Playing music in a park
Does anyone know if it's legal to sit in a park and play music? I've done this a lot in other cities, as it's a very pleasant place to practice, and occasionally meet other musicians.
I'm just going to assume busking is illegal, so I wouldn't have an open case or anything like that. But I'd like to know if playing music itself is legal.
Last year, my husband tried taking some pictures of some ants that he saw crawling on a bush, and this resulted in not one but two military vehicles pulling up and the military interrogating us for a quite while about who we were and what we thought we were doing. So if even taking pictures of ants is illegal, I'm cautious about trying something equally criminal like sitting under a tree and playing music. Thoughts?
Yeah I hear ya...
I once got 50 lashes for taking a picture of those ants...
I cna't figure out what so special about them...
Maybe they are really robots???
I don't know...
You can't teach experience...
Melissa, you are very talented and I think Dubai is the place to be. Event Management companies and hotels in Dubai are always on a look out for talented musicians.
I'm playing a Hungarian hurdy gurdy, also called a tekero, in the main photo. I wouldn't be playing that in parks in Qatar, though, since it attracts such a big crowd even police in liberal NYC have sometimes told me I had to stop playing. (That's reasonable, when my audience is so big it's disrupting traffic flow.)
Of course, in NYC and various other cities I play gigs a lot, not just in parks. I have a weekly gig at a restaurant in NYC, plus various other gigs, and I'll really miss gigging while I'm here. But I tried my hardest to find hotels or clubs or whatever in Doha that would want to hire me to play there, but had no luck at all. At every venue that advertises live entertainment, they don't even answer their emails to say "No thank you." I found talent agents for other places like Dubai interested in hiring me, but none in Qatar. So I guess if I'm playing anywhere in Doha, I'm playing in my apartment or in a park.
I didn't want to risk taking my hurdy gurdy to Qatar when I don't even have any gigs here, so it's home safely in NYC. it would be extremely difficult to replace if something happened to it. Instead, I brought smaller instruments that are easier to transport, and also more easily replaced. I don't know how to play these as well, though, so I need to practice them. Many of them I bought at an estate sale just before I came here. I brought two chalumeax, a tabor pipe, a rauschpfeife, two fifes, two tinwhistles, and a mijwiz. This was stressful enough, as my luggage was missing for days. It was just delivered today, and all my instruments are safe.
Hi Melissa,
I had checked ur website http://www.melissatheloud.com, what is that intstrument you have in your hand?