From Brass Bands to Buskers: Street Music in the Uk
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AN ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL-FUNDED REPORT FROM BRASS BANDS TO BUSKERS: STREET MUSIC IN THE UK Elizabeth Bennett and George McKay INTRODUCTION | 1 AS LONG AS CITIES HAVE CREATED PUBLIC MEETING PLACES AND THOROUGHFARES, PERFORMERS HAVE STAKED A PRESENCE IN THEM. SUSIE TANENBAUM, UNDERGROUND HARMONIES (1995: 33) EXECUTIVE Photography: Pixabay SUMMARY CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A busker in an underpass, carol singers in the square, teenagers 1 INTRODUCTION Throughout history where people have gathered in shared public spaces, playing guitar on a high street corner with their cases laid out performers have been present amongst them to entertain, practice their craft, 2 HISTORY hopefully before them, marching bands parading through city and earn a living. However, despite the ever-present place of street music centres; anybody who engages with shared public space has at 6 CULTURAL POLICY in the soundscapes of our daily living, there may be not as much about the some point encountered street music. From the historical protection AND LEGISLATION subject in comparison to many other areas of musical study (Watt 2019: of royalty for the Elizabethan city waits, to a site of conflict on the 71). But there is some, and we have made it our business to find it, read it, 8 STREET MUSIC ADVOCACY thoroughfares of Victorian London, to its position today in urban annotate it for other users, and overview it in a structured report, here. regeneration via culture, street music remains a ubiquitous presence AND CAMPAIGNING in our contemporary environments and continues to be both a source In this report we intend to explore the existing research and policy writing 10 PLACE-MAKING, SPACE that has been undertaken in this area, and to indicate the rich possibilities for of surprise and debate, pleasure and nuisance. AND COMMUNITY further study. Our approach to this is fourfold. First, we aim to investigate and Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the purpose 13 PROTEST AND enhance the knowledge and understanding surrounding street music; second, of this report is to chart and critically examine available writing about SOCIAL MOVEMENTS we propose to examine the cultural value of street music; third, we wish to the historical and contemporary presence of street music in the explore the scope of street music practice within the UK in particular; finally, cultural landscape and our shared public spaces, drawing on both 16 CREATIVITY: PERFORMERS, we plan to consider the role of street music in the continual formation PERFORMANCE AND AUDIENCE academic and ‘grey’/cultural policy literature in the field. The review of communities and our sense of place. presents research findings under the headings of 19 FESTIVALS, CARNIVALS, From a source of wellbeing and social unity, to a means of increasing visibility – history LIVE AND OUTDOOR ARTS and knowledge of diasporic and migrant cultures, and a site of attraction for – cultural policy and legislation 22 FURTHER RESEARCH tourists, the literature shows that street music plays a significant social and – street music advocacy and campaigning cultural role at local and international levels. 23 BIBLIOGRAPHY – place-making, space and community While the report deals primarily with street music within the UK, it does draw – protest and social movements on critical work from English language scholarship internationally. The report PROJECT INFORMATION – creativity: performers, performance, and audience considers a range of music that takes places on the streets, with a primary The report was written by Dr Elizabeth – festivals, carnival, live and outdoor arts. focus on live music production. Literature was limited to academic books and Bennett and Professor George McKay journals, and policy/’grey’ literature, but largely does not contain newspaper The report concludes with a set of future recommendations for of the University of East Anglia, as or magazine articles. The report includes work from musicology, historical research. To accompany the report, a substantial annotated part of the Public Culture and Creative geography, cultural geography, urban planning, performance studies, and law. bibliography has been produced, which is freely accessible online, Spaces project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council-led Street music provides multiple opportunities for interdisciplinary study. via the Connected Communities website ( connected-communities. Connected Communities programme org/index.php/street-music-in-the-uk-annotated-bibliography/). (connected-communities.org). Project administration at UEA was provided Image above: Buskers in London. by Michelle Bagnall. Cover image: Busker envy in Liverpool 2008. Photographer: dreese. CC BY-SA 3.0 2 | HISTORY | 3 … BRAZEN PERFORMERS ON BRAZEN INSTRUMENTS, HISTORY BEATERS OF DRUMS, GRINDERS OF ORGANS, BANGERS OF BANJOS, CLASHERS OF CYMBALS, WORRIERS OF The predominant mode of academic discourse FIDDLES, AND BELLOWERS OF BALLADS. surrounding street music has been historical. This section traces the evolution of street music in the UK CHARLES DICKENS, ON LONDON’S STREET MUSICIANS, by surveying the current literature on historical modes 1864 (QUOTED IN PICKER 2003: 42) of musical street performance. AN ANCIENT ART FORM the saving of the Israelites (ca. 1500 However, it is from the minstrels Among the places in Europe in through travelling spectacles such STREET BALLADRY Paul Oliver (2003) has shown how BCE), as well as musical performers of the Middle Ages onwards that which minstrelsy continued to thrive as the mystery plays—references As a result of the proliferation of the various forms of itinerant street on the streets of ancient Rome street music becomes more widely beyond 1300 was England. Although to the wandering minstrel tradition printing press in the 16th century, a performers have existed historically; depicted in the mosaic of street documented. Very early minstrels minstrels had an itinerant lifestyle, continue into the early modern new musical presence arrived on the with street music considered to have performers on the walls of the Villa were the goliards, a loose term some had benefactors and patrons period (Brayshay 2005: 431). The streets in the form of the ballad seller been present since streets existed. del Cicerone, Pompeii. Additionally, applied to groups of itinerant singers who supported them. Many were decline of the minstrel who played (also referred to as ballad singers and Oliver traces instances of street harps, lyres, shawms, and trumpets who were lower clergymen in less fortunate and spent the greater from memory was also hastened ballad mongers). Street balladry was music in the Bible, for example the are noted to have been played in Europe. Their performances were part of their time travelling to seek by the rise of more professionalised an occupation held by both men and women, and followers of Miriam, who the streets of ancient Assyria often satirical in nature, aimed at the audiences. During periods such as performers who could read musical women. Situated predominately in are playing their timbrels to celebrate (Oliver 2003: 71). church, society, or the hedonism Lent when their services were not notation (Milsom 2011). cities but also found in village squares, of the wanderer, and comprised of required, they could visit ‘schools’ ballad sellers would sing the printed THE WAITS song, prose or poetry performed in for minstrels, fiddle players, and songs they were selling (Atkinson The practice of the itinerant street Latin (Paxman 2014: 19). trumpeters in western Europe; these 2018: 83). musician was further limited by the were international assemblies where Often printed on a single sheet of TROUBADOURS development of the waits. The waits musicians could improve their craft, paper referred to as broadsides, The better-known performer were established in the 13th and learn new songs, and meet with with the text in verse or in prose and of medieval minstrelsy is 14th centuries as a night watch for other players (Wegman 2002: 11). surrounded by a woodcut image the troubadour. Associated towns and cities and comprised (Atkinson and Roud 2017: xi), one predominately with the Moorish- REGIONAL GUILDS of male wind instrumentalists who of the principal subjects of ballads influenced courts of the Provence Regional guilds for minstrels were would pipe the watch (Scholes would be the current affairs of the region of Southern France, the established in places such as 2011). As well as becoming day; a broadside from 1540 narrates origins of the troubadour can be York, Beverley, and Canterbury. widespread geographically the fall of Thomas Cromwell (Taylor traced to Poitou and Gascony, and Membership of such guilds required across England in the following 2012: 20). Broadsides was relatively troubadour influence extended into centuries, their duties diversified, the means to pay an annual fee, cheap, which meant that they were Italy, Catalonia, and Spain, and again benefitting those with regular and they became civic minstrels widely purchased. By the 1660s over courts across Europe (Gaunt and income and stable patronage. Those who focused on musicianship and 400,000 were being sold annually in Kay 2012: 3). without means or protection, and performed at weddings and other England (Capp 1985: 199). considered outlaws by the Church, ceremonial occasions. Operating within the period 1100- With urban population increase due to spent their time on the move 1300, troubadours were traditionally In addition to carrying out