joshua bell makes 32.17 playing in washington metro

[toro913]

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

This article was very amusing to read, just thought i'd share it with you folks.
His chaconne wasn't all that bad.

[toro913]

darn didnt see the other thread about this

[Joe Barron]

A friend e-mailed the article to me on Sunday. I have to say it disgusts me when journalists — or social scientists — play tricks on people just to make them look foolish, or to prove some point that never needed proving. So Americans are too busy to notice a world-class musician in the subway during rush hour. Are we all supposed to feel something is wrong with our lives? And I wonder if the writers would have behaved any differently if they ad not been in on the set up. The whole thing was a waste of time.

If Bell wants to play somewhere for free, why not a hospice or a cancer ward?

[MishaK]

His chaconne wasn't all that bad.

How do you know? Were you there?

[toro913]

i was going by the clips in the article

[Bunny]

He would have made a lot more money if he were playing in NYC on Broadway between Lincoln Center and 86th Street or in Grand Central Station.  Every summer Julliard and Manhattan School of Music students play in the street, and judging from the cash in the instrument cases and the crowds listening, they do a lot better than Bell did.  I don't think it's a reflection on Bell as much as on the people of our nation's capital - shame on them! 

[Harry Collier]

I can't think I'd give much to hear Joshua Bell playing Bach.

[loudav]

Maybe this point was already made in the other thread, but this experiment was flawed in such a comically simple way. They should have done it at EVENING rush hour, when passers-by had the decision between listening and getting home, rather than the decision between listening and getting to work ON TIME.

[Poetdante]

I saw this article in the Korean newspaper.
Some people posted on the web that this event was very similar to the French movie 'Violin Player'(??).
Anyway, the article was interesting.

[bhodges]

The publicity this story has received is quite amazing.  Here is a post on The Rambler (a contemporary music blog), with which I mostly agree:

http://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/busking-bell/

--Bruce

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Maybe this point was already made in the other thread, but this experiment was flawed in such a comically simple way. They should have done it at EVENING rush hour, when passers-by had the decision between listening and getting home, rather than the decision between listening and getting to work ON TIME.

Had the same thought myself...

[Harry Collier]

The publicity this story has received is quite amazing.

Well, why else do you think he was persuaded to do it? Not because he needed the money, I suspect.

[jochanaan]

You know, that makes me feel a whole lot better.  Some of you know that I, too, play on the streets, on Denver's 16th Street Mall.  My average is right around $10 per hour for a mix of classical (Debussy's Syrinx and Bach's A minor Sonata figure high in street playing since they, like the Chaconne, require no accompaniment), jazz standards, and pure improvisation.  Considering the cost of living differential between Denver and D.C., I now think I'm doing pretty well.   (I like to play the lunch hour; more people out for a break from a frustrating job. )

[маразм1]

Many years ago, I made 45 bucks in 40 minutes playing in the subway. 

[jochanaan]

Which subway, marazm?

[Scott]

The Joshua Bell story was updated with British violinist Tasmin Little in a London station. The Independent story was infinitely better-written than the Washington Post one. Here are the opening paragraphs and a link to the story.

Tasmin Little: Playing great music in unexpected locations

But it was. To see if the British can recognise great music in an unexpected setting - and whether they're prepared to pay for it - we took Tasmin Little and her Strad on to the streets. Jessica Duchen went along to watch the show

The railway bridge beside Waterloo station is a busy pedestrian cut popular with buskers, Big Issue sellers and the homeless seeking shelter. This week, it also played host to the most unusual buskers in London as Tasmin Little, protegée of Yehudi Menuhin and former prizewinner in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, and now one of our leading violinists, set up her pitch with her Stradivarius.

The Independent decided to give Little one of the more difficult challenges of her career - to test how people would react to a great artist giving a performance in a totally unexpected setting.

When we enter the tunnel's draughty shade, fresh from a blazing spring afternoon, there are no other musicians, no hawkers, and just one diminutive beggar sitting cross-legged with a baseball cap in front of him.

Little, dressed down in grey fleece and black slacks, tunes her Strad. We put a few coins in the violin case, just to start the ball rolling. Feeling a tad guilty at invading the homeless man's patch, we approach him to explain. He gives Little's violin the once-over, then asks, in an Italian accent: "Is that a Stradivarius?" He, like the violin, is from Cremona.

Little launches into "Spring" from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Passers-by are marching purposefully to and from the station. Some glance round. Some look insistently the other way. Some, spotting our photographer, walk carefully round behind him. Nobody stops. The homeless man from Cremona looks on, arms folded. What does he think of buskers? After all, they're on his patch. He doesn't mind them at all, he says. "Busking's good," he remarks. "She's really good. There's a cellist who plays here often, but he plays the same stuff every day. She's much better."

......

Full story at http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article2464166.ece

[jochanaan]

*sigh* A sad commentary on modern life.