Driven by a love of music and the need to make money, buskers are the foot soldiers of showbusiness

But who takes their chances on
Glasgow's busy streets and what sort of reception can they expect?

Caley Cheney wheels her suitcase along the uneven pavement, a bulging rucksack strapped to her back. It's a hot day and the streets are busy. She cuts through the drifting shoppers, trundling the heavy suitcase behind her, eyes darting up and ahead. This is the toughest part of her day, looking for the right spot to pitch up, unpack and plug in her amp. The Saturday streets are filled with people ready to spend money, but Caley is here to earn, and her success will depend on finding the right location for her day's work.

A favourite pitch, outside Marks & Spencer on Sauchiehall Street, is taken. "Damn," she says, shifting the weight of the rucksack and heading back down the road in the opposite direction. "That's a good spot, especially for my kind of music. I sing a lot of jazzy numbers and Eva Cassidy songs up there. The ladies who shop in M&S tend to appreciate that."

Like other buskers, Cheney sees the city as a patchwork of different zones, and her job is to match her singing and style of music to the personality and atmosphere of each. The north end of Buchanan Street, for example, attracts a younger crowd and suits a repertoire of pop covers and chart hits. It's a busy patch, with people congregating outside the underground station and resting on the steps of Buchanan Galleries.

Cheney finds her spot. She sets down her gear and begins to assemble the microphone stand and amplifier. She takes her time. The most nerve-wracking moment is singing the opening lines of the first song, the initial flash of exposure to an unpredictable audience.

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Cheney has been singing on the streets of Glasgow for almost a year. She came to Scotland to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and has a masters degree in musical theatre. Last year, at 26, she found herself busking for the first time in the autumn rain on a corner of Sauchiehall Street. "When I first graduated I started teaching, giving private acting and singing lessons. But when the recession hit, people cut their expenses, and the teaching work dried up pretty fast. The first time I busked it was out of total necessity, and I was very nervous. I'd never done it before and didn't know how people would react. I set up under the BHS arches and sang through the pouring rain. I think I made about £13 after a couple of hours. The thing that surprised me most was the stares I got from other women. I got looks that said they were shocked, appalled, disgusted, but also others that said, 'Bravo' and 'Good on you.' At first I couldn't figure out why they were staring at me, then I realised that it's still quite unusual to see a girl standing in the street on her own, singing for money."

It's hard to predict how much Cheney will earn from a day's busking, but an hourly average is usually around £15 to £20. There are better days, when someone will drop a £5 note in her bucket, and dire days, when she makes little more than the cost of her lunch. "Everything about busking is unpredictable and inconsistent," she says. "Someone can stay and listen to you for an hour and not give you anything, then someone will listen to half a song and drop a fiver in the box. I think busking is similar to improvised performance. You're interacting with people on the fly, with no idea what's going to happen next and with very little control over the situation. You just have to take what comes and shrug it off. One time a drunk guy threw a glass of water over me. What are you going to do? You have to go out there and put a smile on your face and make people feel better about their day. So often people come up to me and say, 'Thank you for singing' or 'It's great to have you here.' I get a lot of positive feedback, and Glasgow's a tough city with a hard audience. If they don't like you they won't hesitate to let you know."

Busking is still Cheney's only job, and she takes it seriously as a means of making a living, keeping meticulous records of every penny she earns. She also believes it is toughening up her performance skills, and she has made a surprising number of friends on the street. "The other buskers can be your best friends or your worst enemies," she says.

"There's always an element of competitiveness, especially around getting the good pitches. The junkies are the worst, though, and it's a battle I'm constantly trying to figure out – how best to deal with them. You don't want to make them angry, that's the main thing, but at the same time you don't want to kiss them. One day on Sauchiehall Street this guy came right up in my face as I was trying to sing. He was shouting at me, repeating himself and making no sense. This feisty old granny came up to him and shouted right back at him. 'You leave her alone, she cannae sing with you shouting at her. We're trying to listen to her. Buzz off!' She chased him away down the street, then came back and said, 'I'll be your bouncer love,' before going off and doing her shopping. She was about 80."

Glasgow has always had a reputation as a city of buskers. A healthy folk music scene has provided the streets with a steady supply of acoustic musicians, and the city has never been short of drunk men with tin whistles, chancing their luck in shop doorways. But the arrival of new immigrants in recent years – often accomplished musicians who bring their own countries' traditional music to the Scottish streets – has reinforced Glasgow's reputation as a city of buskers with above-average talent.

Strathclyde Police and Glasgow City Council take a reasonably tolerant approach to busking, perhaps in recognition of the city's reputation for lively street culture. Permits are not required to busk in Glasgow, but the police do have the power to move street performers on, especially if they fail to follow the council's guidelines for good practice – which require buskers to change location every hour. "Busking and street performance in general add to the culture of the city," says a council spokesman. "The majority of buskers are committed to what they do as performers and take their role seriously. As long as buskers don't cause any major problems or blockages on the streets and they are considerate and realise that people don't want to listen to the same song for six hours straight, then we are happy to see busking as part of Glasgow's colour and culture."

Mid-way down Buchanan Street a small crowd is gathering around Alan Torgersen. The 27-year-old Glaswegian is busking his way through dentistry college. His one-man covers of The Killers and The Verve songs are a hit with the Buchanan Street shoppers, and his guitar case is quickly filling up with coins.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about busking is not the number of people who do it, but the number of people who open their wallets and show their appreciation with cash. The shoppers slow down as the sound of Torgersen's guitar drifts along the street. Some clap at the end of each tune, some record him on their mobile phones. A couple of smartly dressed pensioners each drop a pound coin in his box. "He's got a lovely voice and he looks like a smart young man," says one of them.

"Maybe he's a student, maybe he's out of work," says the other. "But he's out here doing his best and he looks like a nice boy. Why shouldn't we help him out?"

Torgersen strums the opening chords to 'Halleluiah'. More people stop to listen and the crowd swells. He has a repertoire of around 30 songs that he changes according to what's in the charts and how he interprets the mood of the street. "I don't necessarily play what I like," he says. "I play what I think people want to hear. I'll get asked for 'Wonderwall' half a dozen times a day."

If the weather holds out, Torgersen will play for around five hours – and, by the look of the coins collecting in his guitar case, will earn a decent amount for it. "On a good day I can make enough money to get me through the week. And go home with a bunch of phone numbers from young girls. My girlfriend always asks me, how many numbers did you get today?"

As we talk, a Big Issue seller approaches and berates me for taking up Torgersen's time. "He could be singing and making money right now. Let him get on with it. He's one of the top three buskers in Scotland he is." Torgersen thanks him politely.

For those who earn their living on the streets, the city is a marketplace and everyone is part of the hustle. A lot of money – albeit coins and coppers – is changing hands today. Passing transactions are made at every junction. Beggars, buskers, Big Issue sellers and charity collectors are all part of an animated, improvised economy, a flowing river of commerce in which little of material value is purchased.

Vytas Astromskas, an 18-year-old physics student at Glasgow University, wanders past, looking for a pitch. The 6ft 7in Lithuanian plays classical clarinet wherever he can find a reasonably quiet spot on Buchanan Street. Without an amplifier, his delicate rendition of Debussy has to battle against the police sirens, mobile phone ring-tones and the chatter and footfall of the street. He settles on a difficult pitch close to Nelson Mandela Square, carefully following the council's guidelines to keep a distance of 50 metres between buskers. He also needs to be out of earshot of Torgersen's amplified guitar.

Astromskas plays a couple of slow, sad notes as the weather breaks, raindrops falling into his empty clarinet case. Three young lads, bare-chested with Rangers flags draped around their shoulders, mock him and laugh in his face. "Can you play 'The Sash'?" They laugh, but walk on. A couple of well-dressed young women drop coins in his box. Astromskas busks in the absence of a student grant but his clarinet has limited appeal: old men tell him he doesn't know how to play properly, and teenagers make fun of him. But he stands proud and poised in his dark suit and plays with an obvious love for his instrument. "I make an average of around £10 to £12 an hour, but I can't play for more than an hour and a half at a time. It's too exhausting," he says. "I am looking for another job to fit around my studies, but at the minute busking is paying for my food. It's a satisfying job, but I also do it because I love to make music and love to share it with people."

The word 'busking' is thought to derive from the Spanish verb buscar, meaning to look for, to seek. Although some buskers are looking to be discovered and are seeking fame, many, like Cheney, Torgersen and Astromskas, are merely seeking a means of making a living in difficult times. They take their talent to the only stage available to them and try to please passers-by with their gifts of music and song. In a sense, buskers today follow the age-old tradition of wandering minstrels, bards and troubadours, who travelled from place to place entertaining makeshift crowds. The Romans threw coins to show performers their appreciation, and mediaeval merchants would invite entertainers to perform in front of their stores as a means of attracting custom. Today's traders may tolerate buskers for similar reasons – lingering crowds may be more inclined to enter shops and make a purchase, instead of hurrying by.

On Sauchiehall Street, a large circle has gathered around a piper accompanied by two west African drummers. It's an unlikely combination but the rhythm of the drums gives 'Flower of Scotland' an energy the crowd finds irresistible. An old nun with a collection tin taps her foot compulsively to the beat. A couple of tiny girls hurl themselves into the circle to show off their highland dancing. Hazen, the piper, is an American student at the Scottish Piping Centr,e and his two drummers, Sami from Nigeria and Tumi from Tanzania, spontaneously started jamming with him one day in the street several years ago. They've played together ever since. "I like the pipes and see it as a challenge to put a beat to pipe music," says Sami, pausing to rub the cracks and dry callouses on his hands. He and Tumi have played their djembe drums to crowds in many UK cities, including Edinburgh. They say the response they're generating today is more appreciative than in other cities.

The energy of their music is contagious and draws people from all ends of the street. No one walks past without pausing to listen. "The Glasgow people know how to have fun," says Tumi. "That's why we like playing here. Fun is a big part of life in Glasgow, and the streets are alive with it."

The rain has stopped. I leave Sami and Tumi drumming in the sunshine and head back to Buchanan Street to check on Cheney. She's packing up her equipment and stuffing a bag full of coins into her rucksack. Her evening will be spent counting 5p and 10p pieces and sorting them into plastic bank bags. She smiles. Things are tough, she says. There are definitely easier ways to make a living, but today has been a good day. r

Famous buskers

Edith Piaf sang in the alleys and the backstreets of Paris before her talent was 'discovered'.

Brit award-winner KT Tunstall has busked all over Scotland, including in Edinburgh's Princes Street.

During the 1960s, Rod Stewart busked in Brighton.

Amy Bell was 'spotted'in Glasgow's Ashton Lane by Rod Stewart's manager. Days later, she performed a duet of I Don't Wanna Talk About It with Stewart in LA.

Winner of the first Fame Academy, David Sneddon used to busk on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh with his band The Martians.

Neil Young busked outside the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow in 1976.