No matter where you are in the world, chances are you’ve run into a street performer at some point in your life.
For those who live in a big city, street performers and buskers are as common a part of life as traffic. Although we see plenty of them on a daily basis, we don’t always stop to consider their side of things.
For anyone trying to launch an artistic or creative career, it’s not always easy to make a name for yourself or get people to notice you. You have to be bold and you need a talent that helps you stand out.
Fortunately, the person in today’s video definitely has all the creativity necessary to do so.
The performance we’re talking about was loaded to YouTube in August 2014.
The video was uploaded on the YouTube channel Pipe Guy, whose real name is Jake Clark. For those who are unfamiliar, Clark is a musician and performer based out of Adelaide in South Australia.
He has made his own custom PVC pipe instrument which he brings with him wherever he goes. To play it, he uses his flip flops and smacks the end of the tubes to make sounds.
Although it seems unusual to use an instrument this way, the result is pretty incredible.
As the video begins, Clark takes off his flip flop and starts hitting two of the openings on the tubes.
Between the two, he makes a simple dance groove. After that, he starts stomping his foot on the ground as well to make a beat. After that, he hits new pipes to switch up the melody and a whole song starts to come out of it!
Before long, he’s also using his other flip flop and clapping it against his leg to accent the beat. After the first part is established, he completely switches up the song.
Before long, he’s playing a new melody entirely.
As the video goes on, he switches to using both of his flops on the tubes to create a more upbeat and exciting rhythm.
The entire performance goes on for about 10 minutes, and throughout the process, he comes up with all kinds of ingenious and innovative new melodies and rhythms.
Although there are other performers who use a PVC pipe-based instrument, few people can create a dancey, techno and trance-inspired song like this one!
Since it was loaded online, it has earned more than 56 million views!
Still, this isn’t the only one of Clark’s performances that’s available online.
So far, his Pipe Guy channel has more than 282,000 subscribers and is only growing from there. Although the genre sounds familiar, the music is actually relatively unique—for his part, Clark sometimes calls it “acoustic dance music!” In another popular video, Clark does a jam session with another street performer. While he plays the pipes, the other performer plays drums on buckets and other improved percussion instruments.
Just like the other performance, this one sounds like a professionally produced dance song.
In all, it’s clear that being a street performer requires some creativity and ingenuity. Fortunately, Clark seems to have cracked the code by doing all kinds of interesting public performances like these.
Congratulations to Jake Clark on all his success so far! Be sure to watch the full performance in the clip below:
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