Young Buskers
03/11/09 22:59 Filed in: Harp Students
I encourage my students to take every opportunity to play for an audience. It doesn’t matter if they play at their church, at a retirement home, for their family or neighbors - any audience will give them the chance to hone their focussing skills and to learn how to prepare a piece for performance.
One of my young students, Sofia, talked her fiddle-player friend into busking with her at a local farmer’s market a few months ago in December. They were thrilled to find that people enjoyed the music enough to throw money in the open fiddle case - even Santa and his elves dropped by to listen.
By the end of the set they had earned enough money to buy ice cream treats with spare change left over. That’s a motivating outcome and at the same time they got some valuable performance experience.
