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Using Buildings and Awnings as Microphones

Acoustic street singing is very different than inside singing, or even singing with amplification via mics. It sounds odd, but I use buildings and awnings as microphones. I have learned over the decades as a street singer, how to aim my voice at different angles off of nearby surfaces and structures to naturally amplify it. Honestly, people who sing on the street but do not have enough projection to be heard are rendered useless pretty fast. I am talking about using structures to fine tune loudness and tone on the street.

I first stumbled upon street acoustics on the Venice Beach Boardwalk in Los Angeles, Ca. The layout has a row of buildings then a walkway, the beach, and the ocean. At first, I saw no difference between singing with my back to the buildings, facing the beach and my audience and singing facing the buildings with the ocean to my back. But in no time, I came to find that singing with the ocean to my back wore out my voice twice as fast as singing with the buildings to my back. I have zero education in acoustics science, I am only reporting what happened. It seems the audience would create a wall and I had the wall behind me, so that worked out. But when I sang with the ocean behind me and the audience and walls in front of me, I only had vocal protection, so to speak, in the front. Read more in my new book, 21st Century Essays on Street Performing aka Busking, on Kindle!

Kirsten sings with Seattle Swing on the streets...

21st Century Essays on Street Performing aka Busking consists of first-person essays and interviews with contemporary street performers, aka "buskers." Book includes the following chapters: 1) Busker First Times, 2) How to Interact with Buskers, 3) Women Street Performers and Sexual Safety, 4) Using Buildings and Awnings as Microphones, 5) Take Back Your Entertainment, 6) Tips Street Performers Remember, 7) How to Pick a Street Performer Spot, 8) Selling Out as a Street Performer, 9) What Motivates Women Buskers, 10) I Wish Everyone Passed the Hat for Their Pay, 11) Free Speech Costs Money at Seattle’s Pike Place Market, 12) Street Performer Family Tree. If you do not own a Kindle, you can download the same technology that Kindle uses for free to your PC and read Kindle books on your computer, iPhone, etc. instead. I have also published other books on Amazon - just Google "Kirsten Anderberg Amazon" and they should all come up!

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