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Tube of delight!

#1 2007-05-21 19:33:25

dstone
Member
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 552
Website

If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

Interesting experiment...

"A writer for the Washington Post recently conducted a social experiment with the aim of finding out if commuters in a subway station would recognize musical genius if performed by a master virtuoso in the guise of an ordinary busker.  So the trap was set: Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest violinists, along with his $3.5 million instrument (crafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1713), played 43 minutes of masterpieces in a Washington metro station on a typical Friday morning.  The results were depressingly predictable. Of the 1,097 people who rushed by, only seven stopped to listen to the music for more than one minute.  Another 27 tossed some money in his violin case, and the rest were completely oblivious to the spark of beauty interrupting their otherwise dull day."

More here:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl … 2/1031/ENT

Slow down.  Breathe.  Listen.  It doesn't have to be Joshua Bell... the beauty is everywhere. 

And don't forget it's Bike to Work Week coming up!

-Darren.

Last edited by dstone (2007-05-21 19:37:04)


When it is rainy, I am in the rain. When it is windy, I am in the wind.  - Mitsuo Aida

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#2 2007-05-21 20:54:40

-Prem
Member
From: The Big Apple
Registered: 2007-03-27
Posts: 73

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

Hello Darren-
That is a GREAT post and link! AMAZING! Thanks for sharing.
-Prem

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#3 2007-05-21 22:43:59

Kerry
Member
From: Nashville, TN
Registered: 2005-10-10
Posts: 183

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

beauty above me
beauty below me
beauty all around me,
I walk in beauty..........Navajo chant

_____________________________________
Movement,
stillness,
the felt breath
of jinashi blessings.


-kerry


The temple bell stops, but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers. -Basho

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#4 2007-05-22 03:54:27

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

dstone wrote:

"A writer for the Washington Post recently conducted a social experiment with the aim of finding out if commuters in a subway station would recognize musical genius if performed by a master virtuoso in the guise of an ordinary busker.  So the trap was set: Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest violinists, along with his $3.5 million instrument (crafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1713), played 43 minutes of masterpieces in a Washington metro station on a typical Friday morning.  The results were depressingly predictable. Of the 1,097 people who rushed by, only seven stopped to listen to the music for more than one minute.  Another 27 tossed some money in his violin case, and the rest were completely oblivious to the spark of beauty interrupting their otherwise dull day."

I currently live in a rather small town here in Finland. Whenever I play at the only train station from which trains leave roughly every 30 minutes I find that people tend to listen and they often even come closer to ask about what it is that I'm doing. Then again, these aren't people who are in a rush to go anywhere since they are stuck there waiting for a train to come. I bet that if I repeated the same experiment at Helsinki where there is a similar metro system as the one you describe with trains going back and forth every minute most people would run past so fast that they'd barely notice anything.

One thing that works much better is playing at parks and such where people are more often less likely to be in a hurry - after all, they wouldn't be there otherwise. We've had lots of luck getting people interested by sitting at the side of some park road while playing. Unfortunately finnish people mostly keep to themselves and thus many who become interested still don't manage to come to talk to you and ask about this strange music that you are playing.

Now that summer is here again I'm hoping to get to spend more time playing outside. I'll have to try this on different places to see how people react. I'm betting that the metro tunnel would be about worst possible place. I guess I could play for an hour or two in one spot and then add up the loose change that accumulates. I'm actually somewhat surprised that the man in the article earned around $32. If I could earn that much playing on the street I'd be doing this as a full-time job. :-)

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#5 2007-05-22 04:55:32

Daniel Ryudo
Shihan/Kinko Ryu
From: Kochi, Japan
Registered: 2006-02-12
Posts: 355

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

Hi Darren.  That was quite an interesting post...wow.  Out of a thousand people, only 7 stopped for over a minute to listen.  Great link too.  Awareness...  Yes, as Amokrun mentioned, parks are definitely better. I wonder if the results would have been similar had they tried that experiment in the subway systems in several other countries, or if he would have gotten more listeners in places like NYC or San Francisco...some cities are better for busking than others.

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#6 2007-05-22 05:38:01

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

Daniel Ryudo wrote:

I wonder if the results would have been similar had they tried that experiment in the subway systems in several other countries, or if he would have gotten more listeners in places like NYC or San Francisco...some cities are better for busking than others.

Picking a subway station as the location is, I believe, one of the reasons why the results were so poor. Nobody comes there just to spend some time. Certainly world would be that much better place if everyone took some time to just stop occasionally. Still, this could be just me but I never found those subway stations very enjoyable places to be in. I think I would much rather listen to a decent musician in a park than a good one in a subway station.

Anyhow, this whole topic made me curious about how well this would work. As soon as my new baby arrives through mail, I think I'll have to take it for a test drive to the Helsinki subway system to see if people seriously just run past the spot.

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#7 2007-05-22 09:42:19

Zakarius
Member
From: Taichung, TAIWAN
Registered: 2006-04-12
Posts: 361

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

Perhaps this is a little off topic, but if you've never seen Violon Rouge (The Red Violin), it's an excellent film on music, history and the spirit of an instrument, it's crafter and players. The violin solos were played by Joshua Bell.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120802/

Zakarius


塵も積もれば山となる -- "Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru." -- Piled-up specks of dust become a mountain.

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#8 2007-05-22 12:44:43

rpowers
Member
From: San Francisco
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 285

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

The original story from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … errer=digg


dstone wrote:

Of the 1,097 people who rushed by, only seven stopped to listen to the music for more than one minute.  Another 27 tossed some money in his violin case, and the rest were completely oblivious to the spark of beauty interrupting their otherwise dull day."

The original article mentions one thing that confirms my own observation. Little kids will want to stop and watch/listen. I often see kids twisting their necks back until the impatient parent has dragged them completely out of sight and sound.


"Shut up 'n' play . . . " -- Frank Zappa
"Gonna blow some . . ." -- Junior Walker
"It's not the flute." -- Riley Lee

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#9 2007-05-22 19:23:17

dstone
Member
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 552
Website

Re: If you don't -expect- to experience beauty, then you won't

rpowers wrote:

The original article mentions one thing that confirms my own observation. Little kids will want to stop and watch/listen. I often see kids twisting their necks back until the impatient parent has dragged them completely out of sight and sound.

No kidding.  The least "cultured", least "educated", and least "mature" among us are sometimes best equipped to recognize beautiful things and (re-)teach us.

Back to my Lego...

-Darren.


When it is rainy, I am in the rain. When it is windy, I am in the wind.  - Mitsuo Aida

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