Joshua Bell Plays in the Subway: Four Responses

If you say "response" too many times, it doesn't sound like a word anymore.

After sending the article (link in previous post) to a friend, I received this email. Never one to back down from a challenge, I replied back to my friend's response with a longer, more convoluted, less well written email, I'm sure, but posted, nonetheless, now on this blog for any of your comments or insights, dear readers. And after my reply, my friend wrote again, a response to my response to his response. And then I responded again, a long one, that maybe diverts from the point a little too frequently. The author of the first/third response is a writer and thinker for a living, whereas I only attempt these activities from time to time, blatently ignoring the "do not attempt at home" warning. Thus, the disparity. And the disclaimer.


Response to article:

This is very interesting; thanks for sending it. I wonder, though, what it shows. I suspect that I'm closer to Paul Guyer's opinion (reported in the article) than to thinking that it shows something something definitive about American society. I actually doubt Bell would get a much better audience in Paris or London (or Brazil, despite what that one woman claims). Rush hour mornings are not a good time anywhere in the western world (evenings would probably be better). And I wonder if it says anything about modernity. After all, more people listen to and study Bach today than at any other point in human history, since most people in human history labored in mines and on farms and in factories for 10 hours a day and didn't have the kind of time and training it requires to develop a sensitive ear. Some people, after all, stopped and recognized him. Sometimes people make analogous thought experiments with books and films, but I'm never sure what to think about them. As cynics always point out, lots of Nazis had fine taste in music and literature.

Now it's your turn to disagree with me :)


My response to this:

So you want me to disagree with you? I don't, actually, but I think there's a missing dimension to your argument.

I also doubt that Joshua Bell would've gotten a better audience in London or Paris (although since he's American, you'd like to think that Americans would at least notice they have produced great musicians), and I agree that morning commute was probably the worst time to have him play - the frantic rush and early morning stupor certainly didn't do any of the passersby justice.

However. What bothers me most is not that people didn't recognize him or that they didn't stop to watch for awhile -- but they didn't even notice. Most of them had absolutely no idea that a violinist was even playing there. The utter blindness to anything of substance, beauty, something different in the daily grind of cattle cars in the subway - they didn't even notice!

Art of out context is clearly a problem with this situation - stick Bell in a concert hall, tell these people who he is and what he does, and they'll probably listen. Spoon-feed them, yes, and they'll listen - that's why Bell plays to sold out audiences everywhere.

What's lacking here is the independent ability to make an aesthetic judgment. I find this article to be mostly a criticism of American modern society, a rat race to the finish line of every day, unable to see the surroundings, and thus unable to appreciate something outside themselves or make a decision about it. This isn't even their fault if the system they were raised in emphasized money and power (and therefore a complete self-saturation and inability to look beyond the daily battle for the cheese) instead of observation of a greater world around us.

Where is the awareness of tradition, of past and present beauty, of something that transcends the years and survives after we've all come and gone - not just music, but all art forms? And by art, I don't mean Britney Spears. Sadly they would've all recognized her had she been singing. They might have even thought that was quality worth listening to. Spoon-fed.

American society, and society in general, I think, is ill-equipped to think and reason independently, to continue self-education beyond the school years, and to recognize an experience that may expose them to something beyond their immediate comprehension. No sense of wonder.

Instead we have an appalling tendency to compartmentalize - work is one thing, home is another, personal life separate still. We eat up pop culture as an escape, delving into the petty lives of the rich and famous when our petty lives get boring. American society has lost the ability to allow other dimensions into their narrow world view, so focused on the little boxes they've so parsimoniously designated as "life" that they don't notice the rainbow overhead.

This line captures it for me:
"If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?"

The inability to stop for a minute, consider, listen, and on some level, understand - this is the modern tragedy.


Response to my response:

I don't disagree with you that our society is too rushed to notice people like Joshua Bell playing in a subway. But it's complicated. "Noticing", for instance, isn't a very clear action; there may have been people who listened without standing there studying him. In fact I think the guy who most appreciated him said he stood far away so as not to get in the violinist's space. Also, I'm sure a great many people pretended not to hear him because they didn't want to put money in the hat. It's rather embarrassing to outright reject a musician playing for money right in front of you. (It is sometimes for me, at least.)

But the larger point, more to you than to the ambiguously conceived experiment, is that there's nothing distinctively modern or American about ignorance of great art. Understanding art, like understanding many complicated activities, requires a great deal of training, and most people, today and in the past, haven't had the luxury. This is bad in some ways, but hardly all. Boorish engineers designed the computers that we're writing on now, and without the unimaginative busy-body bureacrats commuting to work that morning in D.C., many social institutions would be in a lot of trouble. Poets, thank God, aren't assigned to perform heart surgery. The question about "what else are we missing" is a good one, but some people might sincerely answer: not much. Living with people who think that may simply be part of living in a modern democracy. Disagreeing with them requires having, and maybe even imposing, a very strong theory about human flourishing.


My response to this response to my response:

You're tough! I don't disagree with you, but I don't exactly agree with you either. From my understanding of the article, it appears that many people didn't even register that a violinist was playing. It's one thing to shut something out but another thing to miss it altogether. And the people that purposely shut it out, either out of annoyance or personal preoccupation, demonstrate a deplorable lack of discernment, either willfully (categorizing subway music as transient noise) or due to a lack of education in music, specifically, and art, generally.

This is hardly an excuse, proved by the man with no musical education who stopped for 3 minutes before work because he realized, innately, utterly naturally, that this violinist was something special. He's quoted as saying he felt "at peace." Such is the power of music to break through all stereotypes, cultural and educational barriers. Something in the makeup of this man allowed Bell's music in, not only to his ears, but into a level much deeper. There's an art to discerning quality, but generally things of highest quality are apparent without scrutiny.

Those who passed Bell without noticing, whatever that might mean, is a failure of the senses, visual and auditory. This is not a conservatory kid playing in the corner, proficient but stiff, lacking perhaps stage presence and sawing away on a $20,000 violin. This is one of the most dynamic performers in the world, playing absolutely stunning music on one of the great violins of the world, $3.5 million, filling the space with a resonant, golden sound (as you can hear on the video) - the sound alone should make a person stop dead in his tracks. Add to this the total-body involvement characteristic of Bell, as well as his extreme good looks, and you've got aesthetic pleasure up the wazoo.

Had Joshua Bell tried this experiment in Europe, the results may have been different. Art is much more ingrained in the national consciousness of European countries as heritage, history, and contribution to the world. I've noticed a big difference between American audiences and Berlin audiences, for example: not only do concerts tend to frequently sell out here but also the percentage of audience members under age 40 is much higher than in the States. People are interested because they're raised to be interested, because it's part of being German, or French, or whatever nationality, raised to be proud of a great artistic history, even if they aren't necessarily aware of its finer aspects.

America, however, has made a formidable effort to erase classical art out of the culture. One is hard pressed to find an American church employing professional musicians playing a traditional liturgy (England's Anglican tradition, however, keeps this flourishing). No longer do households have pianos, a meeting point for the whole family, as was the norm 80-100 years ago. Music and art is no longer taught in schools. People used to be [insert profession here] as well as amateur musicians on the side because it was part of being a well-educated, well-rounded person. Einstein, they say, was an excellent violinist. This trend of profession-plus-musician has become increasingly rare, with one exception - many doctors these days happen to be amateur musicians, two fields that actually have more in common than what you might think, a rigorous attention to detail, intense concentration, long hours of study, and steel nerves under pressure.

Everything is, or should be, connected. But it appears that the chasm between aesthetics (beauty of all kinds, not just art from a certain period) and a technologically efficient but spiritually dead modernity continues to widen.