The Milan Music Experience: Are You Experienced? / The Trumpet Man

Chances are if you've ever visited the great city of Milan, Italy, you've probably come across a crazy musician or two on the street. Well, since I moved here in January I have come across more than few, usually on the METRO subways, where the musician lugs around their (usually haphazardly made) instruments around along the lines, hopping from one train car to the next at each stop to get a new rotation of people to lament their musical woes to for an average of 3-4 minutes in between each stop and then walk around trying to squeeze some change out of musical lovers.

The problem I have with this is that when I'm traveling on the METRO subway I usually have no interest in interacting with people in any way shape or form. 

"Compostezza metropolitana" by Toni on Flickr

Like all those people, I am more absorbed in making sure I get off at the right stop, trying to not get too close to the person next to me, gazing off into some unknown distance, reading the signs in Italian and wondering if I'll ever be able to fully understand anything that is actually written on those signs, trying not to fall face first on the ground when the train makes a quick lunge in one direction, listening to music on my iPod at incredibly high volumes to avoid interaction with other people, or reading a book on my Kindle Fire (which also draws unwanted attention from people around me because people are nosy and when they see that I'm reading something in English I first get a sideways glace at my Kindle screen, then another stare up at my face, then back at the screen. YES, I CAN SEE YOU OUT OF THE CORNER OF MY EYE, THANK YOU, you have already assumed that I am not Italian because of the color of my eyes, hair, and skin! Side note: Italians are horrible at being discrete about anything.). 

Sometimes you get the occasional musical performance by someone/people who are at one end of the spectrum or the other, either they are amazingly brilliant at their given instrument or they are horribly awkward and at the end of their "performance" they say something like, "Grazie mille signori. Buona giornata. Buona fortuna per tutti. Grazie a dio!" and blah, blah, etc. Mostly I think the bad performances end with a side note because the person/people know how awful they are and are apologizing for being horrible and wishing you to have a great day and good fortune since they have spoiled it so far with their shitty music. 

But at the end of the day these people are just trying to make some money to feed themselves and I usually feel pretty touched by how hard they try, and for the amount of bad musicians that give "performances," there is an equal amount of people who play music that are obviously meant for the METRO gods, because their sweet tunes break right into my cold and frozen heart. Usually it's some younger person, playing their instrument so well you think, "Wow! Why aren't they in some sort of orchestra or whatever it is called here?!" The answer I'm never sure of. Often you find someone who plays an accordion (usually an older man) that just makes you think, "This is the real Italian shit. They would never play this kind of musical beauty at The Olive Garden."

"Milan - Accordion Player - Social Boundary" by vincos on Flickr

Outside of the METRO subway you can often find many people playing on the street, usually in tourist infested areas, or the occasional accordion player wondering into a restaurant, which always surprises me because once they finishing playing they go to each of the restaurant tables, holding out a cup for change, whereas in America I doubt that kind of shit would be tolerated. Isn't that like solicitation or something? Doesn't every business have a sign that says "No Solicitation"? Is that even the correct usage of the word "solicitation"? I'm not entirely sure. 

"music" by zannannaz on Flickr

Apparently, according to Flickr, you also get extremely odd musical performances (more odd than usual I mean) by getting an "out of towner." Luckily I have never come across such oddities, and I preferably would like to keep it that way as I think I would become too embarrassed and annoyed to function properly around such ridiculousness. 

My case in point being this photo of two hippies that the photographer assumes to be "Aussie 'hippies,'" which is an evaluation I agree with because of the weird didgeridoo type things (*not actually sure if these are didgeridoos, but for the sake of this discussion, let's just assume that they are) that they are "playing" along with their classic "hippy-in-the-outback" type of attire and dreads.

"street music" by wujum on Flickr

Please also note the dreaded beard, a bold move for anyone, more so for guy in Milan playing a didgeridoo, also the title of their CDs are "Blessings," and the fact that their didgeridoos have straps for easy travel convenience. Have didgeridoo, will travel.

And now, for the person I like to call "The Trumpet Man". 

I have not been fortunate to glimpse a quick look at The Trumpet Man more than once, but he is a fairly constant member in the neighborhood I live in here in Milan. Every so often (it has happened at least 7 or 8 times since I've been here) I am woken up by the sound of a trumpet being played. The first time it happened I thought, "Ohhh, beautiful tunes! I'm not annoyed I was woken up at all!" The second time I thought, "Ohhh yeah, there's trumpet guy again. How quaint." The third time found me a little more perturbed that I had been woken up again by this god forsaken trumpet. Then came the fourth time. My feelings on it all went from being pleasantly surprised to being incredibly annoyed. "YOU PLAY THE SAME THING EVERY TIME!"

When I was still in the "pleasantly surprised" mode I could hear the trumpet sound coming from one side of the apartment, so I ran to the patio to try to get a peek of this mysterious Trumpet Man, and when I opened the kitchen patio door and stepped out, he instantly stopped playing, looking at me, and yelled, "BUONA GIORNATA SIGNORA!" to which I did the only thing possible, I immediately ducked down so he could no longer see me, slinked back into the kitchen and closed the patio door. 

So that was first and last view of The Trumpet Man, but that did not stop the strange occurrences of trumpet playing. Not long after that strange and awkward sighting of The Trumpet Man there came, what I like to call, The Great Battle. One morning I was woken up, once again, by the sound of the Trumpet Man, but this time he was not alone. I could hear an accordion being played in what I thought was a great union between trumpet and accordion, but after about 10 minutes of absent minded listening I realized that this was no union, this was a musical battle. When I finally pulled my head out from under the covers I realized that the trumpet sounds were coming from one side of the apartment, while the accordion was coming from the other. The Trumpet Man would play a nice trumpet solo and before he finished The Accordion Man would start his accordion solo, thereby taking all of the poor Trumpet Man's trumpet glory. This intense battle of musical abilities seemed to play on for at least an hour before I gave up the score and decided to take a shower and when I got out their musical battle was finished. I like to picture that they finally came face to face and decided to grab an espresso at the local bar and share a laugh over their Great Battle.  

Moral of these tales are that I think while (some) Milanese people are obviously talented musicians, some are misguided and waste their beautiful talents by playing on subways and intense musical battles between buildings. Hopefully one day each person can make a little more of their talent, until then I will gladly endure their craziness all over the city. 

"Story Behind the Soundtrack" by Harry L on Flickr