For whom the Bell tolls
| By Unknown user - Aug 18, 2009 8:24:06 AM ET |
This story was sent to me in an email and I had to laugh when I read it. Gene Weingarten, writer for the Washington Post set out to cover a social experiment with world famous violin prodigy, Joshua Bell. What would happen if you dress down a Grammy-award-winning classical musician and have him perform in a lowly Washington DC plaza instead of a sold out opera house? Would anyone receive the gift?
"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?" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)
For just about every one of the hundreds of people who walked by that morning, Bell was just another wanderer - another part of the DC landscape. The most interesting part of the story for me was the contrast of privilege versus ordinary depending on the context.
"Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements."
When you place a world famous musician in a setting you'd expect to see such an artist perform, his work becomes a privilege to behold - one worthy of dropping hundreds of dollars to witness. Take that same person and place him on a street corner, even with a $3 million violin (literally), and he is quickly lumped together with the guy playing Michael Jackson covers on a dirty saxophone. I don't think this is necessarily a bad or unheard of thing. It's the human condition. As much as we say we don't judge, we do. I've met some pretty interesting people who are currently or formerly homeless. These same people have seen more pain than I can imagine, and overcome more struggles than I could withstand. I see very talented people who can't catch a break because no employer sees them as anything more than someone they can get to push a broom around for minimum wages. Restaurants pay them less than minimum wage under the table with the notion that "they should be greatful to even be working."
The funny thing is, they could probably run circles around us in some areas, but we lump them together with a whole population of people we view as "lazy" and worthy of little more than our second-hand clothes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If we were to just stop and listen, as only a handful of people did when Joshua Bell played for them for free, we might behold an incredible and irreplacable gift.
If you watch the video in the link to the article above, you'll notice at the end of it one point of redemption. One girl recognizes what's before her. She had seen Bell play not long before, and couldn't believe her eyes (and ears) that he was offering such an incredible gift. Bell wasn't out to receive any glory in this experiment, nor do I think he was offended when people didn't recognize him, but I bet it was interesting to play the part of the meek shaming the prideful, watching quietly as the notes he played fell on deaf ears to all but one.
"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?" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)
For just about every one of the hundreds of people who walked by that morning, Bell was just another wanderer - another part of the DC landscape. The most interesting part of the story for me was the contrast of privilege versus ordinary depending on the context.
"Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements."
When you place a world famous musician in a setting you'd expect to see such an artist perform, his work becomes a privilege to behold - one worthy of dropping hundreds of dollars to witness. Take that same person and place him on a street corner, even with a $3 million violin (literally), and he is quickly lumped together with the guy playing Michael Jackson covers on a dirty saxophone. I don't think this is necessarily a bad or unheard of thing. It's the human condition. As much as we say we don't judge, we do. I've met some pretty interesting people who are currently or formerly homeless. These same people have seen more pain than I can imagine, and overcome more struggles than I could withstand. I see very talented people who can't catch a break because no employer sees them as anything more than someone they can get to push a broom around for minimum wages. Restaurants pay them less than minimum wage under the table with the notion that "they should be greatful to even be working."
The funny thing is, they could probably run circles around us in some areas, but we lump them together with a whole population of people we view as "lazy" and worthy of little more than our second-hand clothes and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If we were to just stop and listen, as only a handful of people did when Joshua Bell played for them for free, we might behold an incredible and irreplacable gift.
If you watch the video in the link to the article above, you'll notice at the end of it one point of redemption. One girl recognizes what's before her. She had seen Bell play not long before, and couldn't believe her eyes (and ears) that he was offering such an incredible gift. Bell wasn't out to receive any glory in this experiment, nor do I think he was offended when people didn't recognize him, but I bet it was interesting to play the part of the meek shaming the prideful, watching quietly as the notes he played fell on deaf ears to all but one.
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