Bass, a street performer playing a routine tune on a deserted Italian village square one fine afternoon, waiting for a pedestrian to tip him in his rusty iron cup. Soon, he spots Tippy, a humble peasant girl clutching a big gold coin, with the intention of dropping it in the piazza fountain to make a wish. Bass, seizing the opportunity, immediately plays an impromptu track, capturing the young girl's attention. Just when Tippy is about to drop the coin into Bass's cup, a newcomer steps onto the scene.

The film made its world premiere at the 29th Annecy Animation Festival in Annecy, France, and won the Platinum Grand Prize at the Future Film Festival in Bologna, Italy. It was shown with the theatrical release of Cars.

The short was written and directed by Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews and produced by Osnat Shurer, head of Pixar's Shorts group. The score for the short was written by Michael Giacchino, who also composed the scores for Pixar's animated feature films The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up.

Like many Pixar shorts, the film is completely free of dialogue, instead using music (played by the characters) and pantomime to tell the story.

On January 31, 2006 it was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film, but lost to The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation by John Canemaker and Peggy Stern.