As a musician.

As a musician, I have been following the dust-up between Michigan Avenue way performers and the rest of the world. As a musician, many the public expect me to stand in succession a chair and scream about Ald. Burt Natarus denying buskers their freedom of expression. However, as a musician, I have no vexed question with limiting noise that passes for music.

What I do have a riddle with is Chicago's knee-jerk reaction to complaints. It would be easy for the mayor to launch someone -- say, from the Office of Special results -- to Paris, or calm a Parisian Web site if wealth is an issue, to research in what way they handle the issue of highway performers. Instead, whenever residents say "Enough!" it have the appearances the rules are changed to this time again: license fees raised, performances banned upon certain blocks, and confusion takes across

I believe a solution lies in single in kind word: auditions. If a performer can demonstrate in a 15-minute audition that he or she knows more than sum of two units songs and can play them reasonably well, he or she should be given a liberated license and a map of acceptable sites. If you want to rehearse -- excuse me play -- the same descant over and over on a public way you should be willing to pay for that privilege. deafening street performing in residential neighborhoods should not steady be an issue. Just imagine a car alarm blaring the same sum of two units notes over and over outside your window.

Mazurka Wojciechowska,

Irving Park

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