"Buske" is a word I first learned in Britain. It means to stand on a street corner, put a hat out, and play an instrument, or sing. Several people see the French horn and say something like, "Do you do a little busking along the way?"

In American English you would just call it panhandling I suppose. Perhaps as a result, it never occurred to me in America to put a hat out and play.

It did occur to me once in London with my brother. I stood under an entrance to the underground and put the horn to my lips for a photograph but I didn't play a single note. I had no repetoire. I had no idea what to play.

Believe it or not, I carried that horn on my bike for10,000 miles on 3 continents the whole time knowing no popular melodies, incapable of playing by ear, and carrying sheet music for only about 20 "etudes for horn" - just boring exercises and scales. Several times people asked me to play and all I could play was essentially a scale.

Originally, I brought the horn to practice, not to perform. But I learned after those 10,000 miles that it might be useful to have some recognizable melodies in my head in case called upon to play.

So for the last 5 years I have memorized several tunes. I have tried them out on camping trips for years and judge people's response and how approriate they seem for me, the horn, the outdoors, etc. Many melodies have been rejected. I can really feel when tune falls flat and the audience is bored. Now I'm left with only about a half dozen tunes but they all seem work.

During our last several days in New Zealand I had the sense that the adventure factor on the trip was getting too low. Not much unusual had happened to us and we were not doing a very good job, I felt, of making things happen. We were understandably a bit tired perhaps. I though busking might be a good adventure to bring us out of our little malaise.

I needed a little encouragement though and Joan offered to be my manager. The last morning before we left Melbourne, we stopped in a little park and I played my repetoire all the way through and a book of xmas carols. Joan gave advice about what sounded good and what didn't. She helped a lot and gave me a lot of confidence. After about 40 minutes of this "rehearsal" we walked into the center of town and ran a few errands. I wanted my chops to recover for a while.

After much consideration about where to play (the place I really wanted under a bridge along the Yarra river was taken by a sax player, damn him) we picked a place right in front of the train station next to a closed news stand. I layed Joan's hankerchief out in front of me and threw a handful of coins on it. In many ways this proved to be a good spot. In one way, it proved to be a bad spot.

Joan told me to start with Scotland the Brave. While I played, I felt myself holding something back. I couldn't quite let it go at full power. It seemed so loud as it was even with the traffic right behind me. It was loud but I didn't give it all the gusto I give it at other times.

No one seemed to notice I had play at all.

I expected this. So I played another tune, and then another. One of the good things about this spot is that it had a roof so I could here myself. Another good thing was that I could put the book of carols on the closed news stand and play from the music without it being super conspicuous that I was using music.

Joan would tell me what to play and I would play it. Still no one seem to notice. It reminded me more of practice than a performance. A women walked by and threw some change on the hanky. I kept playing. Two little girls threw a coin in during Away in a Manger.

In the middle of another song, a man interrupted me. He apolgized for the interruption then asked, "How long have you been out of work?"

For a split second I was insulted then got over it. After all, I do not delude myself that I could survive as a musician. So I smiled and said truthfully, "Six months."

"Are you on holiday then?" he asked.

"Yes. We're from California," I answered.

He laughed warmly, like a preacher. "I have 30 dollars here if you were a local man out of work."

We agreed he should certainly save it for someone more needy than us.

After a while I felt my lips getting tired. I was having a very hard time getting the high notes. I started picking the lower carols or transposed then to a lower key. Still my lips were getting tired. There were some touch and go moments during the long notes at the end of Amazing Grace.

I found busking to be a surprisingly unremarkable thing. It's like practicing except you play tunes instead of exercises. It some ways, it is excellent practice because you have to continue to concentrate no matter what is going on around you.

I thought it would be more discouraging that no one listened but it didn't bother me at all. That much, I'm proud of. A musician, I think, should play for their own satisfaction first and the audience second.

Finally I had to quit. I had earned 80 cents. The nice man with the $30 gave me the idea that I would give it all to a more needy busker than me but I didn't see one. All the other buskers looked like students just out to earn a little holiday cash.

next: The ride to Albury.

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