Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was asked the same question. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?
"Let's assume," Slatkin said, "that he is not recognized and just taken for granted as a street musician . . . Still, I don't think that if he's really good, he's going to go unnoticed. He'd get a larger audience in Europe . . . but, okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening."
- Pearls Before Breakfast
via Cafe Hayek
Here's a hypothetical situation similar to the one quoted.
ReplyDeleteTake a concert hall, fill it with classical music aficionados, and bring in the top 25 violinists in the world. Have each of the twenty five violinists perform the same piece one after another.
How many individuals in the audience will be able to truly tell the difference in the quality of the performances of the 25 violinists? (By quality I mean faithfulness to the composition as shown in the sheet music)
My belief is that the answer is none, due to the likelihood that the margin of skill between the best in almost any endeavor is tiny, in my opinion.
I love the buskers in the NYC subway - unlike in the Bell experiment subway musicians in NYC often draw people's attention, even though people are rushing in the subway. I also follow the blog of one of the buskers and she posted about the Joshua Bell article but from her unique point of view. You might find it interesting: www.SawLady.com/blog
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