Drumming up Cash

Sitting on a stool behind a drum set, on a path from the park’s Third Street entrance off Prospect Park West, was Austin Vaughn.

Vaughn, 22, moved to Brooklyn a week ago from Ohio and he is here to make money.

He has made $7 since he got to the Big Apple, and he made it all on Monday in Prospect Park while playing the drums on a pathway under the shade of some tall trees.

“I don’t know if anyone wants to hear that and give me a dollar, but it’s good to be in public and trying it,” Vaughn said after he took a break from busking. “To be thoughtful with music is the point and being out here in public forces you to think about what you are playing.” 

He came to Prospect Park for the first time yesterday. He sat on the stool and banged away at his drum set, which he lugged on the G train from Bushwick, filling the air with drum solos. He boomed away on the bass, the floor tom, a bongo-like Brazilian drum, the hi-hat cymbals and a few finger cymbals that were spread out over his snare.

Although he only made $7 in total yesterday, the first hard-earned cash he made in New York City, he looked comfortable in his black hoodie and tight blue jeans as his wrists flicked with the sticks and his one foot tapped the bass pedal and the other tapped with the beat.

“I have been working on drum ideas I have in my head,” Vaughn said between sets. “I’m trying to be creative and I have a bit of freedom here to do that, since there is no one telling me what to play. But the challenge is to play spontaneously.”

A few passersby listened in the late afternoon, but only $2 in singles lay crumpled in his bag. Nonetheless, Vaughn beat his drums with a trance-like perfection, with one drumstick and a xylophone stick for the symbols, sending reverberations of musical ideas way up into the Monday sky.

He just graduated from Oberlin College with a double major in jazz studies and percussion. He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. While still in school, Vaughn and his girlfriend, who is a dancer but works as a waitress at the River Café, promised each other they would move to New York City, get a job, get an apartment and support one another. 

And they did. But it ain’t easy. He has been scouring Craig’s List for jobs and got a few interviews, but nothing has paned out for him yet, so he decided to get out of the house and play in public.

“I wanted to come out and practice and see if I could get paid,” Vaughn said. “I am hopeful that I can survive, but I am trying to stay pure at heart.”