Pearls before Breakfast

[TenaciousBadger]

This is from an old article in the Washington Post on a little experiment with classical music. In a nutshell, this is what happened:

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one [well, a few did, if you read the article] knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The questions raised:

In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
Do we stop to appreciate it?
Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made…

How many other things are we missing?

(source: witherwithout)

The full story here, complete with vids
------------------------

I'm not accusing commuters of not recognizing Bach (Lord, I wouldn't either) or the violinist. It just got me thinking, really, how many other extraordinary things do we walk past every day on our way to work, without looking, without stopping?
Great story anyway.

[Lbooker]

It reminds me of an experiment in psychogeography conducted by Guy Debord and his friends of Situationist International 50 years ago. They plotted the whereabouts of several people on maps of Paris for a long time, and in the end showed that basically people behave like robots, always going around in the same ways, thus exploring only a tiny part of reality, knowing and discovering only few of the possibilities of life. Which is why Debord invented the "dérive". Guy Debord's Theory of the Dérive. A video of a dérive in Vancouver; dice are cast and the numbers indicate directions to follow (numbers may signify : cardinal points, distance, actions, such as riding a bus until the sixth stop, or entering the third shop, building, or bar, or following the fifth person passing by for three minutes, or turning right at the fourth crossroads). Many more psychogeographic videos on youtube.

I watched the video of Joshua Bell from the article you linked to. I would have listened to the whole performance on that day, since I love Bach's partitas, and especially the third one, which he plays in the short video. Here is Itzhak Perlman playing it.
The whole partita by Jascha Heifetz.

[DMB]

To be fair. Lots of people were probably in a hurry to get somewhere and under penalty for being late. I don't think standing around on a busy pavement on a cold January morning is probably an ideal time to listen to sublime music. (I usually give something to people who play half way decently, but I rarely hang around to hear more.)

[MickeyC]

Plus you need to be very cautious in DC. In fact, there are some areas in the District where the lawyers and politicians outnumber the humans!

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by DMB

To be fair. Lots of people were probably in a hurry to get somewhere and under penalty for being late. I don't think standing around on a busy pavement on a cold January morning is probably an ideal time to listen to sublime music. (I usually give something to people who play half way decently, but I rarely hang around to hear more.)

As you said, to be a fair commentary on (whatever - fill in the blank) _________ , he would have to also play in the evening and weekend when people could stop and enjoy the music.

But I do agree with TenaciousBadger, we neither, hear, nor appreciate all that is around us.

[Lbooker]

Originally Posted by DMB

To be fair. Lots of people were probably in a hurry to get somewhere and under penalty for being late.

Translation : "to be fair, lots of people are slaves of the capitalist machine and behave as good slaves should, making sure the machine will not have to wait for them."

[minspargal]

60 minutes did a story on it and it seems the small children were the ones who noticed the music playing the most.

[TenaciousBadger]

Actually, now that I've been ruminating it over I have arrived at the following conclusion: those who were meant to enjoy it, did. If you read the long Washington Post version, you'll see that a few passers-by did stop, namely those that were connoisseurs: they recognized the piece, the virtuosity or the violinist. So it did make sense for them.

I posted the story because I shamefacedly have to admit that I would not have stopped. One I have never heard of.... (even now I have to check his name) Joshua Bell, and I would definitely not recognized the Bach. Now had it been some more mainstream names, like Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Vivaldi... Those tunes would have chimed differently with me, and I dare say the less sophisticated commuters of that train station. So maybe the experiment was unfortunately aimed at a very narrow audience.

Still, the question stands, and I believe that at least once in our lives, everyone walks by a miracle (or more) and misses out on an opportunity to enrich their lives or at least their spirituality.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Lbooker

It reminds me of an experiment in psychogeography conducted by Guy Debord and his friends of Situationist International 50 years ago. They plotted the whereabouts of several people on maps of Paris for a long time, and in the end showed that basically people behave like robots, always going around in the same ways, thus exploring only a tiny part of reality, knowing and discovering only few of the possibilities of life. Which is why Debord invented the "dérive". Guy Debord's Theory of the Dérive. A video of a dérive in Vancouver; dice are cast and the numbers indicate directions to follow (numbers may signify : cardinal points, distance, actions, such as riding a bus until the sixth stop, or entering the third shop, building, or bar, or following the fifth person passing by for three minutes, or turning right at the fourth crossroads). Many more psychogeographic videos on youtube.

Sounds like something out of "The Dice Man"

Originally Posted by cassidym

Plus you need to be very cautious in DC. In fact, there are some areas in the District where the lawyers and politicians outnumber the humans!

Originally Posted by TenaciousBadger

Actually, now that I've been ruminating it over I have arrived at the following conclusion: those who were meant to enjoy it, did. If you read the long Washington Post version, you'll see that a few passers-by did stop, namely those that were connoisseurs: they recognized the piece, the virtuosity or the violinist. So it did make sense for them.

I posted the story because I shamefacedly have to admit that I would not have stopped. One I have never heard of.... (even now I have to check his name) Joshua Bell, and I would definitely not recognized the Bach. Now had it been some more mainstream names, like Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Vivaldi... Those tunes would have chimed differently with me, and I dare say the less sophisticated commuters of that train station. So maybe the experiment was unfortunately aimed at a very narrow audience.

Still, the question stands, and I believe that at least once in our lives, everyone walks by a miracle (or more) and misses out on an opportunity to enrich their lives or at least their spirituality.

Nice thread Badger

[BenG]

But you have to consider the fact that they deliberately chose a time and place for this where people were least likely to stop for anything even if they wanted to, and usually for good reasons.

[TenaciousBadger]

Originally Posted by BenG

But you have to consider the fact that they deliberately chose a time and place for this where people were least likely to stop for anything even if they wanted to, and usually for good reasons.

It's what I'm saying as well. It was:
1. a metro station on a busy working day day
2. not a mainstream artist
3. not a mainstream composer
4. not mainstream a series of songs e.g. Chaconne by Bach, Ave Maria by Schubert (ok, Schubert might have been more familiar, Ave Maria sung in churches and by Celine Dion . How many of us ever heard it on a violin?

All these were deliberate choices and I believe they inevitably influenced the outcome. However, a select number of commuters were touched in one way or another: a few stopped before heading on, one actually approached Bell having recognized him, the baby wanted to hear more.
A paltry number but then we've been lamenting the downfall of classical music for decades. So maybe the sample that did have a reaction is indicative of all those things coming together?
Maybe the experiment was, after all, a success?

@Lbooker: Never heard of psychogeography but glad you've brought it to my attention. Will study it more

To everyone, thanks for your pennies