A Collective Auto-Ethnographic Experiential Report

In the following, mdw students Matteo Balata, Kenaya Quiñonez, Hannah Roitinger, Judith Schusteritsch, and Stefanie Wieser report on the experiences they had as part of the seminar project Klang.Stadt.Klang. Straßenmusik autoethnographisch erforschen. The first person plural narrative form has been deliberately chosen here in the interest of transparency as to the participants’ subjective and dual involvement in the field research process as musicians and researchers. Sarah Chaker of the Department of Music Sociology conceived this seminar and oversaw the project.

How can we help shape the everyday urban realm as musicians? How might a musical performance be influenced by conditions such as one’s chosen location and the weather as well as mobile and directly interacting audiences? And how does making music in the streets compare with doing so in a traditional stage setting? These are just a few of the questions that we mdw students asked ourselves before heading to Vienna’s Danube Canal in April of this year to try out playing as street musicians for the first time.

At the beginning of the semester, we’d become acquainted with each other in Sarah Chaker’s research-focused course “Klang.Stadt.Klang. Straßenmusik autoethnographisch erforschen” [Sound.City.Sound. Autoethnographic Research on Street Music]. This seminar was part of the large-scale mdw project KlangBildKlang, which featured transdisciplinary investigation of the links between sounds and images in various event formats over the course of the 2024 summer semester.

In the seminar, we began by engaging with the concept, history, and practice of street-based musical performance, also known as busking. We were afforded insights into urban sociological research and also dealt with how closely this music-making practice relates to a given space in light of the theoretical work done by sociologist Martina Löw ¹.

In preparing for our own street appearance, we also dealt with the legal foundations and requirements pertaining to street music in Austria, especially in Vienna. On the basis of Vienna’s Straßenkunstverordnung [Street Art Ordinance] of 2012, we ultimately identified a suitable location for our experiment—which proved no easy task: many of the spots in Vienna that are attractive to street musicians can only be performed in with a street performance permit that costs money and needs to be applied for well in advance.

The location we chose was on the Gisela-Werbezirk-Promenade at Vienna’s Danube Canal, which can be used for street performances without a permit from midday onward and was fairly attractive to us on account of its central location. We were grateful for the information, experiential insights, and tips offered by Sebastian Engler, a fellow student with busking experience who also kindly supported us in hitting the streets ourselves.

For our instruments, we settled on easily portable ones—cello, guitar, flute, clarinet, and a cajon—that the Vienna Straßenkunstverordnung allows to be played only without electrical amplification. As for repertoire, we decided to cover a broad range of styles in order to observe the effects of various genres on the space and on the audience. In an afternoon of rehearsals together, we worked up a programme that ranged from pop to jazz and on to film, folk, and classical music. We also played our chosen pieces in multiple formations—sometimes with all instruments, sometimes in smaller ensembles.

The central data recording tool for our auto-ethnographic investigation was a research diary that accompanied us from the very beginning of the seminar; it was there that we noted our reflections upon the project’s theme, subjective thoughts, realisations, and observations.

Autoethnographic research as defined by Tony E. Adams and colleagues (2018)² is situated between ethnography and autobiography and regards subjective experiences in the field as productive insofar as their evaluation takes place in a well-reflected and systematic manner.

We were hence in the field as both musicians and researchers and able to make use of our artistic experiences for the research process by transcribing our field notes later on, evaluating them systematically with reference to category guidelines, and reflecting on them as a group. In the following, we report a few selected findings from our street music-making experiences that are based on the notes in our research diary:

Musical Instruments as a Visual and Aesthetic Contribution to the Urban Realm
That sounds or possible sounds were visible in the space became apparent even prior to our performance. Before even a single note had been played, passers-by slowed their steps or stopped to watch as we set up our instruments. A few people asked curious questions while other passers-by decided to return as soon as we’d begun playing. Our activities apparently awakened interest and anticipation of what was to come; i.e., we attracted attention even just visually due to our instruments. We thus expanded the visual and aesthetic impression made by the canal-side promenade, which already boasts quite a bit of artistic colour in its own right thanks to graffiti, street art, and other artworks.

Music’s Transformation of the Urban Realm
As we played, we perceived the space around us with quite some intensity. We soon noticed that although we’d chosen our location well in terms of the artistic atmosphere surrounding it, its elongated shape didn’t per se invite one to stop and listen; it was more a place to pass through. Even so, we did succeed again and again in breaking through this function with our music and interrupting the flow of people in transit. Pedestrians stood still, sat down, applauded, and threw small amounts of money into the opened flute case we’d placed in front of us.

Through our musical activities, the space briefly acquired something like a centre and indeed changed in terms of its function. The extended breaks we needed in order to reorganise between the individual pieces did see this effect fade fairly quickly. But with more busking experience, it would surely be possible to repurpose a space in this way over longer periods.

Our performance also altered the space in the sense that our music conjured up and spread a happy, carefree, and relaxed atmosphere—and in our research diary, one colleague described her impression that our music-making could have also been the background music for an outdoor exhibition. Furthermore, it can be ascertained that we succeeded in having a positive effect on many people who initially entered and used the space simply as a traffic artery: even if it was far from all passersby who stopped, we were indeed able to observe how our music brought a smile to many of their faces.

Practical Experience
Although the aesthetics of Vienna’s Danube Canal generally harmonised well with our performance, busking can surely benefit from a more compact location that itself already invites passersby to stop for a moment, such as by offering places to sit. In terms of repertoire, we ascertained that it was not just pop numbers but especially the classical pieces that appealed to the audience. Weather also plays a significant role in busking—and we were bothered above all by the wind, which blew our sheet music off the stands. Buskers are hence well advised to memorise their material.

Alongside these practical considerations, playing in the street differs from a stage setting in that it is less plannable but offers far greater latitude for spontaneity. In our group, this led us to self-critically confront our own perfectionism and rethink our expectations of our own musical performing as well as the traditional perspective on the “audience”. A colleague described how she felt inside while playing in the street with the following words: “One more or less plays out into the world.”

All in all, our busking experience held in store enriching moments that influenced us both personally and professionally in terms of our further lives as musicians. To us, as musicians who had never busked before, the impressions offered by our experience at the Danube Canal were altogether quite colourful and largely positive. We especially liked being able to let the audience partake directly in our own joy in and love of music-making as well as receiving direct feedback from them, be it in the form of standing still or continuing onward, donating a bit of money, or striking up conversations with us. The experience we had whetted our appetite for more, and we could imagine continuing to use urban public spaces for busking projects in the future, as well.