Street Musicians

Recently, I've been very interested in street musicians. This past week was my spring break, and between London, Berlin and Budapest, I must have crossed at least 20 different street musicians. Some were really bad and some were really good. But in general, they were bright spots in my day. I took a picture of almost every one, but here are select examples and a few videos too.



I found this guy playing the Godfather theme song outside of a metro (or tube as they call it) station. I just had to take a video for all my siblings back home. He was definitely the best musician I saw on the streets of London.


Oxford on the other hand, was packed with college musicians. These performances were usually good old down-to-earth blues, rock, and funk - the type of atmosphere I was hoping to encounter in a good college town.

In Berlin, I saw a larger range of musicians than I saw in London. In general, they were more classically based and there was a much larger range in the quality, but they were still enjoyable.

Budapest was a jackpot. When we were there, it was considered to be an Easter/ Spring festival season, so there were a lot of spring arts promotions in general. The square near us had a seasonal market filled with homemade crafts. In the center of the square was a stage used for traditional folk music and dancing performances, and the outer lying areas were filled with an assortment of acts.



Just off the square, this was the best performance we saw by far. He played for quite some time and drew a huge crowd. Just in case it's unclear, the instrument he is playing is wine glasses filled with different amounts of water.



Musicians frequent Rome also, but I haven't seen them around as much as I did in Budapest. But this video was taken from a square near the big Roman University La Sapienza. It was a crazy, late night party full of students with drums and bag pipes! Everybody there was really into it, and the whole square sort of congregated around the music. For Willie and I, it was heaven.

I'm going to keep looking out for good performances when I'm traveling. It's something I really enjoy! Until then, I hope you enjoyed these, and I'll have an album full of all the pictures I have of the different musicians up soon.

Ciao!
Matt