Posted on 04/11/2007 9:22:21 AM PDT by slowry
HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall ...
[continued on link below]
http://classicalmusicguide.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16515
(Excerpt) Read more at classicalmusicguide.com ...
I agree the time was an issue - smart street musicians play around lunch time and for the evening rush and a bit beyond. I’ve often stopped to hear street musicians in NYC’s Grand Central Terminal. Sometimes, with my kids, they would know some of the musicians playing.
I don’t give money to bums on the street. However, if one has a musical instrument that (s)he can actually play, I’ll cast in a buck or so, and may actually stay for a moment to analyze their technique and how good they really are.
Actually the shoe shine lady would have had the police run him off if he acted like snoop dog.
I heard him last September in Colorado Springs, and he is quite a virtuoso (and the Springs orchestra is outstanding—much better than those in other comparably sized cities I’ve lived in—had to get that plug in).
Joshua Bell & St. Martin in the Field were here in San Diego a few weeks ago. Great reviews.
One of the greats.
thanks for the story. sad commentary.
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