Meet the 10-year-old violin street performer who raised $1,600

Ben Pike knew his son had a musical talent when Isaac was only 6 months old.

“I was changing his diaper, and he started kicking his foot over and over,” Pike said. “I could see that his timing was just perfect.”

As he grew, Isaac Pike took to musical toys and later to playing his mom’s keyboard or the ukulele his dad bought him. But his musical prowess really took off when he discovered the violin.

His interest was piqued when he saw a girl play the violin in the 2019 animated movie “Abominable.”

“I heard her play the violin, and I started wanting to play the violin,” the 10-year-old said.

He joined his fourth grade orchestra at Robert Frost Elementary, but his interest in the instrument really heightened when he learned about busking, or street performing.

“His jaw dropped when he heard people could just go to the corner and make money playing music,” Ben Pike said.

Isaac Pike knew this was something he wanted to try. One afternoon in late April, he packed up his violin in a Radio Flyer red wagon, went to a nearby street corner in the neighborhood and started playing.

He came back about an hour later with $30 and a goal to raise enough money to buy a Nintendo Switch gaming console.

That goal changed, though, when he decided he instead wanted to save for an electric violin.

He met his goal in less than two months. He even raised enough to buy accessories like an amplifier and an electric bow.

“I was so happy,” Isaac Pike said. “I was so excited to play it. My heart was pumping of excitement, and when I first tried it, it sounded so good.”

When he first started busking, his mom, Gabby Pike, helped him make a sign explaining that he was raising money, and he would go out to the neighborhood corner almost every day for 45 minutes to an hour with his wagon and his violin.

“He would come home some days with like $100 in his violin case, and it was just wild,” Gabby Pike said. “But it was awesome, and we were excited that he was loving it and that he was practicing every day.”

Some days, Isaac Pike wouldn’t even go all the way into the house after coming home from school, his dad said. He would walk in, pick up his violin, grab his sign, load up his wagon and go right back out the door.

He played classic starter musician songs like “Old McDonald” and “Are you Sleeping?” but he also expanded his repertoire to include Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and parts of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

He learns songs by ear, meaning he listens to them and then plays them without reading any music. He also can tune both his ukulele and his violin by ear.

“He has such great musical intuition,” Ben Pike said. “It blows a lot of people’s minds.”

While he was out busking, Isaac Pike also would strike up a conversation with people who passed by. One passerby shared a photo of Isaac on Facebook, which “kind of blew up,” Ben Pike said.

His son raised about $1,600 in a span of only a couple of months.

It’s “mind-blowing” to see a 10-year-old raise that kind of money, he said, and, a musician himself, he also has fulfilled a personal dream of getting to have a jam session with his son.

“It’s the best feeling in the world to get to play music with him,” Ben Pike said.

Looking to the future, Isaac Pike plans to try out for the South Dakota Symphony Youth Orchestra. He also wants to start his own YouTube channel to share his music.

Ultimately, he and his parents are grateful for the support the community has shown him in his musical pursuits.

“That in itself makes me want to cry,” Gabby Pike said, “because we’re just so grateful for everyone’s generosity and kindness.”