For Whom The Saw

In a comment to my previous post For Whom The Bell, someone kindly drew my attention to a comment by a New York busker called Natalia Paruz, who goes under the sobriquet of SawLady because (you've guessed it perhaps) she plays the musical saw. I get the impression from her website that she appears regularly in both subways and concert halls. (If you visit her site, be prepared for some delightful examples of her work.) She asks Is Joshua Bell a good busker? and decides, on the whole, that he is not. 

Obviously playing in the subway calls for a different kind of musicianship. Comments to Natalia's blog debate whether or not Bell is capable of playing in a more "popular" style, and chose not for the purposes of the experiment. Obviously Bell was not exactly driven by the same financial motives as most other buskers, so he could afford to play how he wanted, rather than to please the crowd. 

But before musicians get all snooty about classical music and popular music, remember one thing. Much of the music Joshua Bell plays for a living was not written for the concert hall, let alone for the recording studio. The concert hall emerged in the nineteenth century, and recorded music in the twentieth. Mozart's music was written to entertain chattering aristocrats, not for solemn middle class audiences in fancy auditoriums (and certainly not to improve the brainpower of unborn children). 

How would Mozart have survived in the Washington subway? I like to think he would have done better than Joshua Bell. Gidon Kremer, are you up for a challenge?

For Whom The Bell

World-class violinist plays for hours in a subway station, almost no one stops to listen

Original story (with video) Washington Post April 8th 2007 Commentary: Gene Weingarten, Seth Godin 

What's the purpose of a stunt like this? To show that people don't pay attention to street musicians? That although they are prepared to pay a hundred dollars for the cheapest seats when Joshua Bell is playing in a respectable auditorium, they aren't willing to stop and listen to him on the way to work. 

What's the effect? People who went past, or were in the area, are kicking themselves for the missed opportunity. People who weren't there admitting they would have been among those who rushed past and paid no attention. So what are they going to do next time? What will you do when you hear a busker on the way to work? 

Many people don't hear buskers at all. Many use personal devices - Walkman, iPod, mobile phone - as a way of disengaging from their immediate surroundings. (See my post on i-Phone or wii-Phone.) And many just don't pay attention until they are prompted by the context. 

When Bell plays in concert halls and recording studios, he is reinforcing a musical agenda that promotes famous musicians like him at the expense of the thousands of musicians that are nearly as talented as him and not nearly as fortunate. When he plays in the subway, he is subverting this agenda a little. 

Let's hope the effect of this story is that some people pay more attention to the live music in their environment. Not every violinist is as good as Joshua Bell, but there are thousands nobody has ever heard of that are nearly as good. You can appreciate good music anywhere. 

And therefore never send to know for whom the busker plays, he plays for you.

Update

Guy Kawasaki draws the following eloquent lessons from the story:

• Don’t let the absence of trappings and popularity make you believe something is bad.
• Don’t let the presence of trappings and popularity make you believe something is good.
• Don’t pass by life much less let life pass you by.

See also my sequel to this post: For Whom The Saw.