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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I received the following in an e-mail and found it to be profound in several ways. I also think it applies to many things, including our evaluation of guitars, so I share it here. More specifically, is our personal evaluation of a guitar's tone (however we define that) clouded by the name of the manufacturer on the peghead logo, the model, the price on the tag, the skill of the person playing it, or as suggested in the story below, the environment and context in which we make the evaluation?
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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 approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
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 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? |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | Maybe none of them were fans of the violin.
Good story and certainly gives one pause to think.
I know when I am walking around Pearl Street or Larimer Square and hear a musician playing something that catches my ear, I will gravitate over to where they are....listen a bit...and usually give a contribution.
If they are playing something that doesn't appeal to me, regardless of how talented they may be I continue to walk on by. |
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Location: Conroe, Texas | Well, I agree with what you said, but the "experiment" was done at location where many office workers pass & the time was such that many people are in a hurry. One lady did recognize him & shook his hand. What a missed opportunity for these people! I probably had the peghead logo taped over too! |
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Location: New Hampsha | Entirely correct - the "stopping to appreciate it" part is the hard part.
Recognizing it shouldn't be hard, and you don't need a hyper instrument or buckets of talent - even for those of us who are more "talent challenged."
Start with yourself. In the midst of hacking through a song, take the time to appreciate when you make a clean chord change or make that "E" chord chime.
Perceive the beauty in your own playing, however brief, appreciate it, and give thanks for that moment when God gave you "talent." The duration of that "talent" is what makes people famous. So recognize talent in an unexpected context - yourself.
That may make it easier to recognize it in others, stop to appreciate it, and not miss it.
I'll stop now... |
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Location: Utah | Kaki was pretty much ignored in the NY subway in 2008. Not totally, she did get a quarter dropped into her guitar case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWwJsokG6PE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaVKjBEXspI
Context is everything. Nobody expects a world renown violinist or a successful guitarist to be playing in a subway station. |
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Location: Right now? | Well, I am the biggest Joshua Bell fan I know, and sure would have recognized him and stopped. Very interesting story, Professor ... it does make you wonder ... reminds me of another "experiment" in human nature:
Look here
Happy Christmas to you and yours, Professor!
;)
Willa |
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Location: Reisterstown, Maryland | That was fun, Willa. I always try to take the stairs but that would surely make it lots more fun.
I stop to listen and look at artists to watch them create or see their creations. What's a few seconds or minutes out of our lives to add enjoyment to it?
Anita |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | Amazing. |
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Location: Tuscany, Italy | Interesting experiment.
To appreciate a great wine or great tea you need the right glass or the right teapot. I don't think people do not recognize Beauty. To understand, feel, enjoy Beauty, you need time. You need to be relaxed, minded ... you need to focus on a target and open up your feelings, yours sensation. In other words, you need to be ready to be touched by Beauty. If you are in a marvelous bloomed field, you stop only a second to admire colours, flowers scents and shapes, if you have to plough it: instead, you linger for hours if you are a painter. It's your frame of mind that change your perceptions.
Those people have to be at work on time, to take children to school, to get to an appointment. How to blame them ?
Just an opinion. |
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Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | Very well stated Brad...thanks for sharing...Merry Christmas! |
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Location: Upper Left USA | "To appreciate a great wine or great tea you need the right glass or the right teapot"
I've had good wine in a plastic cup in the company of great Friends and it was fantastic! The fact that it had been packed up a trail in the snow to reach the summit made it all the more rare and enjoyable.
Not all who wander are lost... |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | He probably should have shaved that morning |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Originally posted by marenostrum:
To appreciate a great wine or great tea you need the right glass or the right teapot. The greatest wine I ever had was heated in a tin cup over a beach fire beneath the bunkers in Dunkerque. The cup was wired to a stick and we threw in some sugar from a restaurant up the beach.
Setting and company is everything. |
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Location: Steeler Nation, Hudson Valley Contingent | Originally posted by WillaMuse:
reminds me of another "experiment" in human nature:
Look here
;)
Willa
I'm going to use that for my Psychology and Sociology classes. :cool: |
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Location: Warren,Pa. | I worked in Manhattan years ago. Every afternoon as I walked from my building to the bus station, there would be street performers along the way. I frequently stopped to listen to fine musicians...for 15-20 minutes OR 'till the cops pulled the plug on their generator. Always left some money. Good memories : )
John <>{ |
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Location: Omaha, NE | If they want people to take the stairs, why'd they put in escalators?
As for the train station guy, any experienced busker will tell you that if you just stand there and play, you'll get ignored. Its not a question of that guy being one of the "best" musicians playing some of the "finest" music ever. He doesn't know how to busk. Why would we expect him to do any better in a train station than a good busker would do in Carnegie Hall? Seems like this experiment is predicated on a lack of respect for the craft of street musicianship. |
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Location: Michigan | Perception: Yesterday my wife came upstairs from the basement and told me she loved the new song I was playing.
Reality: I was sitting at the computer with my guitar in my lap listening to Fretkiller on youtube.
:) :) |
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Location: Route 66, just east of the Cadillac Ranch | That's a facinating story Professor and thanks for sharing. For those that haven't seen it before, here's a link to the video of that performance:
Joshua Bell\'s incognito performance |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Here is a link to the snopes article.. which not only confirms but adds some VERY important info
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp
I'm surprised that no one on here has commented more directly on the absurdness of this poorly executed experiment. The key is Location, Location, Location and of course time of day. If he was playing at an appropriate time for those going out looking for entertainment... he may still not have been recognized, but I think the outcome would have been significantly different.
The assumption that "morning commuters passing through L'Enfant Plaza Station have a quick choice to make of Do you stop and listen or Do you hurry past is flawed.
First if you are going through L'Enfant plaza during the morning commute you are late and in a shoulder to shoulder crowd of several thousand other people who are late.
If you see a busker at that time, he's likely the point person of a pick-pocket operation. If you stop and listen, your wallet, watch and whatever else will be gone and lost in a sea of people in moments. If he's not a distraction for a pick-pocket, he may be a drug dealer, or an Agent undercover to catch any of the above. In any case... unless you're a tourist, you do not stop, do not hesitate, and in fact steer as far away from the guy as possible.
Now, if it was during lunch, or on the weekend, there is less traffic, but.. the traffic is the traffic that may actually have time, and control of their environment enough, to stop and listen. I used to wander the streets in DC during lunch and on the weekends near the "sites" because it was safer then. Enough people to not be "alone" but not so many people that you walked with one hand on your wallet and the other close to whatever you were carrying as a weapon.
Sorry to be negative, but were talking about putting a scruffy (albiet it famous) musician in one of the busiest metro stations of one of the most dangerous cities and the worst time to be there.... I (and anyone who works in DC) could have told him what was going to happen. I'm surprised he got more than a a dollar or two at that time and place. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | along what Mile's has said:
And purpose...
If his intention was to get people to stop and listen then some other techniques should have been employed.
If his goal was to collect donations then the table should have been set differently.
Since his goal was to play exceptional music in an unatural setting while not being recognized... then he acheived his goal.
What club to use and how to position your feet for the specific shot! |
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| Yes extreamly unfair test and deliberatly slanted experiment but at the same time, it does make a hell of a point.
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On a lesser note, I play "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere" and that gets hoots, hollars & whistles,
Then I'll play "Lifes a Long Song" or "Skating Away" and I sometimes get 20 mile stares or a blank look with a twinge of an old memory coming to the surface.... then its gone and they go back to staring at the crown royal behind the bar and having worthless conversations with the bar tender.
Not that I am carnegie material.... not at all, but some people just do not understand the beauty and magic of good music or any music. It is just not in them, for some they just don't have the ability to care, they are in their own little worlds. Those people will never produce a beautiful thing.... not one thing in all the time they have in this place. That is the real tragedy. |
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Location: SoCal | "but some people just do not understand the beauty and magic of good music or any music. It is just not in them"
They just know what they like.
When I play for people the songs that go over best are the ones that people know, be it 5'OClock Somewhere, or Gentle On My Mind, or Country Roads, etc. Not always the most satisfying to play, but if you want to play for yourself, go play in the stairwell or bathroom where the acoustics are good. If you are going to play for other people, play what they enjoy hearing.
Jimmy Buffett is not a good guitar player or singer, but for 40 years he's made a great living as an entertainer..... |
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Location: Omaha, NE | "it does make a hell of a point"
If you mean that for music to be well received, it has to be appropriate for the venue, I agree. |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | And to cast away any doubt on how cynical I can be.....
If Mr. Bell had played his Violin in lets say Boston Common in the middle of a warm afternoon.... he would likely have made 100's of dollars and drawn a huge crowd... HOWEVER... as that is expected.. we would not be discussing this now nearly three years later. In fact, I'd say due to this experiment (read marketing stunt) there are 10's of 1000's of people now who know Bell is, who had no idea who he was before.
If only 100,000 people were introduced to him via this experiment, which caused just 100 tickets to sell over time from either new fans or re-aquinted fans or just curiosity seekers... That's another $10,000 in ticket sales. (this isn't even counting record sales this induced) But as this article and story went viral, and worldwide... this experiment will keep on paying off for years and years to come.
I'd say after some thought, all in all, a very good investment of 45 minutes of time on his part. |
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Location: Atlanta, GA. | Maybe he can only attract an audience when backed by a 100+ piece orchestra?
I dunno.
I'm just saying. |
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Perception versus reality . . .
