A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed... there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Well Well,

Now we appear to be in learning mode isn't this just what I said in a slightly different way. You post your works on SZ without a video of your face, you actually playing at the KB and singing, with lip sync perfect, we know who it is. If you post just the audio, it ain't any different than the story here. Scott posted a video of a chap singing with a few "F" words in it
we know who he is, what he was singing, take away the video and it is almost meaningless, in fact the chap is depicting he has a drink problem, take the video away and you would never know he was under the influence, the chap has the haircut taste from the 50s, take away the video and you would never know, the chap is about 40 years of age, take away the video and you would never know, we need all our senses to be stimulated to make a full assessment of the situation. Hell SZ is a place to learn, thanks for posting it buddy, it was useful if only to get my point across. I took my granddaughter to watch a film called HUGO last week, I would suggest HUGO and watch it, fooling ones sense is an understatement, it's a masterpiece of 3D film making and directed by Martin Scorsese..


Ho dear.