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Instrument: Accordion
Time spent: 20 minutes
Number of depositors: Three
Money earned: $4.75First up was the accordion, which I chose following some advice from my brother. "It's got that romantic connection, so dudes on a date trying to impress girls are more likely to throw you some coin," he helpfully pointed out. "And it pumps loud, so you can be heard over the traffic."
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Time spent: 15 minutes
Number of depositors: Zero
Money earned: $0.00This one was by far the most unusual instrument in my arsenal: a thumb piano—a mini piano you play with your thumbs—with a pick-up and a delay. Following the law of obscurity-to-earnings, I figured playing this in public would be like printing money. It wasn't. Instead, it felt like I was live-soundtracking a yoga class that nobody wanted to be at. That people actively avoided being at by walking on the road instead of the stretch of pavement in front of me.It was easy to play, though, and I felt like I was really starting to come into my own in terms of stage presence. Because the thing is, I play the thumb piano for the love, not the money. I play the thumb piano to inspire, to transcend creed and race and culture and connect on a sonic level with strangers who want nothing to do with me or my thumb piano.Next.Instrument: Cow bell
Time spent: 15 minutes
Depositors: Four
Money earned: $4.84If you've ever heard any hard rock released in the decade between 1965 and 1975, you'll know how vital cowbells were. However, they've slightly fallen by the wayside since, which is a shame, because as you can see in the video above people fucking loved it. Even the man who spends all day, every day dressed in a Yoda costume pretending to levitate for pocket change broke character to enjoy what I had to offer.
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Time spent: 15 minutes
Depositors: Three
Money earned: $3.27I really didn't want to do this one. Unlike the other instruments, where I could play and pretend to be somewhere else, this required a high level of commitment that I 100 percent did not have. I also have no idea how to beatbox, and no real intention of ever learning how to beatbox, so I just had to wing it.After some initial stage-fright I let go and actually kind of got into it. I felt like that actor who played Eminem in 8 Mile; I was losing myself in the music, I only had one shot and I used it to repeatedly go, "Bah-bahka, bah-bahka, bah-bahka, bah."It's hard to beatbox when you're also trying not to laugh, but I managed to keep it together long enough to earn $3.27. I also drew my biggest audience of the day: a group of school kids who stood staring at me and my monotonous, entry-level beat boxing for a couple of absurd minutes before finally figuring out that I wasn't making the wah sound with my mouth.
Overall, I managed to earn $12.87 in just over an hour. It's not a huge amount, but it is considerably more than minimum wage, and only slightly below the London living wage. So if you're thinking of moving to the capital to live a life that isn't quite as comfortable as you'd like it to be, heed my advice: buy a cowbell and spend an entire day embarrassing yourself in public.Follow Marcus on Twitter.