MUSC105: Assignment Three

Anton Styles

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MUSC105 - A Musical Ethnography Anton Styles [Redacted] Victoria University

MUSC105: Assignment Three

Anton Styles

[Redacted]

On the Friday night of 10 May 2013, the band Johanna and the Mystery was scheduled to play at the Southern Cross Hotel in central Wellington, from 10pm to midnight. I had planned to attend and conduct an ethnography, and on the way there I encountered a trio of buskers. One was playing a banjo, one a violin, and one a harmonica. The sound produced as these diverse instruments converged was highly idiosyncratic, and I quickly decided to make this performance the subject of my study. The resulting experience blurred the lines between objectivity and subjectivity, as the following ethnographical account reflects.

Two thirds of the way up Cuba Street, which is a common area for Wellingtonian street-performers, I find a group of musicians. The banjo has one missing string - the high top string which characterizes the normal banjo sound - and the banjoist has replaced two strings with thicker-gauge strings, tuned at bass level. The banjoist is mid-twenties, dressed in alternative hippie attire, with long hear and an equally long, bushy beard. He is playing a rhythm that at first seems to mix between country and jazz, but proves so foreign that I cannot categorize it. The violinist is midthirties, and wears Kathmandu jacket. He is watching the banjo player, cautiously following his lead with high-pitch melodies. The harmonica player is younger, about 19, wearing jeans and a hoodie. He seems slightly bewildered, and joins in here and there with some blues lines over the top, pausing now and again with a bemused smile. As he plays, I recognize the tune of Train Time, by Cream.

The group have placed a paua shell on the concrete, in front of the banjo player. It is half-filled with coins, and sits inviting the passing public to denote their support with donations. Small crowds of people stream past the performers on the street; some look with a smile at the performance as they pass, some pause to listen and observe for a moment before hurrying along, and a few men in suits

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glare at the musicians as though they are thoroughly disturbed. One looks somehow disgusted with the scene. Many others walk right on by, as if they are entirely unaware of their surroundings. Suddenly, the harmonica player waves goodbye and swiftly runs away. The remaining two musicians take a brief break, and I explain my assignment and ask for their names. The banjo players name is Steve, and the violin players name is Nick. They say they think the harmonica players name is Sam, but they arent sure. Steve and Nick then exchange names with each other, and I realize they had all met each other on the street, just as spontaneously as I had encountered them.

Ive been doing this for about two years, says Steve. Once, I saved up $800 from busking and flew to Australia. Im trying to be a hard-out artist, too. Referring to his music, Steve opines, Variety is my style. Suddenly, Steve notices the harmonica player across the street, and calls out Whats your name? The young man calls back Shane. Music does that, says Steve. It gets through the madness. He is referring to the madness of the city streets busy people are rushing to and fro, past thousands of fellow citizens without stopping to say hello. Through the musical encounter, Steve has created a space for deeper human interaction than that typically found in the chaos of the city.

Steve then turns to Nick and asks Hey, wanna swap? Within seconds, Steve is playing deep, sweeping melodies on the violin, while Nick plucks and strums the banjo. One passer-by out of a crowd of eight says Hey, cool! and stops to put a few coins in the paua shell. After a few minutes, Steve looks at me, and says Now we can swap, I wanna take notes!

This request throws me off guard. For a moment, I have the feeling that my role as an ethnographer

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is serious, and must be defended. Yet something about this mans odd manner makes me stand back, detached, and see it from his perspective its only a role, its a game, and games are supposed to be fun. Because of this events intimacy, there is no screen between myself, as an audience member, and the performance; my ethnographical observation is predicated upon intimate participation, so I assent. For a while, I try to make musical sound with the violin, an instrument I have never played before. Meanwhile, Steve records a description, in native categories1, of the scene in my notebook: Nick is sitting amongst trees beating his cerebrum against a lake of flying banjo sound. Peaking out and flowing along again like the natural landscape. A cripple zooms past in a wheelchair, a small eruption of normal hair. The comedy attracts another queue, this time pointing up Cuba St. It is important to give up and then keep going anyway. In this way your mind can start a new myth. New plates are spinning. Nick follows along. [sic] The metaphor in the last two lines alludes to a dynamic relationship between street-performers and pedestrians. In Steves eyes, spontaneous changes in the interpersonal environment influence the performer, who in turn follows the change in mood. Learning to flow in this process has a mythopoeic effect upon the performers psyche.

As Steve writes, I find myself thoroughly incapable of producing harmonious sound on the violin, and I turn back to Nick who is now playing the banjo and ask if hed like to play. No thanks, I dont know how to play violin, he says, although he was playing clear violin melodies in the correct key earlier. Soon, Nick announces that hes leaving, and I ask him to comment on the personal significance street performance has for him before he leaves. Nick enthusiastically gushes about the mystical aura of buskers, how each is a story-teller with their own voice, and how busking adds character to the city. He says he never busks himself, but his motto is Always tip a busker. Steve still has the notebook, and records scraps of Nicks conversation: Smile to the faces. Clicks
1 cf. Seeger, Approaches to the Ethnography of Music, in Myers, Helen, ed. Ethnomusicology, an Introduction. WW Norton, 1992, p.

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outta spaces. [sic]

After Nick leaves, Steve speaks about the significance street performance holds for him: Supermarkets. Everyone hates supermarkets, but theyre just there and we all have to use them, because thats just how the universe requires us to be So Im like, why cant I do that? Why cant I be this force that people just have to deal with? Like, heres my story - deal with it! For Steve, street-performance is a radical way to assert his identity amidst society, and he delights in the way this introduces chaos to the formulaic routine of modern life.

There have been a few of you over the years, he says to me, documenting my life. He smiles. It seems that the aspiration for scientific accuracy contained within ethnographical praxis is precisely the kind of mundane event that he likes to disrupt and thus extend to a greater degree of complexity. Hes certainly succeeding with me.

Soon, while playing his banjo as hundreds stream past, he says Its a great way to meet people, in a way that is very low-bullshit and high in music. He plays the violin for a bit, which was his all along, then says I cant play this thing, man, its so tender. I think, That would make three of us, although it still seems to be that both Steve and Nick are reasonably apt on the violin. Pausing for a smoke break, Steve says I like really bushy weed, so it doesnt fuck with my head too much. Write that down. I get really psychic when I smoke too much. From his tone, it is clear that he views altered states of consciousness to hold a significant relationship with his musical performance.

Immediately after sharing this information, he grabs his banjo and begins to strum intensely. After a while, he invites me to play. I happen to have my ocarina with me, so I produce it and begin to

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play. He asks for my notebook again and records some more native descriptions of the event:

I feel like the possibility of a human but usually writing spirits. . I have done experiments and holding a guitar is mostly like holding a huge wang. But music. It brings people together in a very pure way. Who is distilled by your little street happening am so diverse and well introduced by your self. Pretty sounds. They get along cause theyre different in easily understandable ways. Whatever works and whatever doesnt. You can act how you like, put whatever psycho vibes in your music, and people feel it, but youre still just a human with a guitar. People swarm. I blink at one. Banjo playing is good. So peaceful. [sic]

In Steves view, street performance creates an alternative social space which cuts through superficial interactions, and in turn fosters authentic social experiences the musical act is a direct form of communication, which bypasses the web of ego-centric thoughts we all carry and sparks sincere, vicarious emotional states. The most profound fact of it all is that the performer remains an individual human with a personal biography, a fact that transcends communication. Sometimes you can grow little posses, says Steve. Its good when different musos jam together. He then picks up the violin bow and starts to bow the banjo, producing a surprisingly beautiful sound. A big wave of people wanders past, and several stop to watch Steve. A young Maori man approaches us and says that he really enjoys the music. Another man hobbles along, nearly falls over, and starts a strange dance. This man is middle-aged, very scruffy, very imbalanced, and highly intoxicated. A blonde Norwegian man stops and puts some coins in the paua shell. He shares his view of the performance with me: This is organic Its really cool I like it It engages the audience.

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The drunken dancer then sits next to Steve, looks me in the eye and makes some funny faces, waves his hand wildly through the air, and begins to bark like a dog. Steve greets him warmly, and hands him the violin. He points the bow at me, sneers, and starts to gently fiddle back and forth without pressing on the strings. He taunts a few passers-by with non-verbal guttural sounds. I feel slightly threatened, but he seems somehow benign. Now he is staring at his violin intently, with his nose right next to the string. Evidently, this person is quite mad. He continues to jabber at those who pass by. I try to decipher his words, but I hear only incoherent gibberish. He gently scratches the violin with his tongue hanging out, drooling and hissing. He seems intent to directly engage the attention of every person that walks past.

He stops someone, and I make out what his words: Excuse me, do you have a spare fifty-cent piece please! He barks the words out like an animal, lacking all the usual intonation and stress variance that typify the New Zealand English dialect. She incredulously responds Where do you think I work on this street? Im making money just like you are. If I make money tonight, Ill come back and give you more than fifty cents. She walks away, and the crazed man continues to unmusically scratch the violin.

Steve, meanwhile, is completely laid back, playing some bluesy tunes on the banjo. A disarmingly insane man has shifted the context of the performance from busking to begging, but Steve doesnt seem to mind. The pedestrians do, and one by one deny the fifty-cent request with pained expressions and careful words. They seem to notice Steve less, because the beggar is slightly closer to the walkway. The beggar stops playing violin, and continues to ask people for fifty cents.

Steve turns to me. Town is crazy, he says. He explains that because its a Friday night on Cuba St, people already expect entertainment by the time they get this far up the street, so theyre

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particularly receptive to street performance. Across the street, a bottle smashes, and someone yells Happy birthday!

At Steves behest, I play my ocarina again for a while, and a man puts some coins in the shell and expresses approval. The beggar whacks him on the leg and barks his line, Do you have a spare fifty-cent piece please! This annoys the man, and Steve apologizes for the beggar and says Hes alright. Hes actually a really good violin player. We are all One. After this, I ask the beggar for his name, and he says Anton. This surprises me, because my name is also Anton, and its a rather rare name in New Zealand. Steve remarks, See what I was telling you?

Anton rolls his hands into tight fists, and keeps asking people for fifty cents. He then starts barking like a dog again. Steve laughs and joins in, then starts throat-singing. Anton howls along like a wolf, and appears full of joy. As Steve pauses between songs, Anton pats him on the back and drawls, Youre a good man, Steve! You know Im a silly person, but he trails off without finishing the sentence, and grins. The greater meaning of this exchange is implicitly explicated in this moment of non-verbal interaction Anton seems a madman, by all appearances someone who has recently escaped the asylum and ought to be avoided at all costs, yet Steve has unconditionally accepted him and invited him into the musical experience. I see a warmness in Anton that I hadnt noticed before, and I realize in a sense his begging is similar to our busking the difference, in this sense, is that hes more proactive about soliciting donations. A young woman stops and hands Anton a Chinese meal. Soon, a middle-aged woman in an expensive dress stops, hands Anton a handful of coins and says I hope you get to buy lots of drugs!

Anton lunges at somebody, misses, and rolls around on the concrete for a while, grinning, like a small child playing some private game. Steve keeps playing, and Anton gets up and does another

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odd dance. He says, in a high-pitched voice, Hey, how are you, I havent seen you in a while! to nobody in particular. I realize three hours have passed it is now midnight, the time that Johanna and the Mystery were scheduled to finish. I exchange goodbyes with Steve and Anton. Anton grasps my hand with a fiercely strong grip, stares me intensely in the eye and says I love you. Steve starts repeating the words How idiotic, how idiotic, how idiotic, HOW IDIOTIC, shifting pitch and timbre while sliding between different keys on his banjo. I walk away, in a state of stunned awe.

While Steve, Nick and Shane were the main performers of this experience, a lot of others contributed to it. Despite the apparently non-musical nature of Antons actions, they were part and parcel of this spontaneous musical happening, and thus Anton was also musicking2. His odd sayings and demands for fifty-cent pieces are, in this context, musical lyrics. I, too, wound up musicking, although I had planned to write from behind a veil of scientific objectivity. Steve coaxed me into the performance, and I became so embedded in the realm of musical inter-subjectivity that it would be dishonest to write impartially this was an embodied experience, and I can only describe it as such.

A whole horde of pedestrians shared in the overall musicking, even the prostitute who spoke with Anton and the woman who smashed a bottle and yelled out Happy birthday! Steves equivocal notes about the musical space become much clearer in full light of the experience: It [music] brings people together in a very pure way. Who is distilled by your little street happening am so diverse and well introduced by your self. Pretty sounds. They get along cause theyre different in easily understandable ways. Whatever words and whatever doesnt. [sic] The agency of audience memers as musickers does not undermine that of the performer, but rather affirms it. Somehow, Steves musical aura transforms even the chaotic ambience of the street into a harmonious musical backdrop, and his bizarre banjo-playing transforms the ordered, goal-focused transport of passing
2 Small, Christopher. Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. Wesleyan, 2011.

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citizens into a chaotic musical encounter.