Tagged and Bagged: Site
I followed a link from Matt Mullenweg’s site, which brought me to this article from the Washington Post, found by Paul Kedrosky. I have to agree with Matt. This is likely the best newspaper article that I’ve read as well. I encourage you to read it. Perhaps we can all take a little bit away from it and slow down a little.
Okay I haven’t read the article yet but I instantly recognized that as Bach’s music! If I had been a mid level Beauracrat I would have ran over and listened to Bach because he is my favorite composer!!!!!!!!!!!
Now on to read the full article! I’ts long but I am determined to read through because I too want to cut through the fog! haha
When I watch the first video, I thought to myself this guys too good to be a regular street performer. I was liking what I heard and couldn’t believe nobody stopped to listen.
But as a cut through the fog, I tuned into the stunt.
Did people not stop because of the boss giving them crap for being tardy, or are people in D.C. that cheap and snobs?
I guess they would rather pay the usual $100 per seat to watch him in a concert hall. LOL
Devin, although you accuse yourself of being the opposite, I think that you’re one of the few people that I know who cuts through the fog once in a while.
I read the article and Mac’s comments. Yes, people in DC are snobs. I’ve been there.
I think that the experiment would yield similar results in any North American city, though.
There is a great response to the Joshua Bell article by a NYC subway musician in her blog
She interprets the situation differently from the Washington Post reporters… I thought you might find it interesting.
Thanks for the heads up, Michelle. I’m going to read that article now. If you want to comment again here, be sure to use the same email address that you used for this comment to avoid moderation
For a large amount of people who attend concerts, operas and theatre, the sole motive is ‘to be seen’, nothing more and nothing less. The actual performance [to them anyway] is irrelevant. It’s all about status in society.
If there had been signs noting this as a special event they would have stopped. People like to say ‘I was there’ if they believe it will give them some more credit in the status stakes.
I sat and watched a guy busking in London when we visited the other day. He was excellent, not only because he was a great musician, but because he was alive with what he was doing. I gave him some money because he entertained me and made me smile. It’s all about enjoying the moment and not about doing it because everyone else is doing the same. I was the only one watching him most of the time I was there.
Funny…
You can just see people stopping and listening to buskers all over the place now, once this story gets around. They won’t want to miss out again will they?
@ Michelle: I read that blog entry. I see her point. Its too bad that she missed the reporter’s point. I seriously don’t think that the goal was to see how well he did as a busker. I think that the goal was to see if anybody stops to pay attention to the little or the nice things in life. Instead of music, this could easily have been a flower growing in a crack in the sidewalk.
Its true that a good busker gets paid well because they are good at gathering attention and focussing it on themselves. If they didn’t, then they would likely have to find another way to live. My take on this experiment was to see if good music played well would be recognized. There’s no way that results could have been determined if there was good music played over a good sound system. We already tune that out as “noise” regardless of what it is.
I wonder if there would have been a better reaction if there had been a good jazz guitarist playing good jazz (but not popular).