Would you stop and listen to a world-class musician…in a subway station?
Posted by Tyler Kinch on April 10th, 2007
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?
Interesting. I know that even real “street musicians” that are great at their art, have trouble gathering crowds. I think that busking is an art of it’s own though, it’s much different than being on a traditional stage.
April 10th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Well, I stopped, read, and followed through with your blog posting.
Thanks. Well worth it.
April 10th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Funny little experiment, but pretty meaningless imho.
I think most people would have a tough time showing up late to work if their excuse was “I stopped for beauty”.
I think the experiment is less about the world class musician being out of context, or the unwillingness of people to take time for beauty in their life than it is about the street performer saying you should take time out for beauty NOW, on his (or her) schedule, not yours, while you’re on your way to work. I don’t see why people should necessarily be more inclined to stop and listen to a wonderful musician on their way to work than they are to pull over in traffic to watch a beautiful sunrise on their commute, or to spend an hour reading Shakesperean sonnets on their walk to work because they pass a bookstore on their way to the office. If Yo-Yo Ma showed up at my apartment one morning and asked if he could come in and play for me, I think I’d probably say yes, but my long pause first wouldn’t be a comment on my appreciation of talent, or time for beauty, so much as my need to adjust my life around the performer’s schedule. To drop what I’m doing and pivot, on the spot.
Not that I would begrudge an employee who is a fan of classical music who wished to stop and listen to the performance, but I don’t think people’s unwillingness to stop what they’re doing to listen to a street performer really tells us much about people’s appreciation of beauty, let alone their taste. Having time for beauty, and stopping what you’re doing everytime beauty presents itself are two different things, aren’t they?