Wow. Great article. Not surprising if you've spent a lot of time in Washington, though.

That's a wonderful article. I think you need a little bit more spectacle to break commuters' strides, though. There was a great jazz act that used to play sometimes on downtown Red Line stops in Chicago, usually at Jackson. I think it was more or less impromptu; a couple of PVC bucket drummers, a guitarist or bassist, and a tap dancer. Not world-class anything, but they drew a larger crowd and pulled more donations, probably because they put a lot of energy into the station (without being obnoxious).

Or maybe Cubs fans are just better human beings...

Of course, the experiment was set up at the morning rush hour when people are rushing to work. And for government employees with their rigid hours and leave system, few want to be even a few minutes late. There's not a lot of flexibility to stop and listen. Maybe if they had set this up in the evening, after work, they would have had a larger response.

I have to second those who mention what a great article this is. I hope someone is getting credit for a great idea with great execution.

As far as stopping to listen, I must confess, I would probably be just like the fellow with the iPod. "Wha? There was a musician?"

I grew up in NYC and rode the subway to high school. There are two main factors at work here.

First, it was the morning as other posters mentioned. Even in NYC, a subway musician won't get much traffic.

Second, it is DC. This is significant. If you ever ride the subway in NYC, you'll see places where musicians are playing. In the evening, particularly at Penn Station when commuters are waiting for the LIRR or NJ Transit, you'll see groups of people standing and listening to musicians. When I was there recently, my 2 1/2 year old son was fascinated so we watched for a few minutes. He then ran up and gave a couple of dollars.

This is a big difference between DC and NYC. DC has no soul, no personality. You walk along the streets here and you don't feel the life of the city.

I mention on my blog that while I lived in Germany I used to practice my tenor sax in the U-Bahn, and I'm pretty sure that my humble (very humble) practice routine got more audience response than Bell's recital. Whatever.

The point is that those silly people who had jobs to be at should just have stopped and listened to the music.

That being said, I'd have loved to have been there myself.

<i>When I am on the metro in the morning, I am going to work, I don't really have time to stop.</i>

Perhaps that's the real point of the article - that "some" of us have become so obsessive about every minute that we can't spare even a few seconds for what could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Nobody questions that you're in a hurry and don't have time to stop; that's obvious. But isn't worthwhile to ask WHY you're in such a rush that you can't even stop for a free, world-class virtuoso performance, or even notice when one is occurring right in front of your face?

No, you don't blow up. But for many low- and mid-level government workers under the inflexible government time system, your boss may get you in trouble, you may have a negative review entered, or you may be docket a half an hour of leave time. People are in the zone about getting to work in the morning.

In addition to the problems with the setting noted above, they put on a performance with an instrument that most people don't listen to often (or at all), and deliberately avoided songs that people might recognize. And they're surprised when busy people don't stop to listen?

I don't really buy their premise that having a taste for classical music marks one out as a better person. The violinist in the article came off like a decent guy, but the praise lavished on him started to grate ("At twelve years of age, he calmed a raging tiger with the pure beauty of his music... When he approaches primitive tribes and plays Bach, they revere him as a minor deity... The beauty of his music is such that he was almost able to retrieve his beloved pet goldfish from the underworld, but he was unable to resist the temptation to turn and see if it was following...").

How many would have stopped for the Rolling Stones?

Or maybe Cubs fans are just better human beings...

Well, they'd have to be, wouldn't they? ;^)

Bach's Chaconne, Schubert's Ave Maria etc are 'deliberately unrecognisable'? Hmm.

The saddest observation that Weingarten makes is that the only group of people all of whom noticed/listened were the children--whose parents without exception carried them on without stopping. I suppose they all were on their way to the child carers and then to work. If 'beauty will save the world' I have not much hope for government bureaucrats in D.C.

Hey, Emmett, why do violists stand outside people's houses all night? Because they can't find the key and they don't know when to come in. And, hey, Emmett, why do people instantly hate the viola? Because it saves time. And, Emmett, did you hear about the violist who claimed he knew how to play 64th notes? The violinists didn't believe him, so he played one to prove it.

I got a lot more where these come from....but yeah, Joshua Bell is DEFINITELY not a violist!

There is a great response to the Joshua Bell article by a NYC subway musician in her blog: www.SawLady.com/blog
She interprets the situation differently from the Washington Post reporters... I thought you might find it interesting.

Such scorn for the viola, Sarah.... Too bad the likes of Mozart didn't share it, though.

I can move one eyebrow, one nostril and one ear simultaneously. Not only that, but I do so with unbelievable grace and skill. It's taken me years to perfect this artform, and I daresay I can do it better than any other person on the face of the earth. Sometimes I do it in public, just to see if other people will recognize my stunning mastery and shower me with adulation. Strangely enough, though, nobody ever seems to. Damned Philistines...

I wonder what percentage of people in this country listen to classical music on a regular basis. It may correlate to the number of people who stopped listened/donated.

A local newscast ran a segment on this performance. After the segment, one of the anchors commented on how beautiful the music was. The other responded with 'Yeah, there are a lot of talented street musicians'. She totally missed the point that Joshua Bell was way beyond a talented street musician.

But I think Bell would have caused much more of a fuss with this stunt just about anywhere in Europe.

Maybe. But in yesterday's Post chat with the author, someone commented that a similar experiment took place in Belgium, with similar results.