The lockdown has been a frustrating time for musicians. What we enjoy most is playing with and for other people. You can do that online to some extent, but it is not the same as live performance. Some years ago I started a pub session that has grown to include lots of cool musicians who play in various styles. Some of us have formed a group called Swing 42 who have been doing some busking lately. As we cannot play in pubs this gives us an outlet and it is a lot of fun.

![Busking](https://images.ecency.com/DQmZzUKwYJLhW9XLdmJZq5A2m74qucRwpkDQ8uu8opA5yvh/image.png)

So far we have done this several times in Hitchin and once in Letchworth. The local councils encourage this form of live music. In Hitchin they have provided us with a gazebo in the market square as sun and rain can be hazzards. We were due to play in Hitchin on Saturday, but it was raining a lot and the wind would probably have blown the gazebo away. We also had a slot in Letchworth on Sunday where they had a food fair. Our clarinetist Danielle had already played there, but was unimpressed with the area they had assigned for musicians, partly because some of the food stalls had been playing their own music during her performance. That is just rude. For our group we decided to play in the arcade, which is sheltered and has nice acoustics.

Our line-up is Danielle on clarinet, myself on guitar plus ukulele, Barbara on keyboard, Ray on bass and Anke on violin. We have a small battery-powered PA system that we are still learning to make the most of. We have microphones for the four of us who sing and some instruments are plugged in.

We play a lot of old songs dating back to over 100 years in some cases. The will be well known to most people such as Fly Me To The Moon and Pennies From Heaven. Others are more obscure, but fun to play.

We really are not doing this for the money, but we put out a guitar case for contributions, some of which have gone to charity. In one performance we made nothing at all! I wonder if people thought we were being paid to play there. Yesterday was not too bad and much helped by one lady who gave us £10! We had enough to get a drink and some snacks at a cafe afterwards. This was not a bad result as it was not that busy really.

If you want to make real money you need a good location with lots of people around as well as some talent. We have played to some fairly large crowds in Hitchin when the weather is nice and lots are sitting out at cafes and pubs. They are not specifically there for us, but we get some nice applause. It can be fun playing for younger children and they may badger their parents for some money to give.

I do not have any available footage of our performances, but this is one of our rehearsal sessions on a very windy day.

https://youtu.be/rUEtW_DbjJU

I really hope we can have more live music soon, but playing in crowded pubs and other venues seems a distant dream for now. Please support musicians who are busking, streaming or posting videos. That will help them keep going so that they can perform for us when this is over. We have lots of musicians on Hive who you can support with your votes. If you know others then please encourage them to sign up. I can create accounts for those who need them.

Stay well and rock on!