like Beyond the Sea and Fly Me to Your Mom, I kept it really simple, just keeping the beat. But on other songs, like Werewolves of London and Vieni Sul Mar, I wet a little nuts and did some complicated stuff. Much more interesting. I discovered that it helped the endings of sings to give the tambourine a real shake on the last note, wheni a I also attempting tremolo on the accordion. Also used this in the middle of some songs. I started out keeping my heel on the ground and just tapping my toe, but thAt got painful. I realized that I had way more volume and control if I lifted my whole leg, leaned forward a bit, bent my knee, and slammed my whole foot down (think of the posture of the guards in Athens with Pom poms on their toes instead of tambourines). It really made me look serious about it! Even when the tambourine fell off mid song I could still make a sound by stepping on it. Tis will require some crafting to figure out how to make it stay, but it will make my act so much more effective! Can't wait.oh and I did use kazoo a little. Mainly on "House of the Rising Sun," which officially marks my first number as a one woman band, since I used al three nstruments! Also tried using the kazoo on Ring of Fire again, for the brass bits. I really need to get a harmonica holder. The other song on which I used lots of kazoo was "Call Me," the greatest hit by Kaiho, my Edinburgh band. I just love this song! My intention was to practice my bit, but I ended up doing Sas' and Mel's parts on kazoo and tambourine!

I believe that's all about percussion. Now...

II. Language.

Today was my first day playing in a country where English is not the primary language! I had avoided doing this because I want to be able to understand the funny comments. I gave that up, which was disappointing since I had a lot of gibberish thrown at me ("Est vinkle!"), but it was very interesting. The first concern was how I was going to thank people. I ended up just appreciately nodding, and sometimes said "thank you" in a funny accent. There was one phrase people kept saying when they tipped. I tried to recreate it for my first-cousin-twice-removed-in-law (seriously) , but couldt remember it. Bt then our waiter at dinner tonight used it, as did a character in the musical we saw after! The phrase is "Astublieft," and it pretty much means "here ya go.". My first Flemish! Other times, patrons would say things more substantial, so I would have to say " I only speak English.". That just felt so lame, and it's also untrue, so to sound more European I started saying "I only speak English and Spanish." with another half hour, Spanish would have been first in that list. Obviously most people started speaking English then, but one older man responded with "Has terminado jugando?" " si, voy a cenarme con mi familia!" but then we switched to English. Of course, once My secret was out everyone asked where I was from, and I decided to lie! "I'm from Scotland." I had to put a slight twinge on to make this believable, but accents are not a talent of mine. Everything I attempt just turns to Indian. So my story is that I grew up in Spain and now I live in Edinburgh, but I have an inexplicable Indian accent. One man said something, and when I hesitated responding he asked "Nederlandish?" or something. I responded, "Scottish.". He said "English?" I said "no, Scottish!" before realizing he was talking about language, not nationality. I know well enough to not accept being called English if you're actually Scottish! Sure enough a similar interaction happened later where the person actually did mean nationality, and he knew not to accuse me of being English! Most people who stopped to talk were speaking Flemish/Dutch, but there was one English lady and two sets of americans. The group of American ladies giggled at my secrecy, which they vowed to protect, when I caught them up on my identity scheme. I also talked to one man who had lived in ireland, and I was worried he would catch onto my Indian/American accent.

I've made you read a lot of text! Sorry! On to the fun part, the numbered list:

1. This is a boring one to start with, but the aforementioned English lady came by and said that she had been listening and wanted to see who was playing. She said I had a "variety of peace.". Hm, I had only played "blowin in the wind" once!" The funny thing is I even wrote down "variety of piece(s)" in my notes, which makes much more sense.

2. It was so strange, everyone was tipping Flaca! Really a strong majority! Usually people don't even notice her setup, but today her box kept filling up so I had to empty it into my box so I looked like a contender. Do they love miniatures in Belgium? They didt even comment on Flaca. Maybe they somehow missed my big box.

3. Speaking of money, I learned to love two euro coins! They look so much like one euro coins that people are more likely to throw them in accidentally than they are the very distinct two pound coins. I had 17 of them at the end, which is definitelyf more than my usual haul f two pound coins.

4. I heard the sound of music, and saw a man walking around by the patios of restaurants with one of those slender electric violins with a beautiful brass megaphone thing attached. Of course I feared that he would be competition that would not readily move along, but instead he came over to talk and to listen. He actually tipped me! Turns out he's Romanian. Best of luck to him, for being nice.

5. On the subject of territorial street musicians (me), I had a difficult interaction with anoher musician. This kid (19?) walked by with a guitar and a yankees hat. Trouble. After a minute he was seated like twenty feet from me playing his guitar and singing. I wanted to go tell him off, but didn't want to leave my stuff. In a bit, I talked to another American family, and decided to trust them to ask them to watch my stuff while I went to take care of business. These guys were total jerks! The guy and his friend. They said they were sitting at the cafe having a beer and they moved across the street to be in the sun. I politely told them they had to be fifty meters away. "what, is that the law?". " yes, it is." "I think I know the law. " "then you should know that buskers must be 50 meters apart." "I'm not singing for money." "that doesnt matter, it makes it difficult for me to do my act, and I claimed this pitch first.". I forget the rest, but they hurled aggressive comments back, and I finally walked away because I didt want to leave my stuff any longer. I guess they're either sensitive on the inside or afraid of the law, since they did go back to the cafe side and stop playing. Oh, I never looked up the busking rules in Antwerp. But that is the law everywhere else I've played or researched, so it probably is here. Oh, just remembered more. He said "I have friends that busk this close together and they're a lot more illegal than you!". And he had been playing "hit the road, jack," and suggested I just give in and play along with his songs. Tempting.m

6. A man came over and we did the shuffle of figuring out a language. He said, in English, that he had been over by the restaurant. Of course I got nervous that it would e a complaint, but he said he was asking. Me a favor. He had painted a banner, and he wanted to walk with it behind me while I was playing. Fair enough. They walked by, I played on, but I snuck a peek at the banner. It read, "Contemporary art sucks." Ha! What a cause! That was almost the title of this post, by the way.

7. An older gentleman who looked lik Pavarotti walked by with hs violin in a case. He said something I didn't understand, and I was worried I was in hs spot. But they he just told me to play, so I played Fly Me to the Moon and he Sang along!

8. Bells! Bells! More bells! The bells at the Groenplaats church ring for like ten straight minutes, in addition to a little interval at the half hour. I had to wait at 4:00 and 5:00. Loud, and hard to play over! I made a big deal and dramatically glaring at the chuch, looking at my watch, and sighing.

9. I spoke to a man named Joann (?) (yo-AHN) for quite a while. He lives in holland but he used to live in Antwerp so he was here for a visit. Long gray hair, glasses, big smile. Like that German teacher on the Clark website, not like Bob from the Black Lodge. Speaking of which, no one recognized Twin Peaks! I was surprised since Europeans from everywhere recognize it in Scotland.

10. Flaca finally got some action! She only did her thing the once at the end, under the control of a little toddler named Rosalie. But one of Flaca s stringed came untied, I have to fix her. I handed Rosalie the tambourine when she was done with Flaca, and she just turned and ran off with it.

11. Last but probably best...the bachelor/être parties. So much more appealing here than in Scotland! First there was a group of women with devil horns. Then there was a group of women in Spanish flamenco outfits. Then there was a group.of men. They all wore home made tshirts except for the groom, who wore a dog costume. They were all so dignified and polite, people you would actually. Want. To marry unlike the drunk hooligans I see in Edinburgh. The groom posed for a picture with me, and the group responded when I played "here comes the bride.". Lasty, a group of women walked by in polka dot skirts with a general retro look. I got the beginning of the song out as they walked by, just in time for them to notice. But not stop or tip! But then...they walked by again and asked if they could take a video, and if I could play "you are my sunshine.". Yes and yes! They got in a choral. Formation, with the bride conducting. So different and nice! I asked them to send along the video, I hope they do!

That is all. I could writes little conclusion but I don't even want to say what time it is here. Might do it again tomorrow if the suns out again! If not, catch you on the next stop. Sry for all the typos! I'm sure I didn't catch all the auto corrects. Xxx

Next day edits:

1. I forgot about the Hare Krishna lady! She rode by on a very decorated bike, with a colorful outfit and braids. She was giving out cookies, which I almost went for, but I declined.

2. It turns out it wasn't just Any frite shop I played in front of, but the best one! My hosts were going to take me to the best place, but it was closed. Mde the connection today that they're one and the same. Unfortunately, it's closed forever due to tax fraud. Well, good for buskers!