Street Music

New Yorkers have a Love/Hate relationship with street musicians.

I remember while I was still going to Mannes College Of Music, 3 friends of mine (all string players) traveled around Europe and payed their way by playing Mozart string trios on the streets of Paris, Salzburg, Dresden...etc.

Amazing, I thought. How great it was that European citizens supported young musicians so generously. How awful it was that New Yorkers didn't!!! But I was wrong. Musicians are everywhere in NYC. We have the largest theatre and Opera companies in the world, hundreds of smaller music venues, ensembles, troupes, studios and yes, we have street musicians of every kind around every corner. And without the love and support of the public, they would have been gone a long time ago.

Go to any park on a summer weekend, you can find talented (and not so talented) musicians entertaining the public for small donations. Some have found great success like Guitar Man in Central Park or that kid that drummed on upside down plastic buckets that was discovered and put in a Mariah Carey video. Some are singing for dinner, or their kids dinner, and are trying to make money the only way they can. Some others have no where else to practice. More than one musician started out looking for a little change and ended up finding the real meaning of music.

For every guy you find annoying on the 5 train singing badly for a few cents interrupting your precious reading time, there are 10 others out there with tremendous talent. And for every 19 year-old white kid with a $2,000 guitar begging for change while butchering his way through Dave Mathew's cover songs, there are dozens of song writers with no other place to play.

Do yourself a favor...stop and listen. It may not be long before that woman you passed by this morning on your way to Starbucks is selling out Madison Square Garden. And it may not be long before some dumbass politician writes a bullshit law and bans it all outright.