The Washington Post published an article about an experiment they did: they had Joshua Bell, one of the best violinists in the world, to play incognito outside a D.C. Metro subway station. They wanted to see if without the PR, anybody would stop to listen, and notice the masterful play. The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. He played masterpieces in a good acoustical environment.
The result was? hardly anybody stopped to listen. People tossed him $32.17 for his 43 minutes of playing.
4/10/2007
Joshua Bell play in a subway station
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5 comments:
The article was an interesting read. I'm not too surprised at the results of the experiment. We leave ourselves with very little spare time; little time to stop and appreciate something as beautiful as a master on his instrument.
Any small distraction can make us late for work, school, appointment, etc. Life that is too full to appreciate such beauty, is somehow--empty.
Well all I can say is that it is very very very funny and very very ironic...
There is a great response to the Joshua Bell article by a NYC subway musician in her blog: www.SawLady.com/blog
She interprets the situation differently from the Washington Post reporters... I thought you might find it interesting.
How sad are we.
I remember I went to the subway station in toronto of bloor. I remember they played a violinist played wonerful music and I remember a woman dancing to it. The rest of the person passed by including me. I noticed the music but it was just such an inconvenient of a place, but still I wouldn't discourage anyone from playing music. It actually made my day a bit better even if it was for a few seconds.
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