“Apart from great talent, it seems you also have a great memory”, the other musical instruments told her, adding: “…but none of the songs you play ring a bell”. The director’s baton then approached her, who explained to her that she was out-of-date and that her position had been occupied by gramophones, record-players and video.

As soon as she heard it, she burst into tears. She felt useless and realized nobody appreciated her, despite the fact that she had been playing music for decades straight. “As you have such a good memory, perhaps you could learn a foreign language or two and take the spectators to their seats while we play music”, the baton added with arrogance.

“So be it”, the street organ said and went out to the streets of Athens to learn foreign languages.  She, first, started from Monastiraki, where she met tourists from Italy and France, then went straight to Thisseion and Plaka, only to end up in the Acropolis where tourists from all over the world were to be found. Whomever she found underway, she kept asking to learn his language, taking notes of each and every word. Within a few days she had mastered twelve languages in total: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Japanese and Indian.

“I’m pretty sure I now have what it takes to be… the usher in your music shows”, she told the other musical instruments as soon as she went back to the music school. Not moved at all, however, they thought to put her on a trial.

“Tell us a word that only exists in Greek and no other language in the world”, the baton asked her.

“It’s… Philotimo!”, the street organ replied and the other musical instruments got ashamed as soon as they heard it, as they had displayed neither the respect for the elderly nor the gratitude to her that the difficult Greek word meant. As soon as they searched it, they even realized that the word didn’t exist in any other language than Greek. “It’s about time you learned about it”, said the street organ and returned to the streets of Athens, where she started playing nostalgic songs from good old times.

The other musical instruments then searched everywhere to find her and apologize. As soon as they did, they were amazed with what they saw: she had gathered so many passers-by that simply stood there to hear her play music that they wouldn’t even dream of having in their biggest performances at the music school....