Post: #1

Interesting Facebook story.

"A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.

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.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a 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 seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?" By: Josh Nonnenmoc. A R T



Here's the Washington Post article about the incident if you want to read the whole story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01721.html

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #2

(01-08-2013 04:46 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?" By: Josh Nonnenmoc. A R T

I like this

Post: #3

From the longer article -it starts out slow but there are some interesting thoughts and observations about our society in there. Souza is a shoeshine lady in the metro:

Quote:Souza was surprised to learn he was a famous musician, but not that people rushed blindly by him. That, she said, was predictable. "If something like this happened in Brazil, everyone would stand around to see. Not here."

Souza nods sourly toward a spot near the top of the escalator: "Couple of years ago, a homeless guy died right there. He just lay down there and died. The police came, an ambulance came, and no one even stopped to see or slowed down to look.

"People walk up the escalator, they look straight ahead. Mind your own business, eyes forward. Everyone is stressed. Do you know what I mean?"

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #4

I've seen this story posted in various places over the past 1 or 2 years, but I bet a red pill guy keen on music would have stopped, as he has all the time in the world.

Post: #5

Yes, because the are of busking is not directly related to how good a musician you are in other settings. I know because I made a living playing music in the subway for two years. It is very different from playing in a concert hall. It's a different skill that takes practice to get good at.

Post: #6

(01-08-2013 05:34 AM)bojangles Wrote:  I've seen this story posted in various places over the past 1 or 2 years, but I bet a red pill guy keen on music would have stopped, as he has all the time in the world.

One of my resolutions this year is to stop to appreciate anything that tickles my fancy, no matter where or what it is

Post: #7

also a great lesson in marketing, lol.

Imagine how much he charges per ticket at a concert at the most prestigious venue in that same city...

Just goes to show how much how you package + deliver yourself is a dominant factor in how much you get paid, no matter how high your talent

Post: #8

I remember when I saw this come out. I was mortified, but not surprised. I was going to pursue classical music before cooking called. I used to play at weddings and dinner parties and was pretty unfulfilled at just being background music. The vast, vast majority of humans, especially Americans, have absolutely zero appreciation for classical music. Or even good music in general.

On top of it, he's playing my favorite Bach pieces. Gavotte en Rondeau in E major and the Chaconne from the D minor suite. I would have posted up and blown off whatever I was doing.

Post: #9

(01-08-2013 01:23 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  I remember when I saw this come out. I was mortified, but not surprised. I was going to pursue classical music before cooking called. I used to play at weddings and dinner parties and was pretty unfulfilled at just being background music. The vast, vast majority of humans, especially Americans, have absolutely zero appreciation for classical music. Or even good music in general.

Of course, it's true that most Americans don't appreciate classical music. But there is a segment that does. So, should EVERYONE? Or some higher percentage? If so how much higher?

I find these sorts of experiments to be both useless and narcissistic. Useless in that we already know what the reaction is going to be. And narcissistic in the sense that the orchestrators of this experiment did it to confirm their own superior views -- namely that the American population by and large is a bunch of uncaring, unthinking, unappreciative yahoos and automatons and WE, at The Washington Post, are above all that. See?

People take subways to get from place to place. They don't take a subway to hear a world class violinist. They may expect buskers, but it's typically a fucking busker, not Joshua Bell or Yo Yo Ma (though Ma might have been more recognizable).

Frankly, such experiments are stupid and a complete waste of time. If your expectation is X, and someone puts Y in front of you that ordinarily would be X, guess what? X is what most people will perceive. Context is a powerful shaper of perceptions, and it's something the psychologists have known for a long time and is therefore now in the realm of intellectual obviousness. Testing this concept out does little to advance knowledge in any meaningful way.

Big fucking deal.

Post: #10

(01-08-2013 01:40 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  

(01-08-2013 01:23 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  I remember when I saw this come out. I was mortified, but not surprised. I was going to pursue classical music before cooking called. I used to play at weddings and dinner parties and was pretty unfulfilled at just being background music. The vast, vast majority of humans, especially Americans, have absolutely zero appreciation for classical music. Or even good music in general.

Of course, it's true that most Americans don't appreciate classical music. But there is a segment that does. So, should EVERYONE? Or some higher percentage? If so how much higher?

I find these sorts of experiments to be both useless and narcissistic. Useless in that we already know what the reaction is going to be. And narcissistic in the sense that the orchestrators of this experiment did it to confirm their own superior views -- namely that the American population by and large is a bunch of uncaring, unthinking, unappreciative yahoos and automatons and WE, at The Washington Post, are above all that. See?

People take subways to get from place to place. They don't take a subway to hear a world class violinist. They may expect buskers, but it's typically a fucking busker, not Joshua Bell or Yo Yo Ma (though Ma might have been more recognizable).

Frankly, such experiments are stupid and a complete waste of time. If your expectation is X, and someone puts Y in front of you that ordinarily would be X, guess what? X is what most people will perceive. Context is a powerful shaper of perceptions, and it's something the psychologists have known for a long time and is therefore now in the realm of intellectual obviousness. Testing this concept out does little to advance knowledge in any meaningful way.

Big fucking deal.

I highly recommend reading the longer article for a more in-depth analysis of what happened. It may not have been as cut and dry as you think.

For one, "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." Given the location, I think it's safe to say that many who passed by were more likely to listen to classical music than the average joe. Some even knew who Joshua Bell was when interviewed afterward.

You'll also find in the Washington Post piece that, contrary to your assertion that they had this expectation already and were looking down on the public, the experts as well as the Post did not expect Bell to go unnoticed.

Also interesting was how all young children, without fail, were mesmerized by his playing to an unusual degree - as if in their untainted youth they were more able to understand something beautiful when they heard it. Their parents drug them away.

Anyhow, I don't want to make any arguments for what they're trying to say or anything, but there are a lot of different lessons that could be drawn from this story about society and human nature besides the one you seem so adamant about dismissing.

For instance, I also thought it was telling of how important packaging and marketing was, as an above poster mentioned.

One could possibly consider the idea that a lot of high society endeavors are largely a facade - at least for those pretending to appreciate it.

About human attention and tunnel vision.

Or how about reflecting on the possibility that many others with Bell's innate talents, or other unique and world-class talents, might be passed by everyday? How big successes are largely a matter of luck and perception? Or how dismissive we might be of our homeless and destitute (or at least the seemingly mediocre) to completely block out someone who isn't putting on the airs of success?

On another level, I myself have stopped a few times when I heard someone playing an instrument in the street to listen, and even though I don't typically listen to classical music, I'll soak up something beautiful if I hear it. I don't think most people do this. It's important to stop from time to time and smell the roses. To take in the scene and appreciate things. Even if that's all the article was getting at, I think it would be a worthy lesson.

What is the point of being rushed and caught up with work all the time if you can't spot an everyday moment of beauty in front of you and stop for a second to enjoy it.

Point being that I think there is a lot to take from the story and a lot of different ways to run analyze it. You almost seem resentful of the story to the level of bitterness, and that's a bit odd to me. I personally find it interesting in a lot of ways.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #11

I remember someone also did the same with a Stradivarius busking in London IIRC, and only one person recognized him and handed him a 20$ tip.

Paul McCartney would busk sometimes and not many would recognize him, when asked if he was Paul McCartney he would reply "Oh no".

And of course those poor children with the same parents not allowing them just to be kids in addition to a poor education system will become the perfect office drones giving in to authority.

Post: #12

It's like drinking a very expensive wine in a plastic cup by the street.

How would people respond to $10 bottle of wine if they were served in a very nice restaurant?
they would think it must be an expensive wine.

I am sure mediocre violinist would get more applause in a concert hall.

A lot of people think they are sophisticated but they are not.

Post: #13

(01-08-2013 01:40 PM)tenderman100 Wrote:  [quote='thedude3737' pid='343534' dateline='1357669399']
I remember when I saw this come out. I was mortified, but not surprised. I was going to pursue classical music before cooking called. I used to play at weddings and dinner parties and was pretty unfulfilled at just being background music. The vast, vast majority of humans, especially Americans, have absolutely zero appreciation for classical music. Or even good music in general.

Quote:Of course, it's true that most Americans don't appreciate classical music. But there is a segment that does. So, should EVERYONE? Or some higher percentage? If so how much higher?

There was a time when being a Renaissance Man or a polymath was seen as a virtue. There's no way to measure just how much more cultured Americans *should* be, but the fact that far more people recognize Katy Perry or Justin Bieber tunes instead of a Mozart piano concerto is pretty sad. This doesn't just apply to Americans either. Shit, if anything else, foreign music can be much, much worse. I would say that generally speaking though, especially European countries are far more aware of and appreciative of classical music.

Quote:I find these sorts of experiments to be both useless and narcissistic. Useless in that we already know what the reaction is going to be. And narcissistic in the sense that the orchestrators of this experiment did it to confirm their own superior views -- namely that the American population by and large is a bunch of uncaring, unthinking, unappreciative yahoos and automatons and WE, at The Washington Post, are above all that. See?

Noone's above anything. Your response has a tone of being judged, and noone is judging you here. If there was a point to the article, I think it would be: "All you fucking automatons are going to go to work every day for the next 20 years and do the same shit. You will not, however, see one of the world's greatest violinists performing some of the most beautiful music ever written, for free, 5 feet in front of you, ever again."

This article raises important questions. What does this say about our society? What does this say about noticing and appreciating beauty? That's extremely important. If we can go a full 24 hours, hell if humans can go stretches of a week, without recognizing beauty, what's the point of life? It could have been Joshua Bell and his Stradivarius and Bach, or it could have been Anthony Hopkins delivering a Shakespeare monologue: the point is the same. If you can't notice the things around you and appreciate them, just turn off all your fucking sensors, stay punched in at work, and move your bed into your office.

Quote:People take subways to get from place to place. They don't take a subway to hear a world class violinist. They may expect buskers, but it's typically a fucking busker, not Joshua Bell or Yo Yo Ma (though Ma might have been more recognizable).

See my point above. How much of our lives are spent moving to and fro? Do you think it's right to live with horse blinders on?

Quote:Frankly, such experiments are stupid and a complete waste of time. If your expectation is X, and someone puts Y in front of you that ordinarily would be X, guess what? X is what most people will perceive. Context is a powerful shaper of perceptions, and it's something the psychologists have known for a long time and is therefore now in the realm of intellectual obviousness. Testing this concept out does little to advance knowledge in any meaningful way.

You imply that our human experience is based on expectations and pre-set notions. That there's no room for surprises or sensory indulgence. People look to T.V. and movies for entertainment, which is as passive as it gets. Nothing is required from the experiencer. Classical music and "higher" art is different in that it requires some knowledge and experience from the audience. Noone "gets" Beethoven's 5th the first time they listen to it. That's what makes it amazing. That's why the romantic arts are dying out. The iPhone and T.V. have won, and for those of us that DO enjoy this shit it's infuriating. Hell, even when people see Joshua Bell in concert, they buy a ticket, get dressed up, and it's an EVENT. Do you think they perceive the beauty then? I've gone to many classical concerts. I can tell you with certainty my biggest gripe is that most of the people that go, they go because it's "the thing to do" if you're older, moneyed, and white. Even when people make the effort to show up to a concert, they still don't appreciate this shit. This makes up the vast majority of the classical concert goers. Classical music is still seen as "boring" or "snobby" because people don't "get" it. They see a bunch of stuffy old dudes in tuxes playing some old instruments with some asshole on the podium waving his stick around. They've never been in a shithole studio laying on their rug at 3 a.m. sucking on a bottle of cheap whiskey listening to Beethoven's 3rd and laughing like a maniac.

Quote:Big fucking deal.

If you don't have time to care about the greatest things humans have produced, what do you have time for?

Post: #14

This article won the Pulitzer Prize that year and is one of my favorite articles ever. Chaconne is amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uCdKH_zHVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdtU0T4Ukd8

Post: #15

thedude, do you have any recommendations for getting into classical music? I've listened to it a lot but sense that something is missing, I don't understand it very well. Any resources or books?

Post: #16

Dude, it's classical music. Who really gives a fuck?
That's the part of this story no one ever seems to bring up. If he was a world class musician playing pop, playing music that people liked, then his case would be full of money.

But he's not. He's playing music that largely fell out of favor 70 years ago. It's so not popular that the state has to use my tax dollars to indoctrinate children in something few people care about.

WIA

Post: #17

(01-08-2013 06:43 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  Dude, it's classical music. Who really gives a fuck?
That's the part of this story no one ever seems to bring up. If he was a world class musician playing pop, playing music that people liked, then his case would be full of money.

But he's not. He's playing music that largely fell out of favor 70 years ago. It's so not popular that the state has to use my tax dollars to indoctrinate children in something few people care about.

WIA

What about Sir Paul McCartney, you know someone who was a former Beatle, and is one of the most successful and popular artist in history? And he was playing his song Yesterday and still played the guitar as a leftie, yet only a drunk person recognized him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21...15119.html

Post: #18

The fact is that our senses are so overwhelmed nowadays by music, films, food and whatever you can think about, even women, than we have lost the ability to be surprised or be carried away by something.

There is another issue and is how our senses can be deceived by the environment, and how the very same meal may taste different if you eat it in a 5-Michelin-Star restaurant or in some joint in a modest part of the city or in a village in the middle of nowhere.

Post: #19

This is the problem of living in a democracy.

In a democracy, anything that rises above the masses are hated or ignored. Excellence is seen as a vice while mediocrity is a virtue. In a democratic culture, the goal is to be like everyone else.

Let's face it guys, a democracy is really a shitty place to be if you're a superior man.

Post: #20

Curious.

How many of you would rather be famous WITHIN your own entourage of fans, relatively unknown to the outside world?

How many of you would rather be famous to everyone, for less special and more infamous reasons?

Post: #21

(01-08-2013 06:29 PM)Caligula Wrote:  thedude, do you have any recommendations for getting into classical music? I've listened to it a lot but sense that something is missing, I don't understand it very well. Any resources or books?

Some thoughts:

If you have the time and interest, any nearby community college will have an "intro to classical music" type of course that will give a good overview of the history. "The Enjoyment of Music" is the classic textbook they use for these classes and last I saw comes with 4 cd's of music, so you could also just pick up a used copy and read it on your own.

Probably the best way to really 'understand' the music is to learn to play an instrument, but this is obviously a huge undertaking.

As much as I don't like them (for various reasons I won't go into), those "20 best classical hits" type of records can actually be good when you're figuring out which composers and periods interest you the most. What people call 'classical music' is at least 400 years of changing music styles, and you can have someone like me who loves the Baroque (and Bach most of all) but only gets a headache from Brahms or Tchaickovsky, unlike my friends who have the opposite reactions.

Also, a great resource for finding music to listen to is actually the public library, they always have a good selection of cd recordings to check out and browse through. Youtube has a lot of great stuff as well, there's a guy on there called "Harmonico101" who has a channel with lots of excellent performances of period performances of baroque composers.

Hope this was helpful in some way. Classical music is like any other great art in that the more you put in to it the more you'll get out of it, and once you do acquire the taste for it you'll wonder how you ever could have lived without it.

Post: #22

(01-08-2013 07:50 PM)Samseau Wrote:  This is the problem of living in a democracy.

In a democracy, anything that rises above the masses are hated or ignored. Excellence is seen as a vice while mediocrity is a virtue. In a democratic culture, the goal is to be like everyone else.

Let's face it guys, a democracy is really a shitty place to be if you're a superior man.

I think that exists due to the fact that because everyone's vote weights the same, and therefore provides a sense of "superiority entitlement" amongst people that diminishes great people. At least the way the US is economically and socially structured allows the chance for great people to be successful.

Post: #23

(01-08-2013 04:46 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  Interesting Facebook story.

"A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC...

Now THAT is good PR!

I wonder how much that cost? How does a person hire a firm that can do that quality of work?

Damn. Now I want to crack this viral marketing code.

What would a guy need in order to do that PR work by himself? Contacts in journalism he could pay off? Quality freelance writers on call? And how do you even cultivate contacts in Journalism?

What a racket!

I bet this type of advertisement has been going on under our noses every day, and we just don't notice it. I want a piece. Genius.

Post: #24

Beyond Borders - your forum mailbox is full. Please shoot me a message with your email address.

Post: #25

(01-08-2013 09:03 PM)xsplat Wrote:  Beyond Borders - your forum mailbox is full. Please shoot me a message with your email address.

Wierd - I deleted all my messages but it's still showing as full. I sent Roosh a pm. Will email you.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling