Sunday, October 4, 2009

A very special "Sounds from the Subway"

Haven't done one of these in a while, but I found the perfect opportunity to break my "no posting cool sounds and music I hear while in the Subway system" fast.

Friday, my hubby Pete & I were on our way down to Trader Joe's, taking the A line. Two young men entered, threw down their knit caps in the center of the train. One had a guitar, the other a violin. The guitarist started strumming a pounding background tune, and after about 16 bars the other musician started playing..."Billy Jean" by Michael Jackson.

Really well.

I had to first hit record on my iPhone, then took one of my precious $1 bills from my wallet (I say precious both in comparison to my wallet and in comparison to the rest of my checking account) and put it in one of the caps. I was the second to do so, and within 2 minutes of them playing, about 6 other people added (one put a wad of about 3-5 bills in). I'd say within the totality of their playing, they made roughly $10, maybe $15. That's damned good for 1/20th of an hour's work.

Pete & I had to get off at 14th street, and hung around the closing door long enough to get a few more last notes. I don't know who those guys are, but I'd grab their CD. Maybe the recording won't do them justice, and certainly it won't capture the energy of the violinist, who bent his knees and really dug into his notes.

Here's the mp3 of what I was able to capture on audio of this duo.

2 comments:

lainiebird said...
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lainiebird said...

Wow! They sound great and that's a pretty good subway-to-phone recording.