There are so few buskers in the towns north of Boston that it has always been easy to keep track of them and co-ordinate schedules. In 1996 a violinist began playing in Newburyport, solo and unamplified behind a music stand, music of Bach and Brahms. No question about his talent, and I considered him more of an ally than a rival.

Although public perception is that we must be competitors, truth is that variety breeds viability. In fact, that summer I exchanged correspondence with the local Chamber of Commerce about the possibility of hiring street-minstrels on weekdays. Never happened, but the violinist, who was making the 40-mile trip north from Boston, was one of seven musicians whose business cards I did submit.

In 1997, however, he changed his act, and I changed my tune. Gone was the music stand in favor of a battery-operated amplifier for a sound system playing a program called "Music Minus One," a series of recordings of classical works with the lead instrument omitted, enabling a student to learn those parts on his or her own. He still played his violin with a pick-up microphone, but most of the sound was a recording of one of Europe's renowned symphony orchestras. The same pieces, a sort of classical top-ten, played in the same sequence, at the same tempo, no variation, no emotion, no ad-lib, no life...

I may have been willing to co-exist with this. Downtown Newburyport has two spots nicely suited for street-musicians with enough of a buffer between them that I've often played one while another acoustic act--including this same violinist--plays the other. The amp, however, was set loud enough to flood both spots, nor would he lower it upon request.

Nor could he. If he did, he himself would drown out his ersatz "orchestra." Imagine how a karaoke singer would sound if the power suddenly failed, and you hear what I mean. This problem was apparent during the violin's pauses, leaving him standing still, arms by his side, while music continued to swell from his amplifier. Have to admit that, despite my objections, it made for a hell of a sight gag.

Eventually his volume and that of a few others who started migrating north from Boston's crowded Quincy Marketplace caused the Newburyport City Council to ban the use of amplifiers downtown. I happened to be travelling cross-country while the hearings were held and the vote taken one summer night, but one paragraph of reverse psychology I wrote in a guest column in the local paper in May, 1997, may have helped:

Apart from this renewed appeal..., I may have but one other recourse: Set up with a boombox playing a hard-rock station, adding a flute lead..., all within 15 feet of the full-blast SSO. That's an awful lot of noise, every bit of it perfectly legal unless the City acts.

Of course it was a bluff. I've never had any interest in adding an amplifier--much less a boombox--to my act. Nor would I ever want to shut down a violinist who is street-musician enough to play without acoustic training wheels. And I'd be more than grateful to take a day or night off to hear the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra itself with all its living players and vibrant instruments in or near my spot playing as loud as they can.

Because, as any honest performer, street or stage, will tell you: In variety is viability, but nothing is viable unless it's alive.