Oh Look! A Pearl!

Technorati Tags: art,Joshua Bell,Gene Weingarten,Washington Post,pulitzer prize

I first heard about this article, by Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, a few weeks ago. (Thanks to Bill Harris at Dubious Quality for posting a link to the full article last Friday.) The premise is absolutely fascinating: “what happens if you take one of the greatest musicians in the world, and have him play some of the greatest music ever written, on one of the greatest musical instruments ever made, all while standing in a Washington DC Metro station?”

I won’t spoil the answer for you, but let me say that the article is one of the most interesting that I’ve read in quite a while and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s not a short read, however, so if my recommendation isn’t enough for you, you may also find it noteworthy that this article won the Pulitzer prize. Please, do yourself a favor, and make time to read it. You will thank me for it.

After you’ve done so, feel free to move on with your normal lives. If, however, you found the article to be as thought-provoking as I did, I’d love to get your thoughts on the following question: “What is the significance of this experiment?”

I think that it is hugely informative about the relationship between people and art. Great works of art, be they music, photography, film, painting, poetry, literature, or otherwise (dare I say video games?) evoke thoughts and/or emotions that cross traditional demographic barriers. (If you don’t agree with this definition, that’s fine, but it’s the one that I’m using for this conversation, so let’s try to avoid an argument about “what is art?”) So, if we can agree that Joshua Bell’s performance SHOULD be seen as “great art,” (at least, it has been many times in the past), why, does the vast majority of the “audience” to this performance fail to appreciate it?

Weingarten seems to accept the argument that people’s ability to appreciate art is rooted in context. I think that there is clearly some truth to that statement, but I think that he fails to identify the key element of that context. He implies that the results of this experiment would have been different had the violinist been dressed differently, and performing in a proper venue, with the traditional “trappings” of a classical music concert. But I doubt that these things would really make that much of a difference.

I think that he gets closer to the truth when he talks about the fact that many of the passersby were in a hurry and were unable to take the time to pay attention to what they were hearing. And THIS is the key: to appreciate great music people don’t “hear” it, they “listen” to it. People don’t appreciate Joshua Bell in a concert hall because they have paid a lot of money to listen to his music and because they are hearing it in a concert hall. They appreciate it because they have made the conscious decision to engage with it.

I would wager that many of the people who walked blithely past Joshua Bell would have been equally disinterested in the opportunity to hear him perform in a concert hall. Whether they admit it or not, their disinterest was the product of a lifetime of built-up prejudices about people playing music in subway stations, classical music, panhandlers, as well their other priorities that caused them, consciously or sub-consciously, to decline to engage with the performance.

The key to getting more people in Weingarten’s experiment to stop to hear the music is not putting it back in concert halls, but finding ways for them to retain the curiosity and open-mindedness of Evan Parker.