How good are you?

- Two months sustaining myself through music in Montreal

There are some fantastic experiments about social behavioral patterns. One of my favorites is about to put two chemical toilets in a place of great circulation, as a show. In one of them, a long row of people is purposely placed. The other remains totally free. Result: no one tries to use the "empty" bathroom. The people crowd behind the long row. The empty bathroom is not noticed or simply avoided.

In one of the stations that I play, Jean Talon, one of the spots had his sign covered by a warning: "No musicians are allowed here until 1 p.m " That was a busy spot so far. Now, only one or two musicians play there in a day. I just connected the dots when a “co-worker” told me: I don’t like to play there anymore since that warning was attached.

Collective hysteria. People giving money attract people giving money. People recording you attract people recording you. People watching you attract people watching you. Emptiness attracts emptiness. People ignoring you attract people ignoring you. Social pattern of collective behavior.

Sometimes I think people give me money for pity. Other because I am a girly woman playing and singing in a public space. And it is different. Beyond that, I often hear from my co-workers: "how lucky you are, you probably make lots of money here due to your beauty." I confess that it sounds pretty offensive to me. Other times, I see myself in a circus. Playing and singing well is not enough. This is ordinary. People want to see spectacular stuff breaking the routine and making them stop. Quality is often lost for the eccentricity. That makes me doubt myself. For example, when I'm doing instrumental on the electric guitar or playing harmonica. And many people stop to watch me. Do they like because it's good or because it's different? One day I heard: “Your voice is by far the most peculiar I have ever heard.” I didn't know how to interpret that.

I feel rather comfortable in the noisy corridors of Montreal's subway lines. In the anonymity of the trade. It's totally different up on the stage, in the intimacy of a bar with an audience staring at me. It still makes me frozen. Doubting me. Wanting to disappear from there as soon as possible. Last week, I got a kind of audition. And it was not cool. I was not “ready”, I felt. I saw. But that experience was good. It was a realism to me. Because it is always welcome this awareness that we are under construction - always. Today, I easily afford myself through music, something I have never thought I could be able to do. I get lots of compliments every day. Sometimes, I feel like a star, others like a beggar. That's completely extreme. It’s from total indifference to a crowd watching you, recording and cheering you. It’s confused most of the time. Like the very life is. So, it's good to be aware that I'm an apprentice. And I will always be, regardless of where I am or want to go. Talking about “where” I would like to reach up, I don’t know about it. Music is the air I breathe. I just want to play and sing well. I want to make good art. Today, music is my “profession” for a mix of fatalities and desires. I need to tell it to myself. Because there is no hurry. There is no hurry to be up on the stage and kill it. There is no hurry to achieve virtuosity in music, which is a thing that can't be accelerated. Like any kind of cultivation.

Be a street musician reminds me that the greatest life spectacle is the delicacy hidden in the day-to-day. It's about to make a person in the middle of a crowd stop and listen to you. A child that is “stuck” in the middle of the corridor because is totally mesmerized by your music. It’s about to listen to a "Bravo!". It's about an old lady passing by and giving the thumbs up saying: "Très bon!". It's about someone coming over singing and dancing the song you're playing, breaking that rough scenery of haste and weariness. Those moments make me feel such deep gratitude that it almost hurts me. It's much bigger than to be applauded on a stage. It's much bigger than be a star. It's about touching people. And nothing compares to that.