Yeah, they should have done it in the evening rush hour. It’s like they set themselves up to be ignored, just so they could write a trite article on what drones Washingtonians are.
I LOVE classical music. But in a rush in the AM, probably would have walked by. PM, would have stayed as long as possible.
Heck, once there was an older Asian woman playing old songs (“Just a song at twilight”-type things, IIRC) on an electric violin in the subway. I appreciated the music and tipped her.
I don’t follow current performers and wouldn’t have recognized him. I have a good ear, though, and I might have been able to tell he was better than even a symphony concertmaster.
They seemed to show that federal employees like to get to work ontime.
To bad they didn’t do this at 5pm, that little 3 y.o. boy probably could have stayed for a few more minutes.
I found the comments on the Washington Post’s website thoroughly arrogant and annoying, the way they use this experiment to make broad statements about Americans, culture, blah blah — the big “It was Joshua Bell!!!” angle. So what? Plenty of street musicians produce something worth stopping for, if one has the time.
If they’re going to say that people should notice Art, then they should notice ALL art, not just the Big Name at Carnegie Hall. What, only officially sanctioned musicians in tuxedos are worth listening to? That’s EXACTLY the mentality that got him ignored.
Although I still think it was mostly timing.
I wouldn’t have stopped, but then I can’t stand violins. Anything played on them sounds horrible to me; I can’t tell the difference between a classical piece and something someone had written that morning. I don’t get at all why people enjoy them so much. But that’s just me.
If it had been a piano virtuoso, or something, i’d like to think that i’d stop. But i’d stop for someone playing modern music, as long as it was good.
I disagree completely. I think it’s exactly the reverse of that that got him ignored. Classical music is labelled as stuffy, elitist, only for old people and nerds, creation of dead white males, opera has fat people, etc. Therefore fewer people know anything about it.
But as the Romans said, “de gustibus non est disputandum” (There’s no arguing about tastes).
Agreed.
I am surprised no one mentioned, either here or in the posts to the article, what first occurred to me. I commute on the T in Boston, and I don’t know if it’s as bad in Washington D.C. as here, but I hate it. There are too many people and too much noise and in general too much invasiveness for me that early in the morning, especially when it’s standing room only in the subway cars. So in response, I tune everything out. It’s not just that I need to get to work on time and am thinking about my busy day ahead, it’s more of a protective measure.
Does anyone else do that, or is it just me being oversensitive in the morning?
Anyway, I’m surprised the article didn’t mention this as it fits right in with their theme of the modern world: so noisy and crazy that we try to protect ourselves from it.
(For the record, I don’t think this should be called an experiment, as it doesn’t have a control, and I also don’t think their conclusions are entirely valid.)
Last night on All Things Considered, someone interviewed Joshua Bell, to get inside his brain and see how this experience affected him.
They commented on the fact that one could have done the same thing with a street musician, but by bringing in someone like Joshua Bell, they had a musician with tons of external validation that “this guy is someone you really ought to notice and listen to”. Then they had him play classical music on an otherwise unremarkable Januaray morning.
Joshua Bell commented on this idea–at least indirectly. He’s used to people being impressed by anything he does on his violin, and rewarding him with tons of standing ovations, etc. He didn’t get that during this experience. And I don’t think he liked the feeling of being ignored. I think he, like a lot of other people, may forget the circularity of being the best in the business. If you are recognized as being really good, you get the chance to play at places where they identify people who are really good, so you get recognized as really good.
That’s not to suggest that I think that somewhere out there there’s someone who is better at what he does than Joshua Bell. It’s just that being a world-renowned classical violinist is one part born talent, one part skill, one part practice, one part determination, one part love of music, one part not being injured, and one part being in the right place at the right time. (The above parts are not neccessarily the same size)
And, if you were curious about what Joshua Bell did with the money he earned as a street musician, he let the woman he’d borrowed the violin case from keep it.
Thanks for the link.
If I possessed any musical talent I would make a habit of playing at train stations and airports ( if I could get my instrument pass security) to not only entertain, practice, but to make a few bucks.
Alas, I have zero talent musically speaking.
The “experiment” struck me as pretty ridiculous. As has been mentioned before, people rushing to work first thing in the morning aren’t in the right frame of mind to stop and listen to pretty music. On top of that, I watched the video and frankly, that wasn’t his best work.
The acoustics aren’t very kind to him. Violin doesn’t work well with “Metro station.” The sound is too harsh and there’s too much background noise. His more recent work hasn’t really compared well with his earlier recordings either. I’m not sure what it is, but watching that video I never would have guessed that was him, not even after having just listened to a recording from a few years back. The Metro playing was good and likely better than any street musician you’re going to stumble across, but nothing to inspire enough awe as to make a crowd stop in their tracks when they’re used to tuning out background noise.
People don’t usually express that sort of awe unless they’re already set up to express it, after all. Introduce someone to the most famous model in the world at a party and he’ll get tongue tied. Have that same woman walk down the street and your average plebeian isn’t going to do anything more than glance at the skinny, pretty girl, unless they happen to recognize her. Context is everything.
Chances are if I’d come across that on my way to work first thing in the morning, I’d take note that someone was playing music. Would I stop? Would I really pay attention? Probably not. I’d be half-asleep and thinking about the day ahead and getting to work on time. I really think the Washington Post set the whole thing up purposefully to fail. Any idiot would know that first thing in the morning isn’t going to be a time when people are remotely receptive to that.
Rephrasing from memory, from an article last year in a Barcelona newspaper:
I liked what that museum curator said about framing. And what F. U. Shakespeare said here (which links to the article’s remarks about ipods et al): our notions of music and its importance have really been shaped by how prevalent it is nowadays, in recorded form. We sort of expect violins when we kiss goodbye, but if you whistle or sing as you go along your path… oooooooh my, the looks you get!
Thanks for sharing that, Eureka - very interesting!
I just read this article before I opened up the 'Dope (yay RSS feeds!) and I was totally captivated.
The thing that struck me most was that little kids were always interested and the parents always pull them away. (The same would likely be true of any musician, tho.)
In Toronto the subway musicians are quite good, they need to audition for permits and competition is tight. I don’t usually take the subway to work but when I do I am usually delighted with the musicians, especially the ones at Bloor that you can hear from anywhere in the station so you can listen as you wait for your train. I don’t always give money but I almost always notice and appreciate. Sometimes I even report when I arrive at my destination: “You should have heard the guy playing thumb organ on the subway, he was amazing.”
It is true that the pressure to act like you’re on the subway is so overpowering it’s difficult to snap people out of it, even with a million-dollar violin.
I agree with the criticism that rush hour isn’t the best time to try it. They also should have planted a few people to form an “audience” - that would have drawn a crowd pretty quickly.
I read the article this weekend and I wasn’t that surprised. From what I recall he was playing some fairly involved pieces that you would need some time to appreciate. A busker may only have 30 seconds to catch your attention and if it isn’t something that you easily recognize then you aren’t going to pay that much attention especially if you are trying to get to the office on time.
While the idea of the experiment is an interesting idea it was badly thought out. Moring rush hour isn’t the time to do something like that. The vast majority of people aren’t going to have 5 minutes to stop and listen.
Though this little experiment sorta reinforces an idea that I have about modern music and the radio/media. I am pretty convinced that the way we listen to music these days is creating a situation where complexity and lengthy composition is a bad thing. The vast majority of music you hear on the radio or t.v is short with a quick payoff. It is verse, verse, hook, verse, hook, verse, hook, hook, out or something similar. It is quick and if the hook doesn’t come soon enough people lose interest. If it doesn’t have a hook, or if it doesn’t have lyrics a lot of people just don’t like/get it. If the piece gets complex a lot of people don’t get it. My theory is that we are getting so used to short and obvious* pieces that a large number of people lose interest because they are expecting the piece to get to the point quickly. If that doesn’t happen they don’t know what to think as it is out of their experence. We’ve been trained to expect a quick payoff.
I like a lot of instrumental music. I have found that the vast majority of my friends, even some of the muscians I know, have a hard time with the instrumental stuff. I’ve talked to a couple people about it and they have made comments like ‘Its too hard to listen to’ and ‘Its too busy’. I tried an experiment with a couple of my friends. I gave them some of the stuff I liked and suggested that they sit down and listen to it when they could pay full atttention to the music, not while doing other things. All of them found something that they really liked after a couple tries. One of them became a rabid fan of one particular musician. I think that it took them a bit of practice to get used to listening to more complex stuff so that they could actually hear the nuances of the music. They were used to ear candy and it took a while for them to appreciate more complex stuff. At the same time, I do need to work on my listening skills as well.
Slee
*Obvious does not mean bad. I like tons of obvious music. The issue seems to me to be that we listen to so much obvious music that the more subtle stuff gets lost on a lot of people. Including me at times.
Too true. I try to make a point of listening to buskers because I’d like to have more (skilled) people busking. I love the spontaneity of running into something like that. That said, I rarely give to buskers, because frankly many of them are not particularly good. There is a wonderful busker with a violin in downtown Portland, OR- has anyone else noticed him?
I’d stop just for the spectacle of someone lugging a piano down the escalators. 