In response to the recent The Busking Project post on Facebook, we posted a link to an article that said you should ban buskers – at least those with backing tracks. We asked:
Do you think bagpipes should be banned? Pan flutes?
Get back to the days of acoustic-only busking?From the voice of a self-certified LTB (“local territorial busker”):
Stefan Mullard, our community manager and in-house busker, responded:
Dear Busking Project,
Ok. I would be the first to admit when walking into my hometown, my heart sinks at the sound of either bagpipes or the dreaded pan-pipes. But on saying that I have annoyance if the Romanian Accordion Man or the Eastern European Sax/Accordion Duet can be heard from my pitch. Sod it. I get even more pissed off when my good friend from high school has woken up earlier then me and has pitched up in the area we both know to be best in our town.
But do you know who my pissed off-ness and annoyance is aimed at? Myself.
Why?
Because I was too lazy to get up that morning and go into town early.
Pan-Pipe busking exists because people give money to Pan-Pipers because, strange as it may sound, people like listening to the theme music from Titanic over and over again. I exist as a busker because, strange as it may sound, people like listening to Hey Soul Sister and Jason Mraz’s I’m Your’s over and over again. If I didn’t get paid I wouldn’t be busking, I would be practicing. If I didn’t make enough money I would do something else to survive. And so would they.
To ban buskers of any type is to give credence to the motion to ban us all. One person’s music is another person’s annoyance. Who would you prefer to make the ruling though, a committee of men in suits, a collection of self-interested buskers who would make to rules suit themselves, or it’s audience?
I know which one I would choose. If busking is the most honourable way of making a living out of art (as recently stated in the Lords) it always need to be the audience.
Rant over.
Stefan Mullard
LTB
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Our response:
Dear Stefan,
We agree with you: don’t ban buskers. The post to FB was to incite response after reading yet another article criticising buskers. We will increasingly have to have a good response as the number of buskers continues to increase. More buskers (probably) equals more complaints, and more bureaucrats looking into the “busker problem”.
Panpipes, bagpipes and drums are often quoted as the biggest annoyances for both locals and other buskers, who tend to get drowned out if they’re around. You can put cloths on the drums and turn down the amps for panpipes. But you CAN’T make a less-noisy version of the bagpipe (so I’ve been told).
So, what’s the answer? How do you rectify the annoyance of locals/businesses on the one hand, and the joy of bagpipes on the other? If you can’t ban buskers, is the message “put up with it”?
I was told this joke a long time ago: “What do you call 10,000 bagpipes at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.”
With unbridled respect,
Nick