paulthérond.com

Orig­i­nal author: unknown 

 

Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  
 

Metro Sta­tion on a cold Jan­u­ary morn­ing in 2007.

 

The man with a vio­lin played six Bach pieces for about 45 min­utes. Dur­ing that time approx. two thou­sand peo­ple went through the sta­tion, most of them on their way to work.

 

After three min­utes a mid­dle aged man noticed there was a musi­cian play­ing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few sec­onds and then hur­ried to meet his sched­ule.
 
 
4 min­utes later:

The vio­lin­ist received his first dol­lar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, with­out stop­ping, con­tin­ued to walk.
  
6 min­utes:

A young man leaned against the wall to lis­ten to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
 

10 min­utes:

A three-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hur­riedly. The kid stopped to look at the vio­lin­ist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child con­tin­ued to walk, turn­ing his head all the time.

 

This action was repeated by sev­eral other chil­dren. Every par­ent, with­out excep­tion, forced their chil­dren to move on quickly.
 
45 min­utes:

 

The musi­cian played con­tin­u­ously. Only six peo­ple stopped and lis­tened for a short while. About 20 gave money but con­tin­ued to walk at their nor­mal pace.The man col­lected a total of $32.
 

1hour:

 

He fin­ished play­ing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recog­ni­tion.
 

No one knew this, but the vio­lin­ist was Joshua Bell, one of the great­est musi­cians in the world. He played one of the most intri­cate pieces ever writ­ten, with a vio­lin val­ued at $3.5 mil­lion dollars.

 

Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theatre in Boston where the seats aver­aged $200.This is a true 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 people’s pri­or­i­ties.

The ques­tions raised:

• In a com­mon place envi­ron­ment at an inap­pro­pri­ate hour, do we per­ceive beauty?
• Do we stop to appre­ci­ate it?
• Do we rec­og­nize tal­ent in an unex­pected con­text?
  

 
One con­clu­sion reached from this exper­i­ment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and lis­ten to one of the best musi­cians in the world, play­ing some of the finest music ever writ­ten, with one of the most beau­ti­ful instru­ments ever made…

How many other things are we miss­ing?

 

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