Comments on: Pearls before breakfast

By: Pearls before breakfast, II « What’s new

Pearls before breakfast, II « What’s new — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:22:18 +0000

[...] Tags: Gene Weingarten, Josh Groban, Pulitzer Prize, Washington Post Over a year ago, I had a brief post here pointing out Gene Weingarten’s article in the Washington Post entitled “Pearls [...]

By: De ‘Mozart van de wiskunde’ over succes — jaspervanderkolk.nl

De ‘Mozart van de wiskunde’ over succes — jaspervanderkolk.nl — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:46:21 +0000

[...] heeft trouwens een weblog. Meestal schrijft hij wiskundige abracadabra, maar vorige week had hij het over het merkwaardige experiment van de Washington Post, om een wereldberoemde concertviolist met een Stradivarius in een [...]

By: De ‘Mozart van de wiskunde’ over succes

De ‘Mozart van de wiskunde’ over succes — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:20:53 +0000

By: John R Ramsden

John R Ramsden — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:16:17 +0000

I think in his final paragraph Chris Hillman gets close to the essence of the situation, except that when striding through subway passages and down escalators at a brisk pace most people are in the opposite frame of mind to one which favours “close attention” to a busker’s music, not to mention that they are literally passing the busker by and therefore unable to savour the music for long. Also, these days people who do like music on the hoof are likely to have an iPod wired to their ear.

But I do agree that a skilled musician busking is oddly embarrasing and, paradoxically, may not make as much at it as a hopeless discordant clown going through the motions. The reason I think is that if people recognize disproportionate talent and skill in such a humble occupation they feel that to offer a pittance is demeaning and condescending, even if with a moment’s thought they’d realize it might be just as welcome and needed as the coin they wouldn’t hesitate to throw in a more unskilled busker’s hat.

By: Chris Hillman

Chris Hillman — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:29:32 +0000

Absolutely fascinating experiment! Although I am not sure one can draw any conclusion beyond the obvious: urban commuters tend to be very preoccupied, and strenuously avoid noticing anything unusual in their environment. After all, on an urban sidewalk, “something unusual” is more likely to mean a scary and unpleasant encounter with a criminal or a madman than an unexpected gift like the busking Bell.

Some might be tempted to argue that this experiment supports the assertion that few Americans are capable of appreciating really fine music, if only because too few public school students have the opportunity to learn to play some instrument. I am not sure that this conclusion is wrong, but I don’t think this stunt provides much evidence for it.

Interestingly enough, I always become very uneasy in settings in which I feel everyone is “required” to pay very close attention, like museums or orchestral concerts. I conjecture that the man who realized this was no ordinary busker, and who reported feeling conspicuous, humbled, and oddly embarassed, might know just what I mean.

By: Daniel Doro Ferrante

Daniel Doro Ferrante — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:44:37 +0000

There’s a nice book that deals exactly with this problem: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, by Pierre Bourdieu.

Perhaps the question to be posed should have been along the following lines: “If, rather than Joshua Bell — a classical musician, violonist — they had Michael Jackson or some American Idol winner, how would the crowd react; how different would the results be?” ;-)

This looks much more like a “sociological measure” than an intrinsic measure of quality, taste or merit [on Bell's part].

Cheers.

By: Mahdi

Mahdi — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:39:10 +0000

This reminds me of a similar story in chess.

By: ST

ST — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:47:22 +0000

Nets,
You can now invite Terry back to give the same colloquium to complete the control part of the experiment.
Also, kindly decline dinner invitations from those who didn’t go out last time.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:34:34 +0000

Beautiful, ‘Joshua Bell-like performances’ abound in our ‘ordinary’ existence. All we need to do is take notice with an open mind. I always find it fascinating that people would go to great lengths or make unusual sacrifices just to take a look at a lunar eclipse, for example. It’s like people are programmed into thinking that since an eclipse is a once-in-a-blue-moon event that it must be spectacular and not to be missed. In reality, however, it is not nearly as beautiful and wonderful to watch (to me at least) as a beautiful, glorious sunset, for example. Yet, how many people are fascinated by an ‘ordinary’ sunset?

By: pspacexnoesis

pspacexnoesis — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:37:43 +0000

Interesting experience,
though I wonder how many were really interested in classical music, and for the ones who were, how many did not only listen to it, but did also attend to ‘classical music concerts’ and so on, and thus ‘made’ their ears to fine classical music… My guess is that it leaves only a few people really able to judge and recognize, the talent of a musician (such as Bell), during a rush hour, passing close to him only for a some seconds. (and not thinking that it sounded not to bad because that was the only songs he learned to play).

But the experiment still keeps its flavour, and shows how people aren’t as ‘open-minded’ as they may think, and tend not to give even a glimpse when that’s not for their interest, or imediate profit.
Maybe, that if they had put a poster saying: “Maestro Joshua Bell, internationnaly recognized as the finest Violin virtuoso” a lot more people would have stopped by, maybe giving him money, or asking for autographs, pictures or whatever, just for the heck of showing-off at diner-time while telling that to their relatives, when in fact they did not know who this man was :)

And as Furukawa said in the article, flipping quarters at him, that’s very insulting, him or anybody else, that’s something I wouldn’t do either.

Something similar happened to me, while in a Baduk club, some mid-level player was showing off, showing all his “knowledge” to beginners and how he was right (and stupid), a friend of mine, in the top-level amateur players decided to go argue with him about some patterns, the result was that the guy always though he was right thinking everybody in the room was dumb enough to believe him, well he’s been taugh a lesson later on… If he had known who he was before, his behavior would have been just the opposit.

-pxnm.