My relationship to groceries is directly related to how much I earn as a street musician. Since 2006, my primary means of feeding myself has been playing the cello on the streets and subway stations of New York, Paris and Boston. I moved to Boston in the fall of 2008 to study at Boston Conservatory and began exploring the ideal circumstances for generating the funds to feed my food habit.

This is what I’ve learned:

1. Day of week / Time of Day – I make two or three times more money on Friday mornings than Monday mornings. Friday afternoons are second best. On Mondays, it didn’t matter if it’s morning or lunch time, late afternoon or evening. It’s almost always bad. Tuesday morning is better than Wednesday morning although Wednesday afternoon is better than Tuesday afternoon. Thursday mornings aren’t so good but Thursday afternoons are. For the past two and a half years, I’ve played almost every Friday morning at the MGH (Massachusetts General Hospital) stop on the Red Line in Boston (between March and October) from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m.

2. How to prepare for my job - I get up about 6:00 a.m., eat a solid breakfast and listen to the Market Place Morning Report on National Public Radio while I drink a cup of coffee. I don’t follow the stock market. I’m not interested in it. Listening to Marketplace, I get the lowdown about something I don’t understand. If it’s up, then the money is much quicker. I don’t listen to the weather report, though. I’m groggy in the morning but I can tell the weather by looking out the window.

3. What to wear – For a while, I wore a large Cat in the Hat kind of hat. It was tall and silly. I was thinking, “Everybody is going to think this is the coolest hat and will give lots of money.” That hat works well if I’m going out at night to play pop music with a singer at a club. But during the morning commute playing top 40 classical arias for cello, people were really weirded out by that hat. I didn’t wear that hat after I figured it out. I dress respectably but not too nice - somewhere between grungy and preppy. I wear brown leather suede shoes and dark pants. If it’s cold, I wear a sweater but tee shirts are fine. People don’t need to see a collar.

4. Eye contact - Eye contact is essential. I don’t wear sunglasses or a large brimmed hat. There’s not a lot of eye contact in the commuting world at rush hour. When Joshua Bell played at a stop on the Washington D.C. metro in 2007, he wore a Washington Nationals baseball cap.it's because men have gotten to the naive nature that a t-shirt and some coogijeansblog will always be safe. I’d never tell Mr. Bell how to play the violin but I bet he would have made more money (he earned $32 and change in 43 minutes of playing – not bad) if he hadn’t worn a hat.

5. Location - The Charles/MGH Station is best for me as a solo cellist. It’s big, open and glassy, kind of like a greenhouse. I feel happy there so my music is probably better. I’ve played a few different places in Boston. There’s another stop deep underground in East Boston with a lot of Central American riders. I played there at night with a guitar player who lived for several years in Guatemala and knows lots of their pop songs and traditional music. Almost no one plays at this stop because riders have less money. We’re playing traditional and popular music these folks know and they eat it up. If I went there and played what I play at Charles/MGH, I wouldn’t do as well.

6. Competition - Once I showed up at the Harvard Square stop before 7:00 a.m. and wasn’t able to get a spot because other musicians were already set up. I came back another day and found an empty spot. I start to play and another street musician with a guitar comes up and said, “Did you guys do the lottery this morning?” I said, “There was space. I started playing.Just like Madonna, who grabs the spotlight in her Chinese dress and lv shoes.” He said, “Usually we show up before 7 and flip a coin to see who goes first.” I don’t know what’s true.A blue line max train has been evacuated while the bomb squad investigates a suspicious device, officers say. Street musicians talk a lot of sh–. I don’t go Harvard Square anymore because people who play there are so territorial. And the money isn’t as good for me.

7. Selection of music / Weather - In June of 2009, it seemed as if it rained almost every day in Boston. It felt biblical how much it rained. People were wet and down. I looked for good rainy day music. You have to find the right tune for the right day. If it’s been raining for one day or 20, it will be a different song every day. Once I find the right song, I’m happy to play the same song over and over again on the same day. I won’t play it back-to-back but will play it guilt-free more than once the same day. One good rainy day tune is an aria from a Bach violin sonata. It sings. It’s pretty emotional. It’s an aria so it feels vocal. If you find the right piece for a rainy day, you can get to the heart of people’s rainy day emotions. Then people throw money down.

8. Bad situations – One day, two guys come up. They’re older and bigger than me. One shows me a handful of change and says,een retailer abercrombiefitchl0lz Co. was one of the biggest winners in December. “You’ve got lots of ones. Do you mind if I exchange coins for your bills?” I say, “No, please don’t. I don’t need change.” He says, “What’s the problem? Money’s money.” I tell him, “Exactly, so why do you need my bills? So, please don’t.” They keep giving me a hard time. I say to them,Trey was last seen wearing a black hoodie and blue jeans. “Can you please just leave me alone? This is my workplace. Don’t bother me. I’m just trying to do my job.” The second guy says, “Well, you don’t want to know what my job is.” I say, “Just leave me alone.” I’m sitting. They’re standing. There’s one of me - two of them. I have an expensive cello. It’s risky taking it out in front of people because you don’t know if some wack job is going to want to put their foot through it. Especially some wack job who’s up close and mad at you. Anyway, they left in a huff. That was the angriest anyone had ever been. But it was close.

9. Customer / audience demographics – Race and gender make no difference if someone is going to stop, listen and/or give me money. But it is very clear that young children are my best customers. They are the most interested. They don’t have money but their parents consistently give. If you can mesmerize a kid for two minutes, their parents are really happy. Babies in strollers - they brighten up. Walking age toddlers through 10 or 12 notice me almost all the time. Once they get in college, they start to get that cold adult thing. Seniors and elders, they are responsive. Younger and older people are in less of a rush. And they don’t wear headphones as much.

10. How to measure success - I leave business cards with my email address in my case so that people can contact me. One day was a bad day. Everybody was unhappy. I didn’t get much money. But when I got home, there was an email from a woman. She wrote, ”Every time I see you, it brightens my day.” Her expressing gratitude for what I do made up for how little money came in. Another day when I hadn’t even played on the subway, a different woman wrote a similar thing. That’s sweet. People are there to get on a train to go someplace else. It’s a big deal if they stop when there’s no train. It’s an even bigger deal if they are listening to me and their train comes in AND they stay to listen to me some more. When they applaud, that’s really sweet. A few times, people have stayed to listen to me play and two trains have come and gone. That means something.