Social Experiment: World-Renowned Violinist Plays DC Subway – Does Anyone Stop & Listen?
Posted on Feb 20, 2012 in Blog, Editorials, & ThoughtsKevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net – Video Included
A man stood at a Metro station in Washington DC playing the violin. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of whom were 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 along.
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.
During the entire 45 minutes, only 6 people stopped and stayed for any length of time. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk. He collected a paltry $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
The violinist was Joshua Bell, considered to be one of the best musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a Stradivarius violin worth $3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the cheap seats were $100 and his talent often commands upwards of $1,000 per minute.
This endeavor was made possible by a “social experiment” by the Washington Post. Fearing people might recognize Bell, or large crowds gathering, they pressed on with the experiment to see if people would notice beauty and exquisite art; if they were capable of recognizing it in such a chaotic environment such as a DC subway, or if people simply don’t care anymore.
It saddens me to see the results. Such art is heard once in a lifetime for most, if ever.
From the Pulitzer Prize winning article by the Washington Post:
“Bell decided to begin with “Chaconne” from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Bell calls it “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect. Plus, it was written for a solo violin, so I won’t be cheating with some half-assed version.”
Bell didn’t say it, but Bach’s “Chaconne” is also considered one of the most difficult violin pieces to master. Many try; few succeed. It’s exhaustingly long — 14 minutes — and consists entirely of a single, succinct musical progression repeated in dozens of variations to create a dauntingly complex architecture of sound. Composed around 1720, on the eve of the European Enlightenment, it is said to be a celebration of the breadth of human possibility.
If Bell’s encomium to “Chaconne” seems overly effusive, consider this from the 19th-century composer Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann: “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”
So, that’s the piece Bell started with.”
Continue Reading the amazing story, Pearls Before Breakfast, at the Washington Post
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So when your employer fires you for being late, do you think they will care that it was because you stopped to listen to this guy? No, they will hire someone else, this is the problem people.
Leave for work earlier. Stop being in such a stressed out rush 24/7. Slow down. Breath. This is life, and it will pass you by if you don’t pay attention. We were not born in order to work 60 hour weeks just to pay the mortgage on a McMansion that we can’t afford, while driving cars we can’t pay for, and wearing clothes that we purchase solely for their social status. Break free and slow down a bit.
Get back to nature. Observe art in all of its many forms. Stop and smell the fucking roses every now and then.
When you’re on your deathbed, you’ll understand.
Cheers,
Kevin Hayden
Hayden,You are so right .We were created to work 6 days and rest with our creator, Yahweh, and bask in his creation.
So did they try this “experiment” in a location where eveyrone walking by is NOT in a rush to get somewhere?
Like at an arts & crafts festival?
or in a location where lots of street musicians are allowed to play, like just off Saint George Street in downtown Saint Augustine Florida?
No, and that’s part OF the experiment, Justin. If you present art in an art setting, where people go to SEE and HEAR art, then it sort of negates the entire experiment.
The point was to see if something so beautiful, so different, would even be noticed by people going about their day.
I think it proves, or at least lends credence, to the fact that we need to slow down a bit as humans.
Just my opinion.
Cheers,
Hayden
Well, such is the way of the world now…..it seems as if ordinary citizens are like junkies! Hear me out now…as well all know progessively dangerous drugs make the human body build a tolerence, meaning the more you do, the more and harder ones you need to do to get the same effect. Its like this today, without the most graphic, loud, colorful, debased, discordant, hedonistic images or sounds to affect our senses, we are not moved or interested. It’s like a freaking Slaneesh cult up in this Beyotch! (throw in a lil W40K) Seriously though, the amount of people who know WHO Stradivarius is, is like 100 in a large city. I only know of him because I took music theory. I digress however and can sum it up like this; Stopping to smell the roses has go the way of the handwritten letter……and it is a shame.
+1, JR.
((I really need to install a Like or Thumbs Up button for comments, huh?))
Cheers,
Kevin Hayden
The result was predictable. What did Bell hope to prove? That people don’t know good music when they hear it? The evidence has been conclusive for hundreds of years before Mr. Bell was born. On another day, he might try handing out cards needing “true or false” responses: Which is larger, a piano or a violin? I hope the poor fellow wouldn’t be shocked and discouraged to learn the results.
Mr. Hayden criticizes the failure of people to appreciate fine music so he won’t mind my criticism of his English. The sentence, “During that time, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of which were on their way to work,” is an abomination. Mr. Hayden needs to learn when to use “which” and when to use “whom.”
I appreciate the grammar lesson, Ms. Gendin. However, it should be noted that I am not an English professor. In fact, I’m a quite uneducated, former police officer who never attended high school. Most of what I have learned in life has been through trial and error, personal experience, or wonderful, magical, little teachers, such as yourself.
My criticism extends only so far as to note the nearly total failure of over 1,000 people to stop for a moment and appreciate something that is beautiful. I do not sit around at home listening to Bach, or Mozart, but I believe Mr. Bell’s playing would certainly catch my ear. Perhaps I am the strange one?
I cobbled this article together in an effort to show just how rushed we are in our daily lives, not to find out if my readers can distinguish Brahm from Tchaikovsky. It was not intended as a slant to any one person or groups.
Why you took it so personally offensive is beyond me, but I appreciate your comments, nonetheless.
Cheers,
Kevin Hayden
Founder
PS – I have corrected the abomination contained within the original article. I did so just for you.
Dear Mr. Hayden,
You are most assuredly not uneducated. You are a model of what education aims to produce.
I am a professional” philosopher with 34 years teaching experience and I am in the (perhaps unfortunate) habit of being harsh in my pedagogical technique. It should not be construed as personal. Thank you for your extended response.