BUSKING AROUND EUROPE
I am one half of Wonderful Exile – a music duo from Glasgow who have been travelling around Europe for the past year, sustaining ourselves entirely through busking. This invites a mixed response from people – non-musicians question street music as a viable profession, and musicians doubt their ability to earn enough on the street to maintain a stable income. Admittedly, information about busking tends to be hard to find, ill-informed, or uninspiring.
So, I’d like to share our secrets, our advice and our stories. I’d like to confirm busking as being a legitimate means of income. I’d like to introduce a genuine way to support yourself financially while travelling. I’d like to suggest an alternative to musicians settling for a job which doesn’t utilise their skills or bring in worthwhile money. And I’d like to show the potential for busking to be a professional musical performance rather than a hobby.
Our idea to try performing abroad vaguely materialised in 2014. I was graduating that summer and my partner was considering a year out of university. We’d joked about setting off for mainland Europe with the guitar and one day thought – why not? We had our worries – we hadn’t busked extensively in Scotland, we knew nothing about busking in Europe, and (as professional musicians) we were unsure about swapping the stage for the streets – but thought it would be an adventure if nothing else.
In September, we travelled from London to the streets of Amsterdam where our small store of saved money swiftly disappeared – and we had to begin busking. As it turned out, we were successful from the start. We had the natural appeal of being a couple (refreshing amongst mainly male street performers) and being Scottish (we’re a popular country!) We were earning good money right away and saw the potential to travel longer term – if we could keep ourselves unique.
Thus it was time to find a niche for Wonderful Exile.We wanted to stand out from other street performers, clearly remain professional musicians, but still appear personable and approachable enough to appeal to passers by. We knew we’d have to stick to covering famous songs in order to catch people’s attention but – in order to hold the attention – we needed something different. So, we looked at where our strengths lie (strong voices and tight boy/girl harmonies) and fit the songs accordingly. We played with genre, style and melody – turning dance pop into jazz, ballads to rock, and indie to country. We wrote a friendly sign to let people share in our story and made our own CDs – handwriting the track list, designing the sleeve, and tying it all together with a ribbon. And when this inspired someone to give us money, we thanked them – we made sure to thank every single person who gave us money. We smiled, we engaged with everyone who wanted to speak to us, and we listened to their stories in return.
Leading such a sociable lifestyle is tiring, and is probably the hardest part of our travels. As we often rely on Couchsurfing for accommodation, our days can consist of constant interaction with people on the street, followed by a long evening of conversation with our hosts. We’re meeting new people every day and have to make a good impression – both to earn money and to be respectful guests. Couchsurfing is an incredible platform – it’s made budget travelling a lot easier and has introduced us to some weird and wonderful people (organic farmers, board game enthusiasts and nudists to name a few). But it can be a real drain too – we’re independent people who find it difficult to continually rely on others and, being a couple, it’s nice to have our own space. This motivates us to earn enough money to book a private hostel room now and again.
I should be clear that we’re sticking to Europe for now – it’s in the culture to have street music, and therefore is the most profitable area to play in. We thought bigger cities would guarantee an audience but soon realised that – without amplification – these cities could drown us out. Instead, we looked for smaller places with less of an established music scene – I’d recommend Delft (The Netherlands), Lugano (Switzerland), Bruges (Belgium) and Aachen (Germany). We slowed our travelling in 2015 by renting an apartment in Catalonia for two months, with a view to working on new music, setting up our YouTube channel and busking enough to cover the rent. This was disastrous – no holidaymakers plus strict laws in Barcelona and Madrid made busking impossible. We left early and travelled to the south of France which, on the whole, was a disappointment too. The locals weren’t as friendly as we’d experienced elsewhere in Europe; it was difficult to find cheap accommodation; and we couldn’t make much money there despite the lack of street rules.
A surprising number of places strictly regulate busking, require that you purchase a license, or even forbid street music altogether. But we’ve found that these rules, and the police who enforce them, are to be respected but not feared. We ask local musicians about the attitude of the police – whether they rigidly enforce the laws or prefer to turn a blind eye. We’re polite to the police when they are polite, but make sure to stand our ground if they try to take advantage of us. It’s important to respect people but equally important to respect yourself.
There are always people telling us where to go, what to do, always claiming to know better than we do. This often comes from other musicians who feel threatened by new people and want to assert themselves, but equally common is a passerby who decides it’s their job to lecture us about music, travel, money, or Scotland… With a lifestyle where we spend so much time around other people, it’s important to remember who we are!
Through busking, we’ve discovered a very free way to live. We’re not defined by a 9-5 workday, and can see the world whilst doing what we love most. But with this comes a need for self-discipline to ensure we have enough money to keep us going and a clear head to work out what to do when we don’t have enough. We have days where we wake up with ten euros and no idea where we’re sleeping that night. We’ve been stranded in the Italian Alps, stuck penniless, hungry and cold in Catalonia, and trapped in the strangest hostel in Milan without enough money to leave. We experience the highs and lows of Glasgow from a distance with no one here to understand – the frustration of hearing of the Arches closure, the tension of the referendum buildup, the excitement of the general election. We miss our families like crazy. But we keep going – and that’s helped by having each other. We’re a team, encouraging each other when it’s bad and sharing in the good times.
We’ve discovered a very fruitful and enjoyable way to earn a living. We’ve been travelling for a year and have only ever used busking to keep going. We live a varied lifestyle – alternating between hostels, Couchsurfing and AirBnb for accommodation, shopping at markets for food, experiencing the art and culture of other countries, and visiting incredible places – solely through the money that busking brings in. It’s not a hobby or a way to de-stress from other work – it’s our job. And it allows us to live the way we want to. It brings opportunities to play in diverse places – we’ve been invited to perform at festivals, restaurants, markets and outdoor concerts. We play to crowds of people who really appreciate our music and our story. And never mind working to maintain a professionalism, we have improved hugely as musicians. We’re vocally stronger, better performers, generally more confident (if you can perform successfully on the street, you can perform in front of anyone!) and we work together seamlessly. It’s an exciting life as a traveller and a musician.
To musicians looking for a new stage, aspiring travellers with musical talent, buskers looking to play further afield – I could not recommend more that you try busking abroad. It’s hard work but it’s good work. For the experience, for the people, for the new friends, for the fun, for your music, and for the stories you’ll have to bring back with you. Take what you will from my advice and experience – what’s worked for me won’t work for everyone. As they say, bad advice is bad but good advice is disastrous! It’s great to listen to what people have to say, but use your initiative to make it work for you.
