Back in the eighties me and the singer of my band did quit a bit of street performing. We figured as long as we are sitting around writing so much music together lets go practice in public and make some money? We would open up a guitar case with a sign taped in, "toss in your tips (with a big yellow smiley face button - if any of you remember those ;-)". We also recorded original songs and covers that we started selling too so we added another sign, "toss in $5 bucks and grab a cassette (with an arrow to grab one)". We also gave ourselves a name for our duet, "Alias Smith n Jones" (Yeah the name taken from an old TV series).

If you're looking to make money as a street musician, forget about it unless your home is a tent or cardboard box right around the corner in an alley. But what is good, you get a lot of practice playing in front of people which will help on your stage presence and maybe find connections to bigger and better things if you want to really make a living playing music.

So funny I have to admit, I played in a band called "Mad Cow"...

Head to the busy cities and hang at the bus stops and taxi stands (cash in their pockets and hang by the piers on ocean side vacation spots. Or throw keg parties on a farm somewhere every weekend and charge to enter the barn. And --- Donovan, you can always be an online street musician... Great post!