Josh Bell: Can Music Stop Rush Hour Commuters?

[honestrosewater]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html"

Can one of the nation's greatest musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Gene Weingarten set out to discover if violinist Josh Bell -- and his Stradivarius -- could stop busy commuters in their tracks.


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: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

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?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html"

(There are video clips embedded in the article.)

I might have missed it, but did it even occur to the authors that some people don't like this music? Anyway, someone showed me this article, and I thought it was interesting enough to pass along. I don't have any insightful comments at the moment, but perhaps someone else will. It's something to stop and entertain, at least.

 

[baywax]

(There are video clips embedded in the article.)

I might have missed it, but did it even occur to the authors that some people don't like this music? Anyway, someone showed me this article, and I thought it was interesting enough to pass along. I don't have any insightful comments at the moment, but perhaps someone else will. It's something to stop and entertain, at least.

There's an approach to public transit that is long and enclosed. At the end of the approach and just before escalating to the the ticketing area there is a spot where musicians who have been chosen by the transit company play their music.

Sometimes its South American. Sometimes its North American. But, the placement is strategic in that you can hear the music, and enjoy it if you do, as you walk this half a mile of cement and metal. So, by the time you get to the musicians you have had the time to savor or slam their music and either pitch in some money or not. You don't have to decide if you're too busy or not because you are automatically multitasking; listening while dealing with rush hour. Its pretty cool.

 

[DaveC426913]

(There are video clips embedded in the article.)

I might have missed it, but did it even occur to the authors that some people don't like this music? Anyway, someone showed me this article, and I thought it was interesting enough to pass along. I don't have any insightful comments at the moment, but perhaps someone else will. It's something to stop and entertain, at least.

What an obscenely long article.

 

[honestrosewater]

What an obscenely long article.

Hahahaha... yeah, I actually kind of thought the same. The author seems to really enjoy hearing himself talk or something. I was going to try to quote at least the "conclusions", but I couldn't really find good places to snip. It did lead me to find a violinist named Nathan Milstein, though. I can't really describe him. You just have to hear him. If anyone is interested, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nggV8Kuadh4".

baywax, that sounds nice.

 

[baywax]

baywax, that sounds nice.

Its good wages for the buskers. but it ain't Bach.

Actually many of the classical writers simply re-wrote much of the folk music of their respective times.

The relationship between folk music and classical music is complex. Several composers have been noted for their use of expressly folk melodies or themes, as well as research into enthno-musicology:

Béla Bartók
Johannes Brahms
Frédéric Chopin
Aaron Copland
Henry Cowell
Antonín Dvo?ák
Franz Joseph Haydn
Edvard Grieg
Zoltán Kodály
Franz Liszt
Seán Ó Riada
Christian Sinding
Bed?ich Smetana
Ralph Vaughan Williams
George Enescu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Classical_Composers_Noted_for_Use_of_Folk_Music

Its funny that the Washington post would do this sort of research/story. It reminds me a bit of two things:
1) the Hebrew (apparently of Jewish faith) classical musicians playing for the prisoners of death camps in the 30s and 40s.

2) the relatively recent advances in neuroscience that show classical music to be not only soothing but stimulating intellectual interest in humans from ages 0 to 8. (between 5 - 7 years old is the optimum age for learning music theory and practice in relation to brain/dexterity development. Though every kid is different)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/parents/yourchild/childdev_chart.shtml