Bach on a Brandy Snifter

Old Town Pasadena buzzes like a carnival midway on a sweaty summer night. Clusters of people--couples, families, teen-agers--meander through shops and restaurants, looking in store windows, looking at each other, looking for something to do.

Occasionally, they stop in front of street musician Michael Greiner. It’s the music that draws them; a haunting sound that’s sharper than a flute, more resonant than a violin. It’s the music that comes from an obscure instrument called the glass harmonica.

Greiner’s thin fingers fly across the rows of brandy glasses filled with water, stopping to stroke the rims, creating the notes of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

He’s aware of the crowd watching, listening. One man stuffs a dollar into the tip glass and says, “Thanks.” Greiner nods, smiles, acknowledging the contribution. But he never wavers from the precise cadence of the music.

A middle-aged man and woman pause for a moment, listen, arms folded, then move on to the jazz combo down the street.

Two beefy guys in their late teens wearing baggy T-shirts and backward baseball caps glance over.

“Hey man, what’s that?”

“Dunno. Summin’ weird.”

It is odd, a musician who appears to earn a living off water and glass. But things are not always as they seem.

Three days later Greiner takes a guest on a tour of his back yard, about an acre and a half of terraced land in Glassel Park that stops right at the edge of Forest Lawn.

It’s 10 a.m. and the sun is already scorching.

“These are figs,” he says, walking uphill past a row of trees heavy with fruit. “The birds love these. And over there are loquats and walnuts.” Carrot tops are coming up sporadically and tomatoes are ripening. He picks a few, eats one.

Greiner’s rented house is small but cozy, paneled in wood. Treasured mandolins hang on one wall and herbs dry in the kitchen.

It’s probably not how most people envision the home life of a street performer, and Greiner is well aware of that. It’s an issue of perception versus reality.

“In some ways I may not be a very good representation of a street performer,” he says, sipping lemonade. His slight frame rests on an antique wooden chair, his soft voice is sometimes lost to the constant drone of the Glendale Freeway. “There are some who live entirely off the street. They are doing their best to elicit a donation. I could turn my tip hat upside-down and be happy. I hope people who give money do it to show their appreciation and not because they feel sorry for me.

“I am an eccentric,” he admits. “But that’s not to say that I don’t consciously prepare for performing on the street. I dress specifically for my audience. I’m trying to portray myself as a professional musician who sometimes plays on the street.”

The street, however, is not where he earns a living. The 32-year-old supports himself with solo appearances and his Celtic music ensemble called Sheer Pandemonium. (Greiner plays the hammered dulcimer.) He even has three self-made recordings to his name.

Sheer Pandemonium, with seven members (four core members) plays weddings, parties, and Renaissance and Medieval-themed festivals. Among the members is Greiner’s 30-year-old girlfriend, Doerie Welch, who first picked up an instrument six months ago. Under his tutelage she now plays the mandolin.

Greiner plays the streets of Old Town and Santa Monica’s Promenade to get “gig contacts. At the moment it’s necessary,” he explains. “I’ve only been in L.A. for a few months. I just moved here from San Diego. There I was playing in Balboa Park and Seaport Village, and I was getting all my gig contacts from my contact with the public. That’s the fastest way of getting engagements. And every once in a while you meet somebody on the street that makes it worthwhile.”

Like the elderly man who came rushing up to Greiner clutching a newspaper tear sheet of a poem he wrote about a dulcimer. “He gave me the clipping,” Greiner recalls, smiling. “I will treasure it.”

But time spent performing on American sidewalks has prompted this observation: “I’ll be playing an Irish tune, maybe by myself on the dulcimer, maybe accompanied by someone else, and we’ll come to the end of a set and finish with a flourish and look out--and there’s not one smile. Mostly I think it’s the effect of television. I look out and I get a glassy stare and there are times I feel such pity.

“In Europe you see string quartets on the street during their lunch break making some extra money. It’s wonderful.”

Greiner first heard the glass harmonica played by a street musician in New Orleans about 12 years ago.

“It had a different tone quality,” he recalls when asked what drew him to it. “It was almost undupliacated in other instruments. . . . I was fascinated. It was just an amazing sound.

“I asked (this performer) about his instrument. He gave me as much information as he’d give anyone, but after his set I hung around and pressed him a little more and he wouldn’t budge. Finally he said, ‘I’m one of the only people in the world who plays this and these are my trade secrets, thank you very much.’ ”

So Greiner bought some glasses at a rummage sale, went back to school to study music theory, read up more on the instrument and--basically--taught himself how to play.

Ordinary glass brandy snifters are filled with plain water. Crystal “produces more than one overtone,” Greiner says. “It can make three notes simultaneously. Glass tends to sound more like music.”

A new case of glasses must be auditioned. “Usually in a case, there are three or four that won’t sing, due to inconsistencies in the glass.”

“I may not be able to play the streets soon,” Greiner says, looking pensively down at a battalion of ants marching in formation along the bricks. His life is in transition; Sheer Pandemonium is booking more events, and he’s auditioned for an acclaimed Celtic trio that played 390 gigs last year.

“There are good things about (not performing on the streets). One of the bad things is that I may be working more at the music more than I’ll be comfortable doing. The question is: Do I want to? I perceive myself as having other skills than music and I enjoy doing other things with my life than music. I’d like to be well-paid doing music at my pace.”

He’d also like to go back to Europe and perform, where the streets are more hospitable to trained musicians.

“Part of what I’m doing,” he says, concentrating on the words, “is trying to represent something which I am desperately in love with, something which is a mainstay and a staple of my life. I’m an ambassador to the music.”

So if you ever see Michael Greiner performing on the streets, stay and listen for a minute. He may be trying to tell you something.