My husband forwarded the following article to me a few days ago. He verified its authenticity on "Snopes", as he often receives e-mails that are not true. This is a true story that was featured in the Washington Post in 2007. The message is powerful.
"A man sat at a Metro subway station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any other recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the finest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Three days earlier, Bell had played to a full house at Boston's Symphony Hall, where fairly good seats went for $100. But on this day, he collected just $32.17 for his efforts, contributed by a mere 27 of the 1,070 passing travelers. Only seven people stopped to listen, and just one of them recognized the performer.
This is a true story. Washington Post writer, Gene Weingarten, enlisted the help of violin virtuoso, Joshua Bell, in conducting this social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. Joshua Bell played incognito in the L'Enfant Plaza station of the subway line in Washington, DC. on the morning of January 12, 2007.
The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate or inconvenient hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in the unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experiment could be: If we do not have the moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world play the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?"
The Washington Post won a Pulitzer in the feature writing category for this April 2007 article. You can read the full aricle by going to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
"A man sat at a Metro subway station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any other recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the finest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
Three days earlier, Bell had played to a full house at Boston's Symphony Hall, where fairly good seats went for $100. But on this day, he collected just $32.17 for his efforts, contributed by a mere 27 of the 1,070 passing travelers. Only seven people stopped to listen, and just one of them recognized the performer.
This is a true story. Washington Post writer, Gene Weingarten, enlisted the help of violin virtuoso, Joshua Bell, in conducting this social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. Joshua Bell played incognito in the L'Enfant Plaza station of the subway line in Washington, DC. on the morning of January 12, 2007.
The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate or inconvenient hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in the unexpected context?
One of the possible conclusions from this experiment could be: If we do not have the moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world play the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?"
The Washington Post won a Pulitzer in the feature writing category for this April 2007 article. You can read the full aricle by going to this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
Or view the video on YouTube:
Are you going to take the time to read the article or listen to the music?
1 comments:
This is one of my favorite stories. I'd read it a while ago and seen the video.
What I find so interesting is that we approach it from very different perspectives. You approach it from the perspective of a listener: what it says about what we take the time to appreciate, how rushed we are, etc.
I approach it from the perspective of an artist. It says so many interesting things about the role of context in our evaluation of art.
It's why scribbles or paint splatters are childish if they're hung on a refrigerator and "art" if they're hung in a gallery or museum. Context lends prestige.
And context can give us permission to admire something. We can gush about the acting talents of a Broadway star. That's not a very risky opinion. After all, they're on Broadway; they must deserve to be there. If we gush about the acting talents of a local performer, that's riskier. People might laugh or disagree or, worse, think we have no real discernment when it comes to acting talent. Context says "this is an amateur performer," so it's risky to express the opinion that the actor is professional level.
I find this, oddly, both comforting and disheartening about my own career. Comforting because it means that just because I'm in a certain context (community theatre) doesn't mean that I don't deserve to be in a more prestigious context (professional theatre). The reason people see me in an amateur light is because I'm playing in the subway station. Disheartening because it means that talent doesn't always rise to the top. Lesser talents can be in the more prestigious context because of strokes of luck or being the child of a great talent. Great talents can find it hard to get the recognition to rise above their lesser context. I don't have a concert at Symphony Hall or an article and video to expose my talents to the world, so it's hard to get out of playing in the subway, where people see me as just another random musician.
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