While Mieka Pauley worked her way to a degree in biological anthropology at Harvard, she found on-the-job training in her chosen vocation of music on the streets of Cambridge.

Frustrated in her attempts to nab prime busking spots — she’d get brushed aside by scene veterans who, she quips, seemed to be backed by some sort of folk music mafia — Pauley tested herself in the ultimate short-attention-span-theater of Red Line subway platforms.