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An experiment in beauty

Violinist

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Originally Posted by j
Remind me where I said it was someone like Bell. I said it was a guy who was really, really good, as in, much better than you'd expect of some borderline-homeless guy who stands outside playing for passersby.



That's what I was thinking as well. It's hard to tell from the video, but it doesn't seem like it was a very good place to set him up either. If he had been, say, down on the platform where people were going to be waiting a few minutes anyway, I'm sure many more people would have spent that time paying attention to it.

As for the Salon article, I can't get to it (how do they keep the doors open, anyway?) but while the article may have overdone it on the analysis, it does raise a point that you either get, or you don't. And it doesn't seem like there's much sense in trying to explain it.


I just mentioned Bell in that way because outside of the classical music world, most people don't realize the seriousness of their careers. To put it into simple terms, people think classical musicians are all starving, and with Bell this is not the case.
 

gdc_2008

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Originally Posted by GQgeek
Ya but just like with clothes, some people have bad taste. If we're talking about music, there's beauty, there's noise, and there's the crap in between. I've loved Nine Inch Nails since I was a teen, but I'm not gonna rate Trent Reznor on the same scale as Tchaikovsky. NiN is great music that servers a particular purpose for me, but I wouldn't call it beautiful in the same sense as I refer to Rach 3 or the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana.
Not to be-labor this anymore...but you've exactly proved my point. Beauty is totally subjective.
 

rdawson808

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Originally Posted by Augusto86
This article brings me very nearly to tears...to think that people could just ignore such beautiful music.

I don't go to that particular station so can't admit to passing him by--but it's pretty easy to ignore everyone playing music when you are simply on your way to work. I *might* stop if it were on the way home--but that might make me miss my bus too, so probably not.

I fail to see the big deal about this.

bob
 

Augusto86

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Originally Posted by rdawson808
I don't go to that particular station so can't admit to passing him by--but it's pretty easy to ignore everyone playing music when you are simply on your way to work. I *might* stop if it were on the way home--but that might make me miss my bus too, so probably not.

I fail to see the big deal about this.

bob


Well, as 20 year old with 12-years of classical musical educaiton, I'm not exactly judging from a position of neutrality
musicboohoo[1].gif
yay for appropriate emoticons!

I just literally cannot believe that people would walk by(have you seen the video?)that music. Again, I am biased and learned in this particular area.

I guess I just equate it to a larger trend of blurring through life mindlessly. Not to sound like a pretentious asshole, but I cannot count the number of times I have stopped while walking with my friends to observe or admire something - a flower growing out a concrete wall, a dusty old shop filled with vintage printing presses, an old man playing Bach's Cello Suites on guitar, or even just the way mist falls around a streetlamp - and found my friends 2 blocks ahead because they just had no clue!!!

But I am a romantic, an aspiring writer and photographer, and easily distracted. So again, it's probably just me...
 

Saucemaster

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Originally Posted by Augusto86
I cannot count the number of times I have stopped while walking with my friends to observe or admire something - a flower growing out a concrete wall, a dusty old shop filled with vintage printing presses, an old man playing Bach's Cello Suites on guitar, or even just the way mist falls around a streetlamp - and found my friends 2 blocks ahead because they just had no clue!!!

Actually, I'll +1 this. That's the take home message of the article for me. Certainly not everyone likes classical music, but there have to have been more than the very few people who actually stopped who, if they'd been paying attention, would have realized at *least* that they were hearing a very, very good musician. But they weren't paying attention, they were singlemindedly focused on getting to work. I think people reading the article as some sort of elitist screed are overanalyzing; I read the point as being, basically, "Hey, all you out there: stop and smell the flowers once in a while, yeah?"

My $0.02.
 

mizanation

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Originally Posted by Saucemaster
Actually, I'll +1 this. That's the take home message of the article for me. Certainly not everyone likes classical music, but there have to have been more than the very few people who actually stopped who, if they'd been paying attention, would have realized at *least* that they were hearing a very, very good musician. But they weren't paying attention, they were singlemindedly focused on getting to work. I think people reading the article as some sort of elitist screed are overanalyzing; I read the point as being, basically, "Hey, all you out there: stop and smell the flowers once in a while, yeah?"

My $0.02.


i'll add my $0.02 to your 0.02, sauce.

total: $0.04 cents in the violin case.
 

Saucemaster

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Originally Posted by mizanation
i'll add my $0.02 to your 0.02, sauce.

total: $0.04 cents in the violin case.


Serves the bastard right, I'm late for work.
 

Augusto86

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Originally Posted by mizanation
i'll add my $0.02 to your 0.02, sauce.

total: $0.04 cents in the violin case.


Isn't there a saying that goes *roughly* like "50 cents and a promise is worth 2 quarters"?

It's bugging the hell outta me guys, help me out.
 

gdc_2008

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Originally Posted by Saucemaster
Actually, I'll +1 this. That's the take home message of the article for me. Certainly not everyone likes classical music, but there have to have been more than the very few people who actually stopped who, if they'd been paying attention, would have realized at *least* that they were hearing a very, very good musician. But they weren't paying attention, they were singlemindedly focused on getting to work. I think people reading the article as some sort of elitist screed are overanalyzing; I read the point as being, basically, "Hey, all you out there: stop and smell the flowers once in a while, yeah?"

My $0.02.



Hmm, but who's to say that if you hear something you like you need to stop and acknowledge it? The people that kept walking could have easily been affected by the music.
 

visionology

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I like this quote from the article. It's so true.

"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"
I don't think I would have stopped, especially on the way to work.
 

Huntsman

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A core part of my philosophy is maintaining a mindset that will keep me from missing daily expereinces of beauty, the loss of which is a common American tragedy.

It's not just Joshua Bell, and was he recognized; it's not just classical music and does anyone like it anymore; it's not just are these people on their way to work and is that the problem? It's the blinders we put on and the sacrifices we make, and in many cases choose, for the most paltry of reasons, and how that has perpetuated a national sacrifice of part of our humanity. The horror here is not what's on the video, but what's not -- it's how the mindset, that the video is merely symptomatic of, affects the moment-to-moment lives of everyone. It doesn't matter that this is classical and that it doesn't move some -- what are they missing that they do care about, that does matter to them? What are they missing out on in their lives that they might care about if they ever could have?

Here's a really scandalous comment: Isn't it a horror that these people, even the few who knew this was special, had to sacrifice the moment to that most vulgar of loyalties -- loyalty to an employer? That's tremendously sad. And inhuman.

In a really human sort of relationship with your job it would be ok to pause for five, maybe ten minutes, maybe more -- it's just a drop, just a a fragment of any useful scale of time afterall -- and apprehend the moment before it is gone. I like to think that I could do that and tell my boss, and he would say 'good for you.' I believe he would. Were there a meeting first thing that might be different, and I'm there on time for my collegaues, but to sacrifice a unique joy -- of any sort -- just for 'work' is a pathetic state of affairs.

Regards,
Huntsman
 

j

(stands for Jerk)
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Originally Posted by Augusto86
Isn't there a saying that goes *roughly* like "50 cents and a promise is worth 2 quarters"?

It's bugging the hell outta me guys, help me out.

"That and a buck fifty will buy you a cup of coffee."
 

Saucemaster

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Originally Posted by gdc_2008
Hmm, but who's to say that if you hear something you like you need to stop and acknowledge it? The people that kept walking could have easily been affected by the music.

I bet you're the type of person who turns the car off when you get home even if the song is right in the middle of the chorus, aren't you?
smile.gif
 

redcaimen

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Originally Posted by Saucemaster
I bet you're the type of person who turns the car off when you get home even if the song is right in the middle of the chorus, aren't you?
smile.gif


Well, if the article in question is any guide you would be making a good bet. We cant all be among the precious, noble few who are willing to pay the price in additional carbon emissions so Fergie can inform us for the 7000th time, "My hump my hump my hump my hump my hump my hump my hump my hump my lovely little lumps."
 

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