I teach a similar variant to this philosophical debate question in my Technology 221 class: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one (or thing) is there to hear it -did it make a noise?”  Of course it did…err… I mean in didn’t according to the third law of “what is a sound” (no reception, therefore no sound…).

Well, an OUTRAGEOUS “research experiment” was performed in the midst of downtown Washington D.C. that attempts to answer the title of this article… Joshua Bell, one of the foremost classical violin virtuosos of our time, was asked to pose as a common street musician and play for about an hour, at rush-time (8:00 a.m.), in the lobby of the L’ENFANT Plaza.  Yes, you read that right, Joshua Bell as a STREET musician!

The point of the research was to find out if “gorgeous and timeless” classical music, played by a virtuoso, on a peerless STRADIVARIUS violin, would stop people in their “tracks” and have them take notice.

The musicologists at my college are going to be “aghast” and “feign injury” when they hear the results.  In some ways, the results were shocking and in some ways, they were predictable (chances are you may or may not like the results! ;) ) Get it? No? … Moving on…

In summary, Joshua Bell (a child prodigy!), made in sum and total $32.00 in change and “tips” for this “stint”.  A far cry from the $100.00, “middle-of the road”, cost of the seat prices to see him in concert!  You won’t believe the humility of this man as he goes through 45 minutes of this “experiment”; Few people even acknowledged his existence, let alone his skill (I wrote an interesting article about the skills of a musician: Talented Musicians? Are We Simply Talented Or Is It Visible Mastery? ).

There are so many implications and thought provoking streams that this “study” will produce;   Some “off my top” thoughts to ponder: Does main-stream America really care about “classical music” anymore.  Are we so busy in our day-to-day, minute-to-minute, lives that we really don’t stop to “smell the flowers”.  What would have happened if, instead of Joshua Bell, we had a half-naked woman (or man?) in a bikini playing the violin?  Is the classical music that is part of our “canon” even “in” the culture of today’s main-stream working person?  Is the “common” person no longer aware of what true musical virtuosity is?  Are we still devaluing people  based on their appearance and circumstance.   And on an on…  Im still trying to “take this all in”. 

The full article (it’s long and a GREAT read) and video of the event can be found here:
Post Article

Kudos to Matt Mullenweg for sharing this GREAT FIND!  I might have missed this one for awhile without seeing it on his site! 

I’d love to hear your thoughts about the impact and implications of this “experiment”!  Please comment about this if you spent the time to read this here; expand the dialog! :) I would love to hear from you.

[tags] Joshua Bell, L’Enfant, Washington D.C., violin, experiment, Stradivarius, classical music [/tags]