Speaking about culture, an interesting experiment

[CDNSushi]

"...eye of the beholder..." yadda yadda.

It's true though, beauty can be subjective. I remember my first year of college. Bon Jovi was coming to town and we were gonna get tickets! So, we set up camp in front of the Ticketmaster outlet the day before to ensure we'd be first in line when the box office opened the next morning.

Well, the Ticketmaster box office nearest us (for the Edmontonians) was the Jubilee Auditorium, which is also where the symphony would play (this was long before the Winspear Centre was built so I'm kinda dating myself here), as well as operas, ballets, and other stage performances.

So here we were, a bunch of uni kids, dressed in 90s "grunge" sitting on the pavement with our blankets and sleeping bags, studying from our textbooks, chatting, eating pizza, listening to music from someone's portable player... Little did we realize that there was a concert at the auditorium that evening.

Before long, all sorts of well-dressed people, shirts, ties, evening gowns were going into the theatre. That wasn't so much fun as when the show let out and everyone was leaving, many people walked by where we were camped out in front of the building. Some people just glanced over and walked on by, others pretended to not see us, look away, or walk in another direction. We even got a busload of Japanese tourists stop to take some photos before they hopped on their tour bus and took off.

The most fun was talking to the people who actually did stop to ask us what we were doing there and why were camped out in front of the theatre.... Most of the time, people just got a reply in unison: "Bon Jovi tickets!!!!"

One older lady, having asked her query, just shook her head and muttered: "I'm not even going to embarrass myself by asking who Bon Jovi is..."

I laughed! How could anyone not know a performing artist who had millions of fans the world over. Neither did I forget it, though. Much the same way, of all the people who walked by Joshua Bell playing in front of the metro, unless they were really into classical music, would also be clueless who he was. To most of the people he was just a busker playing a fiddle. Is that a sad reflection on today's society and what we value in the realm of the arts? No, not really. But context is everything. Maybe if you had placed Bell in front of the fine arts/performing arts/music faculty building at a university you might get the desired reaction. Much the same way, if Bon Jovi took a stroll through an art museum, we might also be surprised how few people recognized him.

[Lyle1]

[QUOTE=kiltedwolfman;833305]My grandad taught me a slogan years ago, he said " if you are in that much of a hurry then you should have left earlier!"

It doesn't really matter how early you leave if the train is not on schedule. Platitudes don't typically allow any latitude for the unforeseen! I heard a lot of musicians in train stations, but when I got off the train, my only stop was the Men's Room, but only if there was time between connections.

[Rex_Tremende]

Then again maybe people just do not care about beautiful things anymore, or only when appreciating that beauty is convenient. Who knows?

Who knows, indeed. Do not presume that just because someone is not standing in rapt attention that they do not find something to appreciate. Solo violin can be enjoyed with eyes closed - and back turned, for that matter.

It is not the condition of the body that matters, but the condition of the spirit, just as one can pray without kneeling with head bowed and hands clasped.

Regards,
Rex.

[Larry124]

For the musician music may be a personal art.

But I think that for an audience music is a choice to be attentive to a performance art.

Context, venue, and community count.
So without casting IMHO unjustified aspersions upon those otherwise occupied passersby, I’m not at all surprised.
That "stunt" doesn't demonstrate much about anything.

[ForresterModern]

As one of four children of an (let's just say) ardent musician and music educator, we were all exposed daily to a variety of musical infuences from classical to swing to original jazz from my dad's 33 1/3 LP's played through the biggest set of speakers he could fit in our little house, in addition to being "encouraged" to take up musical instruments at an early age. Any or all of the four of us kids could have gone on to professional careers in music, but we each chose a separate path, except for one brother who at least pursued music in college on scholarship for a couple years before turning into a club musician and steel worker. But I digress. To this day music still plays a very important role in my daily life, between the alarm clock playing "Pictures at an Exhibition" on my wake up to the drive time radio to my office stereo with eclectic choices of (right now) funky xmas music, rock, jazz, blues, funk, choral, and even bagpipes. Drive time home radio leads usually to at least a little music at home with the boy before bedtime. It may be a background effect but it is not white noise, merely a comforting and calming effect on my soul and psyche.

Having listened to literally thousands of school solo and band competitions, marching bands, bar bands, high school and college recitals, street musicians, dance bands, concert acts and formal orchestral presentations I have come to realize it takes a fine ear to tell the difference between someone with basic talent and ability who may be playing in public somewhere, and someone with exquisite artistic abilitiy to bring the music alive in the ways the finest and famous musicians can. More than 95% of the world could probably not tell the difference between Yoyo Ma and a college cellist, Joshua Bell and the guy who sat third chair violin at the same concert series, Bon Jovi from most of the bar bands on the hotter circuits.

So why should we expect them to do so in a crowded and bustling train station where the most music they are used to hearing is the over head Muzak or the group of teens drumming on 5 gallon buckets or the guy walking through with his ghetto blaster.

Music is a very personal thing to most people, who choose to enjoy what they enjoy in a way that they have become accustomed to listening to it---be that in a concert hall, a pub, an elevator, your home, your iPod, a street corner, a celtic festival or a metro station. It does not mean they are not open to other potential opportunities, just not open ALL the time, although that saddens me as much as the next man. WE so often have little time for more than what we ourselves plan rather than allowing life around us to impact us and happen TO us as well in a beautiful way.

As others have said take the time to smell the roses along the way, even if they happen to be a lone fiddler in the metro on your way to work. Enjoy.

[Lachlan09]

The fiddle player should have had a dog on a string with him. The sympathy vote would have got him more money