I have taken to tuning down a half-step when busking. A lot of the songs I’m doing are pretty high and, much as I’d like to be able to sing those notes, the reality is that it’s simply a matter of physiology and I can’t.

That’s the beauty of guitar – it’s so easy to play songs in a different key. I remember doing transposition as part of keyboard skills in university and how difficult it was. On the piano, if you change key, the whole “feel” of a piece changes because of the arrangment of black and white keys. On the guitar, with the aid of a capo, you can put a song up a tone or two without there being any noticable change in how the chords “feel”.

Going down is a different matter, though. The method of tuning down a half-step (a semitone) is one that a lot of singing guitarists use to give themselves the option of singing things a bit lower. (To go lower still, it is necessary to change the chords you’re playing altogther. Not impossible, but would necessitate pretty much learning the song over again.) One of my guitar idols, Stevie Ray Vaughan, used to always tune a half-step lower and it’s also something that my friend Hamlet Sweeney does.

Stevie Ray Vaughan also used thicker strings and this was something suggested to me this week as a remedy for my sore fingertips. (I’m playing for a few hours every day now and my poor fingers are a bit ragged.) It’s an area I’ve never really ever paid much attention to – string gauges – but I’ll maybe try a thicker set next time and see how it goes. It should give me a bigger, richer sound, too.

SRV died in 1990 in a tragic helicopter accident and I still remember my dad telling me about it. I had had my first guitar for just a few months by then and I’d never even heard of him.  Check out his instrumental version of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’.

When I started busking in Melbourne, I went straight for Swanston Street. It’s the main boulevard leading from the main railway station, Flinders Street. (My using ‘boulevard’ is not mere poetic hyperbole – one of Melbourne’s early planners admirably insisted that the main streets be ninety-nine feet wide.) More footfall, I reasoned, would be better for my purposes.

Not so. I don’t have an amplifier or a dog (two things that seem to be viable options for the ambitious minstrel with expansive notions). My aunt, who has long suffered and enjoyed (I hope, in unequal measure) the buskers of London, gave me a few tips. Buskers regularly position themselves at the bottom of escalators in the underground tube stations, thereby taking full advantage of the wonderful acoustic properties of the porcelain-tiled caverns.

Melbourne’s main train station, Flinders Street, is off limits for buskers, but there are two wonderful subways that are outside the ticket zone which share the same architecture as London’s subterranean network.

I quickly found that singing on the main streets was just too much effort. People tend to be more hurried on busy pavements and would only hear me for a brief window of time as they passed by. Traffic noise – and there is a tram system in Melbourne, too – is always going to win.

Thankfully, Melbourne is renowned for its smaller streets and laneways, which are often closed to vehicles. They also tend to be between tall buildings, and so you get a great acoustic. Another good thing about the lanes is that people are more at their leisure – they aren’t rushing past with the crowd. I’ve found about a dozen spots around the city now where I like to go and sing.