Busking in Munster

I stopped for a couple of days in this smaller but very nice city. When I told people I was heading for Munster they told me "Ho you are going to love Munster it's great for cycling, it's like the number 1 german city for that, maybe the only one that compares with cities in the Netherlands." And truly enough there were bicycles everywhere! As usual I headed for the Altstadt, the Old town center, on the look out for a nice walking street where to busk. Here I found two streets: the first was the main shopping street with all the usual shopping stores, pretty busy and noisy. The second one was a smaller and quieter shopping street also, with less passage. This allowed me to conduct a little experiment in Munster: first I busked the main busy shopping street, and it went great, it was a good busking session in terms of income. But it was also streneous for the voice and not that enjoyable because of the noise level. Then later on in the evening (sometime around 6pm I think) I did a quieter session in the smaller and less busy street. Actually at first there was so few people that I wondered whether it was worth it. But as it turned out it went great, and it was much more enjoyable for me too! People would interact more, stop to listen in, and although fewer people gave money in the end it came out the same as my afternoon busking session on the main street because people gave more each time (actually got a couple of 5 euro bills, which goes to show how much they appreciated it). I even allowed myself, for the first time, to do really quiet songs without the whole cajon and tambourin set up for a change, and to my surprise also people listened in and gave a little something for these songs, so that was great! It was also nice to play something else than the major hits I usually play when I am going for making money, because although I enjoy these songs it's nice to play something different every now and then! This is also how I met Ludwig and Julie, who kindly filmed and took pictures :) So all in all Munster was great for busking, and the whole experience got me thinking about my busking strategy: I think from now on I will try and go for more intimate setting in quieter walking streets if possible, rather than the main busy street which, although it brings in money too, doesn't make for such an enjoyable busking experience. Plus I like the fact that people interact more and feel more ate ease to stop and listen in in a quieter setting.

Busking in dusseldorf

On the road to munster I decided to stop in dusseldorf to try out a littlr bit of busking inthe altstadt. It fell a Monday so I wasn't expectng much,but still it was the holidays and there are always people in thr streets. In the early afternoon I found a nice busking spot at the intersection of the two main shopping street. And things started out prrtty well: the location was good because people could see me well, and I ve found that to be pretty important with the one girl band thing because it is also a goodvisual act. There were benches too close buy and people started sitting down around to li st en in. I got a request to do Mrs Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel, and so I improvised something and the chap who had requested it seemed very pleased. Then as I was talking to some people two women from the city council street surveillance service or whatever came and say hi. They explained the rules for busking in the city, which I already new, as I had now learned that the half hour busking rule applied to many pla ce s in germany.like in Koln you can busk bf from every half hour till half past, thrn you have to stop and look for another busking spot 200m away at least, and you can start busking again nth at the start of the next hour. As it turned out they had bf fallen on me at a timr when I was allowd to busk so all was good, I was respecting the rule and all. But they were sort of aggressive about it, repeating like the three times that If they caught me la ter on at that same spot or playin the other half hour or smtg they would confiscate the guitar. It was kind of harsh and it didn't feel very welcomingy! Even the people who were sitting and listening in were ki nd of shocked and took my defense,saying like "yeah ok it s cool she got it you know, she won't play when she sh ouldn't and all" :-) so that was kind of nice! Anyways the problem was th at this spot turned out to be the only good one for me that day, as the others didn t work as well, but I definrtely couldn t take therisk of going back to it after that, although the rule isn't quite clear on whether you can come back to it later on in the day... The thing is I realised lat er that day that local buskers didn't respect these rules at all, so I don't know either it was just bad luck or th ey we re ju st bluffing because hey knew I wasn't from that town! So in the end busking wise dusseldorf was average for me, but the ci ty itself was nice enough and definrtely worth thr stop for a day ;-)

Busking in Koln

My first stop along the Rhine route was the beautifull city of Cologne, where I spent 3 days busking, and meeting all kinds of great artists. Yeap Cologne is defintetly a great city for busking, but there is also a lot of competition. And so you need someyhat of an original performance act in order to stand out.

The busking rule in Cologne (and apparently so in quite a few german cities), is that you can start busking every roudn hour for a half hour, which basically means that you can play from 5pm to 5.30pm, but then  youneed to wait until 6pm to start playing again. This is kind of a strange rule and it takes some getting used to, from a logistics point of view. Basically during the second half hour you go and find your next busking spot, and because there are so many street musicians in Cologne you must get there early for the good spots.

Good busking spots in Cologne generally are the main waliking and shopping streets like Hohe strasse (but it is very crowded and loud), the platz around the Dom cathedral area (but again without amplification it is a great open space so for unimplified ac ts it can be tough to  get heard).

My personnal favourite which worked best for me in the evening was playing on the promenade along the Rhine known as Leypstadel if I remember correctly, because it is quieter, the whole setting is quite beautifull and all in all it seemed better suited to my act.

I met great buskers with great acts in Cologne, especially guys who take down a piano to the streets. First I met Constantin and Jacob, who respectively played the piano and cajon, with a full  size acoustic straight piano: Needless to say this makes auite an impression in the streets. On my second day I had the greatest busking and jamming session on the promenade with these two guys. We had an amazing crowd (actually their were so many peoiple who stopped to listen that others couldn't paas by the promenade any more, so they just had to hang out and listen in too!! I was an incredible night, and the audinece participated too, as Constantin would invite people from the audience to come and sing or play songs of their choice.

On my third day I met Marcel form Netherlands, who takes the concept even one step further by üushing a full sized grand piano in the streets!!! Very very impressive of course, and his playing was brillaint too, so all in all ´he did more than ok ;-) pretty damn well actually!!!

This is what I love about this kind of adventure and travel, it's that you meet so many great people, with so many great ideas, sometimes all crazier the one than the other!!! 

I like the idea of busking with a piano though, I am going to look into that for sure ;-)

And the next stop: Dusseldorf!