Stealing from jessica
I stole this blog topic from Jessica because I think it's important.
The Washington Post did a little experiment. They set up world famous violinist Joshua Bell as a street performer at a major subway stop in Washington DC. There point wasn't to see if anyone would recognize him, but to see if anyone would stop and enjoy the gorgeous classical music he was performing.
He played for 45 minutes. Pieces of music made for a concert violinist. He was playing on a Stradivari violin made in 1713. (considered the finest violin in the WORLD and worth over 3 million dollars)
Over 1,000 people walked by him in the 45 minutes he was playing. It's all on hidden camera. Only SEVEN PEOPLE stopped to listen to the gorgeous music. The most important part to me: in all of the video... CHILDREN are the ones who are drawn to the music, ask their parents to stop to listen, and are hastily shoved on the way to wherever people are rushing off to at 8am.
The article is kind of long, but worth the read. Pearls before Breakfast The music he played is listed there and is available as a streaming video file. It's gorgeous! I've been listening in my office all day. There is also video of people/workers clearly ignoring him.
Take the time, this week in particular after all the tragedies, to stop and listen to the music. Enjoy being alive. Expose your children to beautiful music, dance, art, theater. It really can change your life.
posted by CWH @ 2:48 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for stealing from me becuase I think you did a better job writing about it. :) And I'm flattered--I think so far I've only ever stolen from YOUR blog.
i do have to point out the tragic flaw in this piece (the news article, not your blog post)...they had the nice violinist play in an outbound area of a hugely busy metro stop during the am rush. think of it as having him play up underneath the overpass somewhere in houston, where the homeless guys are chilling out and the chronicle people are selling papers. you'd only get a listen during the red light, but otherwise, gotta run. if they'd put him in the strip of grass outside of the smithsonian metro station, you bet your butt he'd have that crowd they'd predicted in no time at all.
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