Paying Music Forward
As I was running errands this morning, I passed by a young kid playing violin on the street. He had his case open with a paper that said: “Help me pay for my violin.”
I dropped in a five dollar bill and was glad to pay music forward. Hope the money helps keep him excited about learning the violin.
I used to play violin a lot and seeing him brought back memories of my own violin-playing days.
One time, I played Christmas carols with my high school friends Jeff and Emilio outside of Westfield Mall in San Francisco. We were out there a good few hours and made just under thirty dollars I think.
We weren’t really doing it for the money (it covered our public transportation basically), but to spread some holiday cheer and I remember how we were always really excited when we got even a small donation. It was the best when a mom or dad handed their toddler some change or a dollar to toss in our cases :)
Playing violin and then eventually viola was a nice outlet for me, and it gave me some opportunities that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, such as taking orchestra trips to Europe.
I hope the young violinist I saw today gets some of the same and builds some music-playing memories of his own :)
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