Q: What happens when a world class violinist plays at a rail station during rush hour? A: He earns $32.17

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It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The rest (and there's a lot more, including some W.H. Davies poetry) is here. A very interesting read for a variety of reasons that I thought ILM might like to discuss.

So... discuss.

― The Macallan 18 Year, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)

I don't get what this article is trying to say...

― The Brainwasher, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:24 (eighteen years ago)

try reading it for longer than 1 minute.

― The Macallan 18 Year, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:26 (eighteen years ago)

I read it earlier.

― The Brainwasher, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:27 (eighteen years ago)

gotta love the completely misguided presumption that EVERYONE (or even a majority of commuters) loves classical solo violin and no one could dispute its beauty or listenability.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:28 (eighteen years ago)

interesting response from the saw lady

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:32 (eighteen years ago)

gotta love the completely misguided presumption that EVERYONE (or even a majority of commuters) loves classical solo violin and no one could dispute its beauty or listenability.

the article makes no such presumption, does it? it does start with the presumption that the music he's making is beautiful. and then it sets out to find if it will in fact be loved by average people rushing by.

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:35 (eighteen years ago)

Right, and I wonder how many of the 1,000+ people who passed by that morning would accept a free ticket to see Josh Bell in concert. Even if they weren't attuned to classical music or solo violin.

― The Macallan 18 Year, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:37 (eighteen years ago)

Ugh, when I was eating lunch at a Japanese/Korean place in Penn Center station today, I kept hearing some saxophonist who sounded like he was trying hard to be Kenny G. There has been a big increase in buskers down there, some of them pretty good, some of them quite awful, one of them oddly almost inaudible.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:38 (eighteen years ago)

did you get a good look at him? maybe it really was kenny g!!

― The Macallan 18 Year, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:39 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe the Philadelphia Inquirer decided to do its own experiment with Kenny G. Next time I will look.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:43 (eighteen years ago)

maybe it was josh bell trying a new crowd-pleasing tack in hopes of finally winning underground acclaim!

― fact checking cuz, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:43 (eighteen years ago)

I blame Rodrigo y Gabriela.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:46 (eighteen years ago)

Is $32.17 that bad for 45 minutes work?

― the next grozart, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:51 (eighteen years ago)

$32.17 in 43 minutes. That's a pretty good wage for a musician.

xp

― Mike Dixn, Monday, 9 April 2007 23:56 (eighteen years ago)

Josh Bell is a total bro! Totally awesome and friendly (only met him once but he is a friend of a friend).

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:03 (eighteen years ago)

I know that when I'm in the throng of rush-hour commuters I like to stand around listening to a busker instead of avoiding being crushed by people, getting to where I'm supposed to be going on time, etc.

― jim, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:06 (eighteen years ago)

For this incognito performance, Bell had only one condition for participating. The event had been described to him as a test of whether, in an incongruous context, ordinary people would recognize genius. His condition: "I'm not comfortable if you call this genius." "Genius" is an overused word, he said: It can be applied to some of the composers whose work he plays, but not to him. His skills are largely interpretive, he said, and to imply otherwise would be unseemly and inaccurate.

TOTAL BRO

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:07 (eighteen years ago)

(also the bits of this article I'm skimming are fascinating but I'm not entirely convinced that it actually has a point)

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:10 (eighteen years ago)

Man, that is a total bro!

― Z S, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:27 (eighteen years ago)

pro bro, at that.

― Z S, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

know that when I'm in the throng of rush-hour commuters I like to stand around listening to a busker instead of avoiding being crushed by people, getting to where I'm supposed to be going on time, etc.

yeah i thought this was one of the things the article handled really well. it brought up context and was more about ruminating on various possibilities/implications and even questioning its own scope/significance than judging anyone.

a chat transcript with gene weingarten -- talks about why that particular metro stop and even that particular hallway were chosen

― W i l l, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

"Actually," Bell said with a laugh, "that's not so bad, considering. That's 40 bucks an hour. I could make an okay living doing this, and I wouldn't have to pay an agent."

BRO

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 00:57 (eighteen years ago)

I like the saw lady's response because it's hilariously off-the-mark.

WP: Let's conduct an experiment to see if a world-renowned violinist can pull in crowd with his playing alone.

SL: LOL ARTSYFACE CAN'T BUSK, I AM SPECIAL

I think she'd have a point if JB had actually, you know, ATTEMPTED to busk and played less obscure stuff, but since the (admittedly miniscule) POINT of the article/experiment was completely counter to that...

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:21 (eighteen years ago)

are you surprised she doesn't get it?

the woman "plays" a saw, for god's sake.

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:23 (eighteen years ago)

plus she says analized

xpost

― W i l l, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:24 (eighteen years ago)

excellent WP article, though

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:25 (eighteen years ago)

hahahaha I was trying to be somewhat nice here!

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:25 (eighteen years ago)

I bet it would be easier to kill someone with a saw than a violin.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:29 (eighteen years ago)

That would help bring in the dollars, it's true. But is it [i]art?[/i}

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:30 (eighteen years ago)

ohfuckme

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:30 (eighteen years ago)

when the revolution comes we'll ship these quirky garrison keillor motherfuckers to a prairie home gulag

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 01:31 (eighteen years ago)

The implication was clear: that people's cultural sensitivity was being tested. And was it fair, under those conditions? I don't think many musicologists have had to base their judgement of Bach on one random, echoey ten-second sample, have they? And Joshua's scratching his head, dumbfounded. This whole thing typifies the predicament of the classical music industry: those people have got their heads stuck in the stratosphere.

― Rich Smörgasbord, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 07:11 (eighteen years ago)

He didn't even have a drum computer or a dog with him and he expects money? FFS.

― StanM, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 08:32 (eighteen years ago)

Rich, do you actually understand English?

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 12:20 (eighteen years ago)

I thought the aspect of the article focused on whether art must be "framed" by a proper context to be recognizable as art, to be interesting. I guess the "experiment" was aimed at testing this hypothesis. There are lots of confounding factors, like the facts that folks are cheap, and so don't want to appreciate or even acknowledge the busker, lest they feel guilty about stiffing the guy.

This scenario doesn't seem that different from how folks at non-classical concerts treat opening bands. I guess what happens there is that the setting of the presentation is off, in some people's eyes, because only the main band deserves their appreciation. Of course there are lots of sucky openers too.

― Euler, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 12:37 (eighteen years ago)

The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," which the one guy was listening to on his iPod, is better than anything by Bach.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 12:50 (eighteen years ago)

This piece is 7,500 words.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 12:51 (eighteen years ago)

What I thought was interesting was that the guy from the National Symphony Orchestra was so certain that a crowd would materialize.

― G00blar, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 13:30 (eighteen years ago)

My favorite part was how the writer overhyped the Bach Partita to the point that no-one could possibly come to it having never heard it and have their expectations met. Especially nice was the quote from Brahms that made it sound like the solo violin equivalent of the "Necronomicon."

"Why, surely such a thing lies outside the realm of the human mind. Were I to even have concieved of such a thing, it would have surely driven me insane! Ia! Johannes Sebastian F'tagn!"

― Oilyrags, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 13:43 (eighteen years ago)

I heart Joshua Bell, but not first thing in the morning. Who wants to listen to difficult Bach 1st thing? No wonder he only got $30. If he'd have busted out the Mendelssohn then we'd have a different story.

― The Wayward Johnny B, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 13:51 (eighteen years ago)

The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," which the one guy was listening to on his iPod, is better than anything by Bach.

Okay, as ILM's biggest Cure fanboy I just have to say NO.

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)

You gotta have a dog. Gets the sympathy.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

Wear a fake cast and sing "Lean On Me"

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

Overall this is a pretty balanced piece. I wish they had carried through the idea of art needing a frame a little more. Personally, I couldn't name more than five pieces of classical music on hearing but I'm pretty sure I could recognize world-class technique on any instrument. And I always take off headphones when I see a busker, just in case they're up to something interesting.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 14:42 (eighteen years ago)

Is there such a thing as adult-onset dyslexia? Cause I was trying to figure out what the hell a "fast cake" was for the longest time.

― Oilyrags, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

it's a matzoh, isn't it?

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 14:50 (eighteen years ago)

Thing is, the busker was in a train station. Hardly anyone gives money to buskers at train stations no matter how good they are, let alone stops and stands and watches. If he'd been busking, say, in the middle of a public square, outside a cafe, I suspect he'd have made shedloads more.

I remember Badly Drawn Boy made something like £4 busking in London for a day, but then again he is not one of the world's finest musicians.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:00 (eighteen years ago)

The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," which the one guy was listening to on his iPod, is better than anything by Bach.

-- Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, April 10, 2007 8:50 AM (2 hours ago)

ban mark richardson

― and what, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:04 (eighteen years ago)

can the cops bust u for busking?

― JW, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:49 (eighteen years ago)

can the cops bust u for busking?

boston or cambridge (i can't remember) actually hands out busking permits. apparently, you have to audition before some city culture committee. at least, that's how is was when i lived there.

― QuantumNoise, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

Attention DC muggers: next time you see someone playing a stradicaster on the street, kidnap it & ask ransom.

(I wonder what the insurance company had to say when they heard about this)

― StanM, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)

I thought the aspect of the article focused on whether art must be "framed" by a proper context to be recognizable as art, to be interesting. I guess the "experiment" was aimed at testing this hypothesis. There are lots of confounding factors, like the facts that folks are cheap, and so don't want to appreciate or even acknowledge the busker, lest they feel guilty about stiffing the guy.

This scenario doesn't seem that different from how folks at non-classical concerts treat opening bands. I guess what happens there is that the setting of the presentation is off, in some people's eyes, because only the main band deserves their appreciation. Of course there are lots of sucky openers too.

-- Euler, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 12:37 (3 hours ago)

OTM

Also the bit about no one clapping or acknowledging that he'd finished a piece being the hardest part to relive. I know that feeling too well. :|

― The Macallan 18 Year, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

the below comments by blogger Kevin Drum on the mostly politics related site Washingtonmonthly.com have inspired 201 comments

JOSHUA'S FIDDLE....Have you read Gene Weingarten's cover story in this week's Washington Post magazine? Basically, he took a world-class violinist (Joshua Bell) and had him play for about an hour at the entrance to a DC Metro stop to see if anyone would notice. To a good approximation, no one did. The tone of the story is a sort of artificially mournful tsk-tsking over our inability to recognize beauty in the world around us, take time out to smell the roses, etc. etc.

I'm sorry, but this is just idiotic. No one recognized Bell because even famous violinists don't have famous faces. No one cared much about his music because probably no more than five people out of a hundred enjoy classical music at all — and fewer still recognize the difficult pieces he decided to play. What's more, I'd be surprised if as many as one out of a hundred can tell a good violinist from a great one even in good conditions. And despite the claim that the acoustics of the L'Enfant Plaza station were "surprisingly kind," I'm sure they were nothing of the sort.

Plus, of course, IT WAS A METRO STATION. People needed to get to work on time so their bosses wouldn't yell at them. Weingarten mentions this, with appropriately high-toned references to Kant and Hume, but somehow seems to think that, in the end, this really shouldn't matter much. There should have been throngs of culture lovers surrounding Bell anyway. It's as if he normally lives on Mars and dropped by Earth for a few minutes to do some research for a sixth-grade anthropology project.

Sorry for the rant, but something about this article was so willfully clueless and hectoring (though in a sad, gentle way, natch) that it set my teeth on edge. Sure, I'm a philistine, but did anybody else have the same reaction?

—Kevin Drum 1:18 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (201)

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 20:19 (eighteen years ago)

that was my reaction, more or less

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 20:32 (eighteen years ago)

Do you really want to agree with someone who is retarded, Shakey?

― HI DERE, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:14 (eighteen years ago)

that was still my honest initial reaction, regardless of who else felt reacted similarly.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:15 (eighteen years ago)

(felt OR reacted)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:16 (eighteen years ago)

more than 5 in 100 like classical music, if i had to guess. though they might not enjoy the strawman stereotype of what it is.

― rps, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:30 (eighteen years ago)

The Cure's "Just Like Heaven," which the one guy was listening to on his iPod, is better than anything by Bach.

-- Mark Rich@rdson

popism run amok

― rps, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:30 (eighteen years ago)

re: kevin drum

"probably no more than five people out of a hundred enjoy classical music at al" is absolutely not true.

the 2nd bit about it being a metro station, yeah, that's a very good point.

also the one guy who WAS a trained violin player DID stop and listen and was amazed, so there you have it.

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:36 (eighteen years ago)

I would say like 40% of people don't like any kind of music at all

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:37 (eighteen years ago)

My bad -- I thought we were talking about Johann Christian Bach.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:45 (eighteen years ago)

also the one guy who WAS a trained violin player DID stop and listen and was amazed, so there you have it.

well that's not really any surprise is it? game recognize game

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:52 (eighteen years ago)

I would say like 40% of people don't like any kind of music at all

haha OTM

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 21:53 (eighteen years ago)

AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.
AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 22:04 (eighteen years ago)

Pearls Before Breakfast - the title of the piece itself is super-snooty disdainful

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

it would be funnier if this article was about a commuter crowds ignoring Captain Beefheart or Mark E. Smith (or some other beloved ILM sacred cow)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 22:14 (eighteen years ago)

the thought of it alone is hilarious

― rps, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 22:17 (eighteen years ago)

(Safe as) Milk for Breakfast
Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: an oldish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved flannel shirt and thick glasses. From a small case, he removed an eel-finger guitar.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

this could be an awesome celebreality show.

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 22:24 (eighteen years ago)

39 = "oldish"?

― HI DERE, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)

I believe Shakey Mo is referring to the hypothetical subway performance of Don Van Vliet, Dan. A man whom, as you may know, is much older than 39 and besides that looks older than his age.

― Oilyrags, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 04:31 (eighteen years ago)

What if a band that most people do know, say U2, was playing in a Subway station (a la "The Streets Have No Name" video). I have to think that the reaction would be much different.

But yeah, I passed hundreds of musicians in the NY Subway back in my strap-hanging days. I love music but I also loved making my forrays in public transportation to be as expedited as possible.

― NYCNative, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 05:11 (eighteen years ago)

Coincidentally enough, just this week, I happened to go to a concert of one of my favourite composers (Michael Finnissy), and he gave a short ineterview where he talked about what was to be played. One of the pieces was "Enek" for solo violin. He said that at first he found it a bit daunting (a commission for an international violin competition), but he started writing the piece in a cafe in Budapest (went there to play a concert - he is a wonderful pianist) while listening to this gypsy violinist (apparently they are everywhere you go) playing outside!

The piece won the competition and was played by Maxim Vengerov, who also plays plenty of Bach.

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 21 April 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

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