I’m going to have to try my hand at busking here in Ottawa, especially in ByWard Market, which is a stone’s throw away from my apartment and where the office is located. This place looks like prime busking grounds, and now the weather’s finally warming up, the musicians have come out. These two were outside Shopify’s front door yesterday evening:
And yes, he was playing the Star Wars theme…
Found thanks to Chiamattt at “celesterstallone’s” Tumblr.
While walking back to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel from Centre Mont-Royal through Montreal’s network of underground shopping malls and Metro tunnels, we passed by this pair of buskers, who were burning up their frets with some very fast-paced jazz:
Christian suggested that I join them, and moments later, the bassist, guitarist and I agreed to do some high-speed 12-bar blues in E flat minor (they actually play in E, but they were tuned down a half-step).
I’m actually pretty terrible at improvising in that key, but I did my level best to keep up.
As I played, my co-worker Vivian snapped these photos with my camera.
These guys were quite good and played at a blistering pace.
I really should work on the keys in which I’m terrible at jamming: C sharp/D flat, D sharp/E flat, G sharp/A flat and A sharp/B flat. I have no idea why I’m better at other keys but not these ones. I suppose it just boils down to practice, practice, practice.
After a couple of minutes’ worth of jamming, we wrapped it up and shook hands. Christian threw a ten-dollar bill into their guitar case as a way of saying “thanks” for letting me join them in an impromptu performance and we continued on our way south through the tunnel.
In case I don’t say it enough: I love the accordion and what happens when I bring it along.
I no longer live in Accordion City’s Queen/Spadina neighbourhood and therefore don’t play there very often anymore. Luckily that doesn’t mean that they’re lacking for the accordion: there was a guy playing a fine little red number there earlier this afternoon:
Squeeze on, good sir!