More On Busking

[Jim Besser]

The Washington Post Magazine has a story today about a top violinist who tried busking outside a Washington Metro station. Interesting and discouraging for potential buskers.

 

Washington Post magazine article

[Mark Evans]

The Washington Post Magazine has a story today about a top violinist who tried busking outside a Washington Metro station. Interesting and discouraging for potential buskers.

 

Washington Post magazine article

 

Mr. Bells results are not a suprise at all. I could go on about my theories, but it is Easter morning and the sun is shining and I want to taste this day devoid of my weekly frustrations on this every subject. Thank you for sharing the article.

[Boney]

The Washington Post Magazine has a story today about a top violinist who tried busking outside a Washington Metro station. Interesting and discouraging for potential buskers.

 

Washington Post magazine article

Thanks for that link. Very interesting. I think classical music has a funny place in our society. People hear it, and tend to immediately pigeonhole it as "highbrow arty" stuff, and turn off to it. The general shape of it is so familiar, and there are so many people who have the skill to technically (but mechanically) play the notes, that it's easy to ignore, even if it's "impressive." But the nature of it is that the details hold the life of it. And it takes effort, a more active listening, and a more informed, prepared listener, to appreciate those details.

 

I think the "experiment" says a lot more about celebrity than it does about music. Celebrities make it easy for us to decide where to spend our adulation, without risk or fear.

[Mark Evans]

Thanks for that link. Very interesting. I think classical music has a funny place in our society. People hear it, and tend to immediately pigeonhole it as "highbrow arty" stuff, and turn off to it. The general shape of it is so familiar, and there are so many people who have the skill to technically (but mechanically) play the notes, that it's easy to ignore, even if it's "impressive." But the nature of it is that the details hold the life of it. And it takes effort, a more active listening, and a more informed, prepared listener, to appreciate those details.

 

I think the "experiment" says a lot more about celebrity than it does about music. Celebrities make it easy for us to decide where to spend our adulation, without risk or fear.

 

While I appreciate your viewpoint, I dissagree completely. No matter the genre, music has become the background noise of our lives. It can be accessed constantly. It's importance is still central to the emotional life of human beings, but the people who create it have taken on a different role than their once mystical place in society.

 

Were you to take say, Eric Clapton as humbly set up with an acoustic guitar in the same location during rush hour a similar result would in my opinion be achieved.

[michael stutesman]

Thankyou for highlighting that article for us. What it says to me is nothing at all about music and a great deal about how people live their lives these days. Most people journey through life with a library of expectations through which they filter everything they encounter. The reason is that it is an efficient way to deal with things. None of those Bostonians were really present for Mr. Bell's music. They had their attention focused on where they were headed and not on where they were. The tiny bit of attention they may have had for Mr. Bell and his Strad was filtered through the expectation category of 'street musician' and got no further than that. You create your own reality by where you put your attention and how it is filtered by your expectations. We need to practice being present.

[JimLucas]

Thankyou for highlighting that article for us. What it says to me is nothing at all about music and a great deal about how people live their lives these days. Most people journey through life with a library of expectations through which they filter everything they encounter. The reason is that it is an efficient way to deal with things. None of those Bostonians were really present for Mr. Bell's music. They had their attention focused on where they were headed and not on where they were.

Hmm. Michael, your own post seems to be evidence to support your argument.

The article says the incident occurred in Washington, not in Boston.

[Boney]

Were you to take say, Eric Clapton as humbly set up with an acoustic guitar in the same location during rush hour a similar result would in my opinion be achieved.

Quite likely so. As long as nobody recognized him, which underscores my point about celebrity -- do you agree with that part?

 

I wasn't singling out classical music as the only type that would create this type of response. More pointing out that classical music does take more attention, effort and preparation to appreciate than pop music (pretty much by definition). Also, classical music is just about the only kind that is heavily promoted in schools, so it's quite common to hear technically proficient players that sound like "generic classical music" (as one of the passerbys interviewed in the articles said), and Mr. Bell's performance seems very similar to an uneducated ear, if you aren't paying attention.

 

I'd be interested to hear your theories, Mark.

 

Here's a question -- what kind of solo performer would get more attention and appreciation? Assuming no celebrity effect, of course. Artis the Spoonman would be a likely candidate, I think.

 

Here's another question: How would Mr. Bell have done at a relaxed upscale farmer's market?

 

What also bothered me is the apparent assumption that buskers are mainly doing it for the money, and that to not give money to them would be taken as some sort of snub. Maybe that's true of some, but many just do it for fun and to share the music, and are perfectly satisfied with people who listen and enjoy themselves. The money is a little bonus, if anything.

Edited April 9, 2007 by Boney

[yankeeclipper]

Kind of a stupid setup - 7:50 on a workday morning in downtown rush hour. That isn't really a place for music of any kind - except perhaps the antisocial iPods people use now to isolate themselves from the world around them.

 

Experienced buskers know better, and set up in times and places where people are relaxed, happy and at leisure. Get Joshua Bell playing in a sunny downtown park plaza at lunch time, or on a river walk on a lovely Saturday afternoon and the results would have been much better.

 

The joy of music is more than simply sound - mood, ambience, and good company can make even the simplest music wonderful. Obviously, they can also make the most wonderful music negligible!

[Jim Besser]

Experienced buskers know better, and set up in times and places where people are relaxed, happy and at leisure. Get Joshua Bell playing in a sunny downtown park plaza at lunch time, or on a river walk on a lovely Saturday afternoon and the results would have been much better.

 

yes. My favorite spot is a big wharf area outside a popular art center. People are there for recreation, not work, and to soak up the atmosphere. I attract more listeners than Joshua Bell, and I have news for everyone, I'm not exactly his equal as a musician.

[Mark Evans]

Were you to take say, Eric Clapton as humbly set up with an acoustic guitar in the same location during rush hour a similar result would in my opinion be achieved.

Quite likely so. As long as nobody recognized him, which underscores my point about celebrity -- do you agree with that part?

 

Yes, I do.

 

I agree Classical music is exclusively pushed in public schools which have become places where learning is limited (at least here in Massachusetts) to craming for the MCAS test each year. Any attempt at organic learning is a faint memory. Students have responded in a predictable way, and what follows is not what they say to my face but what they are thinking: "Yo, ole' fool! What do I need to do ta' git' a good grade outta yo' fat hide so's I can git back to my video games an' hangin' wid my crew? Nothin' you force me to listen to gonna git me a gig man!"

 

I have been programing and teaching multi grenre music here for 5 years now, focusing on the evolution of American musics. It has been a mixed bag of results. I live for the five to 10 students out of a class of 30+ who "get it". It's like farming very poor soil. I thought it was just my little college, but a colleague of mine now retired from a big name institution in our area reports the same experience. He and I agree, most of the students have no interest in a new experience of discovery and connection to what they already listen to for it does not fit the work ethic that has been beaten into them...the bottom line. Learning for learnings sake is becoming a lost art. What it seems they have learned at a very early age is to close themselves in and tune out. I fear we have not served them well. The bottom line will be the ruination of us all!

Edited April 8, 2007 by Mark Evans

[m3838]

The Washington Post Magazine has a story today about a top violinist who tried busking outside a Washington Metro station. Interesting and discouraging for potential buskers.

 

Washington Post magazine article

 

Excercise acts of kindness (art, anything) at connenient for others time, not where and when you think it's time.

 

Try to busk at the train station rush hour, or deep at night, or during police chase and you'll have splendid results for sure.

Edited April 8, 2007 by m3838

[paperpunchr]

The Washington Post Magazine has a story today about a top violinist who tried busking outside a Washington Metro station. Interesting and discouraging for potential buskers.

 

Washington Post magazine article

 

Excercise acts of kindness (art, anything) at connenient for others time, not where and when you think it's time.

 

Try to busk at the train station rush hour, or deep at night, or during police chase and you'll have splendid results for sure.

 

I've busked downtown on weekend evenings with a friend or two (fiddle, concertina and guitar) playing traditional Irish and in a couple hours time we would routinely take in sixty dollars... Only thing is the amount taken is pretty much the same whether it's a fiddler, a fiddler and concertina or all three, so we stopped busing as a group and just go as a one or two.

 

The key is to pick a location where couples are passing on the way to or from bars/dance clubs and are not commuting to work in a hurry...they're in a mood to listen to something different and appreciate it rather than thinking about a thousand other things for the start of their workday worries. I'd never try a morning workday busking.

 

Paperpunchr.

[Robert Booth]

I think that Mark has it nailed down on two counts: first, that music has become such a commodity that it is cheapened by its availability. It is everywhere, always, to the point that one is often put in the terrible position of actively trying to tune it out in order to have a little private mental space. I've had to restrain myself from strangling the manager of the local grocery store when The Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep us Together" played twice in twelve minutes whilst shopping for vegetables

 

Second, the much discussed and (IMO) overworked idea that there should be this enormous division between the various generations has a lot of younger people buying the propaganda that unless a thing is less than ten minutes old, it ain't worth their (short) attention. The USA should be called ADHD Nation anymore. Eric Clapton? Isn't he...OLD?!? And who's this Bach dude, Dude?

 

I wonder how this experiment would have played in other cities around the world? San Francisco? Portland? Quebec? Hong Kong? Singapore? Adelaide? Cape Town?

[yankeeclipper]

I wonder how this experiment would have played in other cities around the world? San Francisco? Portland? Quebec? Hong Kong? Singapore? Adelaide? Cape Town?

 

I can't vouch for Adelaide or Cape Town. But I can assure you that if the experiment were conducted at 7:50 during the morning rush hour in those other cities, the results would have been very much the same.

[m3838]

Second, the much discussed and (IMO) overworked idea that there should be this enormous division between the various generations has a lot of younger people buying the propaganda that unless a thing is less than ten minutes old, it ain't worth their (short) attention. The USA should be called ADHD Nation anymore. Eric Clapton? Isn't he...OLD?!? And who's this Bach dude, Dude?

 

You think so?

[Mark Evans]

You think so?

 

Very impressive, but honestly Michael the Toccata of the Toccata and Fuge in D minor has been a rite of passage for many a guitarist for some time. It's not unlike the opening theme of the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony or Mozart's Eine Kliene Nacht Musik. They have become almost genetic memories as my students prove to me each semester.

 

To their credit, I find them very well versed on pop and rock n' roll back to the late 1950's. Their collective body of knowelege is detailed and damned near complete. In that they are far superior to the majority of Bach's contemporary audience. Back 'in the day' a Cantata from last week's Easter Vigil at St. Thomas in Liepzig would be considered old news, done and soon to be forgotten. Imagine, Bach had no reasonable hope that his works would be performed past his death or be studied and remembered by all but a few musicians able to dimly glimpse a portion of the intellect and soul encoded in the surviving manuscripts and copies.

 

The same instant access to music that causes me such consternation has yielded some interesting and contrasting results. I take the sweet with the sour.

 

All that business has little to do with busking however. As has been said here, none of us mere mortals would pick rush hour to play in subway station and expect a positive result. I wouldn't have done it, but then I ain't no Joshua Bell!

Edited April 10, 2007 by Mark Evans

[m3838]

I just tried to fence off the statement that today's youth is not cultured as (probably hinted at) yesturday's youth. I think we are not pinnacle of anything. As high browed Josef Brodsky said once, only 5% of living people deserve to be able to read and write.

Bach's time is no exeption. Of those who play pop today, majority are very well versed in standard classical repertore, because they are not amateurs. Whether they have taste to appreciate it is another question. Yet another is to whom they panderto to bring bread to their tables. Professional interiour design in Russia is oriented towards lowest class of criminals - street gangsters. Visual art in the States is oriented towards lowest class of people, born into money, fashion design is oriented towards Hollywood airheads etc. From this perspective, pop musicians (excluding hip-hop, as a non-musical endevour, but rather an ideological sector of Black fascism) serve a good purpose of supplying professionalism to popular music of masses, no matter how vulgar it may seem to intellectuals.

P.S.

I decided to add, that probably the very best of the best rock music is played by amateurs, who may not know who Bach was. But then again, there is Rock and there is Pop. One is a mean of expression, another is money making.

[Theodore Kloba]

At first as I started reading, I thought I was going to reply with something clever like (extrapolating Kant) "one's ability to appreciate beauty is related to one's ability to make moral judgments, and this was Washington D.C. after all." This article turned out to be about something else entirely.

 

One thing that struck me since a similar thing occurred to me:

Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

When you consider that the people in this article were on the way to work and trying to get their children to school or daycare, it's more understandable than the situation where I encountered it: I was near a rail terminal that was delivering suburban day tourists to downtown at midday in summer.

 

I guess it wasn't every kid that was pushed along by parents, but I was surprised by how many.