the joshua bell violinist in the subway experiment

The Great Subway Station Violin Experiment

What happened when one of the world's most skilled violin virtuosos put on a T-shirt and a baseball cap, walked into a subway station at rush hour, opened the case of his Stradivarius and played some of the most respected classical music ever written?

On April 8, 2007 the Washington Post ran a long feature article by Gene Weingarten in the Sunday magazine called " Pearls Before Breakfast ” that won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Rarely have I been more intrigued with a story, and I think musicians will be and should be talking about it for decades to come. A summary of it should maybe be included in every music curriculum, and every music student of every style of music should possibly know the story as well as school children learn about Paul Revere’s Ride or the tale of Pocahantas. Weingarten’s article is very long, very detailed and thoughtful, but it doesn’t zoom out quite far enough to suit me, and neither do any of the discussions of it that I can find. Let’s take a closer look, to perhaps help both performers and listeners better navigate the complex world of musical performance.

The author was a writer for the Post, who convinced classical violinist Joshua Bell, considered one of the greatest virtuosos of this era and voted the best classical musician in America, to put on a T-shirt and a baseball cap and try being a street musician to find out what would happen. During a January morning rush hour, Bell opened the case to his $3.5 million Stradivarius and played in the subway station at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. Bell was in town playing a concert at the Library of Congress, and agreed to participate in this unprecedented social and musical experiment. It was anybody's guess as to what would happen. Would passers-by recognize genius and talent or just walk by? Would a crowd obstruct the commuter traffic? How much money would he make? Could hallowed music and "high art" make a mark or maybe shine some bright sunshine into the everyday world of commuters in a hurry?

What Happened?

A hidden camera (above) documented what happened during a 43-minute period, while Bell played pieces by Bach, Schubert (Ave Maria), Massenet and Manuel Ponce. He opened at 7:51 AM on Friday, January 12, with Bach's 14-minute Chaconne (Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor), generally considered to be the single greatest solo violin work and one of the greatest musical compositions ever created. It was played on one of the finest instruments the world has ever known, the so-called “ Gibson ex Huberman ” Stradivarius, made in 1713 at the peak of the legendary luthier's powers. The subway location was chosen because it was a place where the acoustics were not bad, and the music would carry reasonably well. Bell even took a taxi 3 blocks to the subway to keep his instrument from even getting slightly cold.

[ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Interestingly, on Oct 14, 2014, also in a Washington Post article , Gene Weingarten points out that the story about Bell in the subway went viral on the internet, which presumably caused the majority of the nearly 7 million people to look at the video and spread the story around. But it was not the Post article, but a short summary of the original article, riddled with false information, that became the source of the story for the vast majority of those people. Weingarten details a lengthy list of factual errors, and says: “ most people who have heard of the Joshua Bell Metro experiment picked it up not directly from my Washington Post story, but from an anonymous, supposed summary that went globally viral a few months after the story was published. It was a simply written little piece, with a helpful moral at the end… ” Then, more tellingly, he said: “ Hardly a month goes by that I don’t get an e-mail from some priest or minister or rabbi or imam gratefully and graciously informing me that they have just delivered a sermon based on the events in my story; often, they include a copy of the sermon, and more often than not it is based on the erroneous summary. In fact, they think that WAS my story. ”

Weingarten's list of errors is interesting, and includes the fact that Bell was standing, not sitting, did not play all Bach, it was not cold where he was playing, and the number of people who walked by was exaggerated, as was the behavior of the handful who stopped or almost stopped, especially the description of the behavior of the children. If you go 'a Googling to learn about The Experiment you'll undoubtedly come across the false information.]

Bell also returned to the subway station in September, 2014 to perform a concert to promote music education. This time it was advertised, and there was a huge crowd as he played Bach and Mendelssohn.

The results of Bell’s experiment appeared to be very conclusive, and no one considers them fuzzy. According to Weingarten: “Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something. A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened. Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look. “

$20 of that $32 was from the one person who recognized Bell, and who had just seen him play the night before at the Library of Congress, so the 26 givers among the 1096 commuters pitched in a whopping $12, including a lot of pennies. There was never a crowd, and the fears never materialized that there might be a need for extra security. So the moral or message of the story seems to be simply that commuters might have walked by the Mona Lisa also, and that you can’t expect “random people” to notice and appreciate great art on their own without some kind of guidance, commentary or marketing. Even the title of the article hints at the expression “pearls before swine” that is the credo of elitism itself. How many times have we been told that people need to be taught to appreciate great art? I’ve often compared playing music in anonymous situations to selling Picassos door-to-door. It’s hard for people to believe there is something amazing going on when there is no crowd, and nothing telling you to pay attention. There is a lot of context and provenance involved.

The museum curator that Weingarten interviewed in the article said the same thing; that he could have put a $5 million painting on a street corner and just as many people would have walked by it. The 6 people who stopped to listen to Bell just thought he was good, but when interviewed later they admitted that they didn't realize how good, they just liked it. Lots of people stood in line to buy lottery tickets nearby and did not even glance his way, and of course the music fans with their iPod earbuds missed everything. Would you have noticed? Would I? There was apparently one guy, named John Picarello, who really noticed, and who spent 9 minutes listening to Bell, realizing full well how good he was.

Those of us who have played street music, and any who play music for a living often wonder about this kind of thing. When we feel like we are playing well, but no one seems to be listening, we wonder what is wrong. When people talk through our gigs we wonder if we are not good enough, or if they are being insensitive jerks. Are people somehow unable or unwilling to recognize, or even to want quality music without fanfare and packaging? I have often thought to myself when no one was listening: “How good do you have to be for people to listen to you around here?” Apparently the answer is “Nobody is that good,” though that can’t be completely true, since some performers could have pulled a nice crowd that morning at L'Enfant Plaza.

Mozart wrote in 1778 at the age 22 about playing piano at a party for the Duchesse de Chabot during his first trip to Paris to look for work: “ After an hour’s wait in the cold I began to play upon a miserable and wretched pianoforte. The most annoying thing about it was that Madame and all the gentlemen never for one moment interrupted their occupations, but continued the whole time, so it was to the chairs and the table that I was playing. I had begun some of Fisher’s Variations. I played half and rose. Then a burst of applause. Give me the best piano in Europe and for an audience of people who neither understand nor wish to understand music, who feel nothing with me that I am playing, and I lose all joy in performing. ” [From Francois Lesure “Music and Art in Society” (1968)]

If the greatest musical genius the world has ever known gets treated the same way that many skilled musicians have experienced, can we be surprised that Joshua Bell fared little better in the subway 229 years later?

What Conclusions Can We Draw?

The YouTube clip for “ Pearls Before Breakfast ” now has almost 7 million views, and the message appears to be a clear one: that average people can’t be expected to recognize quality and genius when it is right in front of them. There are quite a number of internet posts where people are mulling over the results and lessons of the experiment, and it’s clear that this juicy story got a lot of people thinking in healthy ways about the perception of art and of excellence. I found some good observations:

• A blogger named Brad Powell posted some insights about the caper, and called it “a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people.” He further mused that Bell should have done some better marketing and anticipation of some sort to prepare people for something good, and mentioned the old Burma Shave ads. I assume Powell has never played street music, and has little insight into the mindset of someone who does.

• Blogger Kresimir Josic correctly pointed out that the expectations of the commuters prevented them from realizing how good Bell was, and that our attentions are quite fickle, which is also true, making it hard for people to notice the musician playing. Performing musicians as well as music promoters and presenters learn that marketing and packaging are important, and that people will listen raptly to music if they have paid a lot of money for a ticket, and might walk past the same thing on the street.

• Business consultant Dan Weaver had some deeper insights in his blog and said that this experiment is not conclusive proof that people in general ignore or can’t recognize awesome art. Weaver's business brain pointed out that people were pressed for time, having long ago made the decision that they needed to work and to get to work by certain methods. “Even if you told someone who is trying to make it to work on time that the man playing the violin was Joshua Bell and that seats to his concerts go for an average of $100 they probably still wouldn’t stop because being late to work jeopardizes their job security and seeing a man playing the violin, no matter how good he is, isn’t worth losing your job.” Weaver also said tellingly that “No matter how technically skilled or world renowned Joshua Bell is, if you don’t enjoy the violin as an instrument and you have no taste for classical music you aren’t going to stop and listen to his music just because someone else would pay $100 to. The reason Bell sells out his concerts is because he his advertising a location and time that people who appreciate his music can go to appreciate it. You can’t just randomly drop Joshua Bell in the Gobi desert and expect that Joshua Bell fans will suddenly materialize…”

• Someone named Arti said something similar in their blog : “maybe it’s more a sociological study of urban life, or one of economics. Even if people recognize beauty, is it worthwhile to stop and sacrifice a few precious minutes? Weighing the economic cost of being late for work, and the enjoyment of music, the bottom line is quite obvious. What place does beauty have in the pragmatics of our daily routines? Where do music and the arts rank in life’s competing priorities?”

How Do Musicians Feel About This?

I didn't find any comments by performing musicians about this story, which is part of why I am digging into it here. As a former street musician and a guy who has performed for 45 years in every kind of venue from streetcorner to stadium, I think there needs to be a lot more said about the experiment and its conclusions.

There is obviously something hugely vindicating about this story for all performing musicians who have ever been ignored. It probably applies to other creators and performers as well, since Bell, the Stradivarius and the Chaconne make a strong case that it was the listeners who flunked a test and not the musician. I vividly remember in 1981, when I came home from winning the National Fingerpicking Guitar championship. Thousands of people cheered and clapped at the contest, but when I played the same pieces (I played the “ Dirty Dish Rag ,” a piece of my own, and Scott Joplin’s “ The Entertainer ” in a local bar a week later, much better, not one person even bothered to look up.) I have made it a point all through my career not to blame people or be resentful when people don't notice that I am playing well, and to just be glad that there are some who do. But I have always graciously thought that I just need to work harder at being calm and happy when I perform, and to play the best I can, and not blame those who don’t love or appreciate what I do.

I am reminded of an experience I had while performing at the Tumbleweed Festival in Garden City, Kansas a few years ago. I finished my set, and was chatting with my wife (Joyce Andersen, who performed with me) and with a handful of listeners who were buying CDs and asking questions in the 100 degree August heat, and the next performers got set up and started playing. It was a guy playing harp and a woman playing flute, and they were playing Celtic music of various sorts, and nobody was paying that much attention to them, and neither was I. I like to think that I am observant, but it took much longer than it should have for me to realize that the guy playing the harp was really good. Something he did jolted us out of our conversations and packing up our gear and CD's, and Joyce and then I listened in total awe for the last half of their set. I'm no expert on Celtic harp, and the duo were listed as " Draíocht " in the festival program, which meant nothing to us. Joyce and I chatted and traded CD's with the Irish couple after their set, praised them effusively, and found out they were on a tour of America, playing gigs to celebrate their honeymoon. Their modesty was noticeable, but while listening to their CD in the rental car I was again amazed, and found out from calling a couple friends that the guy I heard, named Michael Rooney, was probably the best Irish harp player in the world. (I still don't know if I should refer to him as a harper or harpist.) Scroll ahead a couple minutes into this to where he really gets going...

I didn't notice a world-class musician until 20 minutes into his set, because he was out of context and unheralded, like Joshua Bell in the subway. I watched the legendary Danny Gatton play electric guitar in bars many times while people weren't paying attention, though at least because the instrument was loud they didn't have to stop talking to hear him. (Maybe if Joshua Bell had been a lot louder people would have paid more attention...) I could probably come up with a pretty good list of similar experiences from my 45 years of being a musician and hearing all sorts of other players in all sorts of other contexts. I've seen plenty of great musicians get ignored, and the story Gene Weingarten told didn't surprise me that much, though I would have thought Bell could have done better than he did in terms of money and number of listeners. I've also seen plenty of mediocre musicians being celebrated way beyond their due, but let's not go there...

A Former Street Musician’s Perspective on the Story

Joshua Bell obviously wasn’t an expert at playing street music, and there is such a thing. I probably spent a few hundred hours or so doing it, and there are people who have logged countless thousands. It did say in the article that Bell had enough sense to put some change and a few bills before he started playing, which is wise, since it “primes the pump.” I wonder if he put any pennies in, since many of the donations he got were pennies. A skilled street musician or troubadour with a lot less musical training could undoubtedly have made more money and attracted bigger crowds. This is understandable, since Bell probably never had to play street music and never wanted to, but if he had been coached a little it might have changed the result. It goes without saying that Bell was trying to do something he wasn't trained to do, and that there is a skill set and a mindset that seasoned street performers learn that is not just reflective of their musical prowess.

As a performer, I know that it’s always been true that only a few people are willing and able to take time out of their lives to just listen to music. It might have been a much better experiment if Joshua Bell had gone door to door, knocked and introduced himself, and offered to play for the people who answered the door. It was unfair to put him in a subway station where people are by definition in a hurry, and timing their actions to the minute, though street music is a great way to quickly find out who cares, since they have to stop walking. It also might have been a much better experiment to do in the afternoon when people were getting off the train after work, since they would have more time to pause and listen. In the winter they couldn’t do it on the street, and Bell was in town for a January concert and they picked a pretty good location. They were in an atrium, not the actual room where the trains were, though that room being quieter and more pleasant, it might have kept people from lingering. If Bell had been right there where they were waiting it might have been a different experiment, since there would have been some people already congregating while waiting for the train, and they might have been able to listen for a while.

I think the lesson of this story is less clear than the obvious one, which blames the commuters. Why do none of the accounts or discussions suggest that Bell was perhaps not radiating only pure musical greatness? When you play for young kids, you feel quickly that they don’t feel obliged to like you, and you really have to earn their admiration. You have more to do than just play the notes in the pieces of music. In Bell’s whole career he has been in a world where he gets a permanent “get out of jail free” card on this matter, and the subway gig there might have really confused a lot of circuits in his brain that he might not have dealt with very often. He was a child prodigy, which means he got huge respect from the very beginning of his performing career, and never had to go without it. Naturally, he is the only one who knows what happened in his head that day, though we could learn something from one of the 7 people who really stopped to listen to him play. If we’re lucky, one of them was observant and eloquent and perhaps wrote or said something about what they saw that morning. Unless Bell reads this and contacts me and tells me what he was thinking, I’ll never know.

Bell seems to be pretty self-aware and adventurous (he has also performed on Sesame Street and some other unusual venues) and his comments in Weingarten’s article showed that he was uncomfortable in the subway, as you would expect. “When you play for ticket-holders,” Bell explains, “you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I’m already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don’t like me? What if they resent my presence?” Maybe they did. I can’t tell much about the subtler parts of his facial expressions and body language from the video, but those things are vital in these kinds of situations. I've seen a lot of situations where a musician with a lot of skills and technique didn't go over well with an audience, by projecting arrogance and disdain for the listeners who dared to not fawn over them. Bell could easily have been doing that, at least to some extent, though from my vantage point and the grainy video you can't make the call as to whether he did. He seems like a pleasant and humble person, and I'm not accusing him of anything, but I am trying to look at all the perspectives here.

In my opinion, he made a big error by putting the violin case much too close to himself, and looming over it. People don’t want to have to get too close to you to put money in your case. It’s as if there is a force field around you when you play street music, and if he had turned his back to the case or stood 10 feet from it, or even had something else like some luggage in between it might have allowed people to come closer without violating the “comfort zone” we all maintain with strangers. If he was looking at the people and making eye contact, or even showing obvious high-alert peripheral vision it could have been very off-putting. It doesn't look like a good location to me at all, though I'd have to go there and wander around to see what spot I might choose. He was slightly blocking the pathway, and it looks like it would have been awkward to listen near where he was.

I wondered if Bell’s lifetime of performing has taught him to look at the crowd at least from time to time, and if he were glancing around the subway station while playing it could have been very intimidating. When I look at video clips of him I see that he usually closes his eyes, and sways a lot. I don’t find his body language that compelling— it reminds me a little of the typical stiff classical violin posture. In a discussion among violinists on the subject I found this comment “ Swaying... Josh Bell style, I find extremely distracting, mainly because I think of a figure skater landing a jump… I am conscious of what the audience is seeing though. They don't want to see a really in-pained look on your face when you are playing .”

In Bell’s normal performance world, as he explained, he is utterly comfortable in his role, and his relationship with anyone in the audience is simple and predictable. On the street, he can fail, and it’s possible that he failed miserably. He said “ It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . . ignoring me. ” It’s possible that the reason so few people stopped had nothing to do with them not recognizing great music played on a great instrument by a great player. It might have been all about how he projected, and what kind of “vibe” and stage presence, and even self-confidence. Bell might have been very off-balance by having a flood of new thoughts about being rejected or ignored, and it might have thrown him into a place where he was projecting negative or confused energy more than musical joy.

Street music is a delicate art form, and it is easy, especially when you are good, to project arrogantly and defiantly. Until you finally let go of that defiance, sometimes no one will stop and listen. Suddenly, after a long stretch, you can get lost in a thought pattern and go inward into a good musical place, open your eyes and there may be a sizable crowd watching. Seeing that crowd can pop the bubble, and your ego can take over again, and everyone might walk away. I used to call street music “ musical bio-feedback. ” You really know who is paying attention and who isn’t, unlike many other common types of musical performance.

When I perform as a street musician, or when I play in a bar or some place where no one has bought tickets to hear me play, I feel very naked, like people can see into my soul. I’ve gotten used to it, and now I feel like it is my job to honor that and to think good thoughts. If you are arrogant, vain, or even aloof, it can show poorly. Joshua Bell says he was thinking during The Experiment: “ At the beginning I was just concentrating on playing the music. I wasn’t really watching what was happening around me . . . ” but a paragraph later it said he admitted to being nervous. " It wasn’t exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies, ” he said. “ I was stressing a little. ” Awkward might be the best word for his mindset.

The “Do I Dare Say it?” Perspective

There is another explanation for the behavior of the 1097 people in the subway that day that cannot be completely ruled out, and it’s a little harsh. Dan Weaver mentioned it briefly in his blog. It is possible that the kind of violin playing Bell was doing, and the whole energy field around him were not that attractive or awe-inspiring to people in general. If jazz legend John Coltrane had been playing his saxophone and doing his best solos there, many people might have covered their ears, or if the world’s best Uilleann piper or the world champion yodeler was soaring away it might have had the same effect. It’s also possible that if those musicians, like Bell, were used to performing with automatic massive respect and admiration, and they were playing in a subway for the first time in their lives, they might have projected bad attitudes even while playing music that most people didn’t like that much. Not everybody thinks the world’s greatest pastry tastes any better than a good whoopie pie, and not everyone thinks that celebrated buildings or paintings are that great to look at. Everybody doesn’t like everything, and “ordinary people” might even have a built-in feeling of resentment against classical music for taking the high ground and embedding an elitism and a “our music is better than the music you like” attitude into everyone’s music education, especially in schools and churches. There is a reason why George Winston sold millions of piano recordings, and why Norah Jones was so successful as a singer. They aren’t technically that great, but they make you feel good when you hear them. Just because they don't play cascades of amazing notes doesn't mean their music is no good. I would much rather right now listen to George Winston play something from his “ December ” album than Vladimir Horowitz rip on a virtuoso Rachmaninoff piece. Horowitz may be “better,” but most people would rather hear George. Right at this moment I’d rather hear Jay Ungar play “ Ashokan Farewell ” gently and plaintively on his fiddle than hear Itzhak Perlman play 32nd notes in a perfectly executed Paganini masterpiece. Maybe Bell should have played the “ Tennessee Waltz ” and “ Ashokan Farewell ,” or a Scotty Stoneman show-off bluegrass piece, or maybe Weingarten should have had an Irish and a bluegrass fiddler play in the same place on different days to compare the results. I bet J.P. Cormier could have drawn a crowd with some Cape Breton fiddling.

This is another posting where I'm trying to raise issues, questions and awareness in the world of modern troubadours... You deserve a reward or a door prize for making it to the end. Please check back to look for new posts as I get them done. I plan to cover a wide range of issues and topics.   I don't have a way for you to comment here, but I welcome your emails with your reactions. Feel free to cheer me on, or to disagree...

Chordally yours,

HARVEY REID

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A "free range" pastor, counselor, author

• Simple Sunday Sermons

Stop and Hear the Music

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 .

AWARENESS :

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. 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?

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 ?  Wisdom for today?   Stop and hear the music in our lives.  Whatever that “music” or event or moment is for you.

This also reminds me of the beauty of grace .  Is it possible that we have been showered with grace our whole lives, we are being showered with grace now and we will always be showered with grace but we have not realized it?  The Persian poet Kabir wrote, “I laugh when I hear that the fish in the sea is thirsty.”  May I notice grace all around and within me today.

GOD IN DISGUISE :

And finally, as we approach Christmas  this story reminds me also of God disguised in human flesh and we failed to notice.  1 John 1:9-14

9  The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — 13  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.  14  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

May I recognize God in others around me, in the beauty and goodness of the world in which I live and even in myself this day.  Incarnation.  Emmanuel.  May I open my eyes and see.

—–

Here’s a link to a longer article about this in the Washington Post.

Bill Johnson

A pastor, counselor and spiritual reminderer who loves to be "touched" by God in order to touch the hearts of others.

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What aristotle and joshua bell can teach us about persuasion - conor neill.

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Let’s Begin…

Imagine you are one of the world’s greatest violin players, and you decide to conduct an experiment: play inside a subway station and see if anyone stops to appreciate when you are stripped of a concert hall and name recognition. Joshua Bell did this, and Conor Neill channels Aristotle to understand why the context mattered.

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The Daily Wildcat

If a virtuoso plays in a subway station and no one cares to hear….

When Joshua Bell came to Centennial Hall two weeks ago, he played to a sold-out house. The audience watched with bated breath as the world’s preeminent violinist turned over complex Vivaldi melodies with the subtle deftness of a musical wunderkind. Not a seat to be found. Nada. How appropriate for one of the greatest talents alive today.

His playing, as Interview magazine once noted, “”does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live.”” He’s good. He’s downright brilliant. That’s why, when The Washington Post magazine decided to place the 39-year-old violinist outside his “”element”” – at the top of an escalator, beside a trash can in Washington, D.C.’s L’Enfant Plaza subway station – something absurd was bound to happen.

Of course, the audacity of the stunt itself is an exercise in the absurd. Bell has played before monarchs, presidents and prime ministers. In New York, the “”cheap”” seats at his concerts run for about $100; the primo seats – well, you know …

His violin, a Stradivarius crafted in 1713, allegedly cost him some $3.5 million – the exact same violin Bell used for this morning rush-hour shenanigan on Jan. 12 in one of Washington, D.C.’s busiest subway stations.

The Washington Post magazine, it seems, has a sense of humor. The test, as it were, was to see how many people during their morning rush hour would notice the world’s greatest violinist peppering the hustle and bustle with the staccato of Bach or Massenet, stop, listen, perhaps even donate a spare dollar or two to a man playing on a $3.5 million violin.

The results are as intriguing as they are appalling. The Post magazine article chronicles a handful of passers-by: some were completely oblivious to the art wafting from a 300-year-old violin four feet away; some found the music energizing even though they admitted to knowing nothing about classical music.

And curiously, there is this scrap of beauty: “”There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch.””

As poet Billy Collins reminds us, we forget the iambic cadence of our mother’s heart; it’s bludgeoned out by the hubbub of modern life.

And this scrap of depression: “”And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.””

The kids apparently understood what Joshua Bell was doing there, even if they didn’t know who he was or how expensive his violin is. The extraneous details of money, time and fame were inconsequential to the children.

However, the music was not. The music was timeless, priceless – in the same way that art can be abstracted from a particular time and place, from the museum wall, from the concert hall, and damnit, it’s still art.

Kids know that. We adults, we forget too easily. As poet Billy Collins reminds us, we forget the iambic cadence of our mother’s heart; it’s bludgeoned out by the hubbub of modern life.

Let’s reflect back for a moment on the Interview magazine quote, the one about Bell’s playing as telling “”human beings why they bother to live.”” Over a 43-minute span, 1,097 people passed by, moving rapidly from subway to job, to sit in cubicles for eight hours and make a decent dollar.

For his part, Bell collected $52.17, 20 of which came from one woman who recognized the violinist. So Bell, in a sense, collected only $32.17. And as the Post article aptly points out, “”some people gave pennies.””

Indeed, only one person ever surmised that before her was the exceptional Joshua Bell playing Schubert in an unexceptional subway station. Just down the corridor, the line for the lottery machine never numbered less than four eager souls, shuffling forward to drop another dollar for another five insignificant numbers.

And six songs later, not one drew thunderous applause as each does in the great concert halls of the world. Only seven people ever stopped to listen.

Seven. Out of 1,097.

The kids stopped, though. Or at least, the kids wanted to stop. So maybe there’s hope yet for this maddening world of ours.

Matt Stone is a senior majoring in music appreciation. He can be reached at [email protected]

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The Joshua Bell experiment

You have probably heard the story of the violin virtuoso Joshua Bell playing in the Washington Metro. Thousands of people passed by without stopping to listen. This actually did happen – it was organized by the Washington Post . I really dislike the typical email or Facebook post about this story. Not because of the “experiment” itself – I think the idea was pretty interesting. I dislike the way it is typically told, and the conclusions that are often implied, if not stated outright. More often than not, it is mentioned that the same people who would pay hundreds of dollars to see Joshua Bell in concert will walk right past him in the subway. Some add that it was the children who wanted to stay and listen while the busy parents dragged them off. The implication seems to be that only a tiny fraction of us, or the children who are not yet completely jaded, can really appreciate the beauty around us. Is it that we pay an exorbitant sum to keep up a pretense in public? Another email asks : “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?”

I think these conclusions are completely wrong. Indeed, there are two important factors that both conspired to make it very difficult for even the most ardent music lover to pass the “Joshua Bell subway test.” Both of these are typically mentioned, but not really explored in a typical email:

The first problem is the fickleness of our attention. We live under the illusion that we are aware of everything around us. In reality we can attend to only to one or two things at a time. A remarkable illustration of this is the “ Gorillas in our Midst” experiment . I would say that many passer-bys didn’t even see Joshua Bell because they were simply not attending to him. We can bemoan the limits of our attention, but they are what they are. If you somehow were able to attend to multiple things at once, I doubt that you would be able to make sense of the jumble – you probably would not be able to call it “attending”. I think that the suggestion that we should just open our eyes and take in more of the world around us is just nonsense.

The second problem is that of context (also mentioned briefly in the emails, but not given sufficient attention). Let me illustrate this with another example – it has been shown repeatedly that experts cannot tell white wine from red wine when food coloring is added to it, or when both are served chilled. Can we conclude that we are fooling ourselves when we prefer a bottle Mollydooker to a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck (I like both but, prefer the first)? The problem here is context. Our expectations of what something should taste like (or how it will be experienced) shape how it will actually be experienced. Certainly, the price that we payed for the experience will play a role – Two-Buck Chuck may actually taste better if we pay a premium for it. Expectations can strongly affect our  senses (more technical discussions here and nice recent illustration pointing towards neural mechanisms here ).

So what does the Joshua Bell experiment tell us in the end? I can’t say for sure, but I will speculate, that many who passed Bell that day did not really see him. And those who did actually experienced his playing as they would that of another street musician, because that was their expectation. And many from both groups would have truly enjoyed seeing him in concert where their attention is undivided, and their expectations match what is presented. The experiment was a good opportunity to explain something about how our brain works, as the WP article did to some extent, but not well. On the other hand the typical email invites us to feel pity for ourselves because our busy lives keep us so out of touch with the beauty around us. That’s bullshit – you are lucky to be able to attend to a single thing at a time. Choose that thing wisely.

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Actually, the message that I get from the press (there’s an excellent Ted podcast interview of the person who did the experiment/stunt) is that our judgement is not objective and context dependent. The fact that we like wine better when we think it is more expensive informs us how our brain works and also shows how shallow we really our. Munch’s “The Scream” was recently sold at auction for over almost a hundred and twenty million dollars. Why would it’s value fall to zero if it were to be shown to be a forgery? Same painting, same canvas, same oils. I think the fact that we don’t notice street musicians is actually a generous interpretation. The truth is probably that most of us probably value Bell’s playing more because he’s famous.

Carson – I don’t think I can argue with that. My main issue with the WP article is that it mixed scientifically backed statements with observations that could have been just flukes. This is not atypical for this type of writing, but I think journalists can do better. But to your point, I do think that many of these experiences are genuine (although we can argue about what “genuine” means). Yes, you could say we are shallow. Or you could say that the context is very important, and sometimes critical, in determining an experience. It may come to the same thing, but it is a value judgement of how good or bad it is.

The reaction to the violinist probably had more to do with the crowd than with the context. The audience at the theatre is different from the ‘audience’ at the metro. If the metro audience comprised just the theatre audience, the outcome of the experiment would have been very different. Most of the metro crowd wouldn’t have paid $100 to hear the violinist at the theatre. Children aren’t conditioned one way or the other, and so are more open to art.

Perhaps – but you can make a bit of money playing classica music on the subway, and people do. Here is how his setup was wrong http://alhan.co/why-joshua-bell-failed-in-subway/

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Dalia Stasevska’s BSO debut program might look conventional, but the conductor thrives on shattering expectations

‘there’s so much potential, but we need to crack it,’ says the finnish-ukrainian conductor. ‘how to get all the young people that are interested in what we do, from listening online to our concert halls.’.

It was at a 2019 festival in Helsinki that the Finnish-Ukrainian conductor Dalia Stasevska heard composer Anna Meredith’s ferocious electronic earworm “Nautilus” live for the first time. Immediately, she imagined what it might sound like if an orchestra played it. “Oh, my God. This could be so amazing,” Stasevska said. So after the show, the conductor rushed backstage to ask the artist: Could she commission Meredith to work up an orchestral arrangement? The answer was yes.

By now, Stasevska has conducted it in several venues around the world including the Hollywood Bowl, but she didn’t want to stop there. “We wanted to record it as well, so everyone can hear this version.”

That orchestral version of “Nautilus” was the first track to drop from “Dalia’s Mixtape,” Stasevska’s contemporary-focused debut recording on record label Platoon with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where she’s principal guest conductor. The album is in the process of rolling out to the public at a rate of one track a month — an unorthodox approach, especially in the classical recording sphere, where albums almost always arrive as complete packages.

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But Stasevska, who makes her Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood debut this weekend in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, argues that her approach matches the way people discover music. “Recording and listening culture has changed,” she said. “How does the audience listen to music? It’s more about playlists nowadays. It’s all very inspirational, and it’s inspired what kind of music I’ve chosen for the mixtape and how I release it.”

In a recent blog post about the “Dalia’s Mixtape” project, the veteran British composer Judith Weir called the conductor “one of the best things to happen … in years” to the BBC orchestra, writing that “she radiates enthusiasm and good humor” even on the gloomiest days. And the feedback so far on the project has encouraged Stasevska; people have written to say, “I didn’t know a live symphony orchestra can play like this,” she said. “There’s so much potential, but we need to crack it. How to get all the young people that are interested in what we do, from listening online to our concert halls.”

It only takes a few minutes chatting with Stasevska to realize she doesn’t do anything by half measures. Whatever she does, it seems, she commits fully, whether that’s carving out space in the orchestral world for unorthodox new scores, collecting aid for Ukraine, or maintaining a mind-boggling schedule of podium appearances while also spending every spare moment with her infant daughter, Aurora, who was born in October and has already been to the United States five times.

Sometimes Stasevska’s husband, the composer and power metal bassist Lauri Porra, takes care of the baby when she needs to focus on work. When he’s not around, there are friends and nannies-for-hire, the conductor explained. The baby is “a great traveler, and she’s always with me on tour,” said Stasevska. “It has been a surprisingly joyous time.”

The program Stasevska will be leading with the BSO this weekend at Tanglewood — a sandwich of two pieces by Sibelius and one by Stravinsky — isn’t typical of her current repertoire for two reasons. First, her programs tend to have at least one piece by a living composer on them. Second, at some point during the first year of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, she decided to avoid conducting pieces by Russian composers, though she is honoring preexisting commitments like this weekend’s performance of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto with Leila Josefowicz.

“I want to be very clear that none of the dead composers are guilty of what’s going on,” she said. “But I’m not worried about Russian culture. I’m worried about Ukrainian culture. And it’s important that we as musicians stand by Ukrainians right now. There’s too little Ukrainian music that I hear in the world. It’s really heartbreaking and alarming.”

To that end, Stasevska recorded Ukrainian composer Thomas de Hartmann’s 1943 Violin Concerto with the INSO-Lviv Symphony Orchestra and violinist Joshua Bell as soloist. It will appear on an upcoming album scheduled for an Aug. 16 release on Pentatone, sharing the recording with de Hartmann’s Cello Concerto performed by the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and cellist Matt Haimovitz under the baton of Dennis Russell Davies.

The conductor was honored in 2021 with the Order of Princess Olga of the third degree for her promotion of Ukrainian cultural heritage. But after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, she stepped up her advocacy. Her brother Lukas Stasevskij, a documentarian and cellist, was already living in Ukraine and acted as eyes on the ground for Stasevska and her other brother, who is also involved. “He can be in the villages where help isn’t reaching,” she said. “We know exactly where we want the money and the supplies going, and which people are really in need.”

She has delivered essential supplies herself on a few occasions, driving from Finland to Ukraine and sharing time behind the wheel with either a sibling or a friend. It’s a 24-hour journey from Helsinki to the Ukrainian border, she said, if they only take “small, tiny, tiny, breaks.”

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Tanglewood, Lenox. Aug. 10. www.tanglewood.org

A.Z. Madonna can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her @knitandlisten .