Would you stop and listen?

[Cacklewack]

Pearls Before Breakfast

Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

By Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 8, 2007; Page W10

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?

I thought this article was quite interesting, and I know there are others on this forum who enjoy classical music. I'd like to think I would have stopped, but it is likely I would have been so focused on my destination that I would have missed it completely!

Matt

 

[anon`]

I happen to be in the (eviable?) position of never running across folks like this when I'm truly in a hurry. Thus, I do often stop and listen if I like what I hear. Such as the fellow with a fiddle who often sets up at the corner of 9th & Yamhill, kitty-corner from that giant hole.

...and it isn't even classical.

 

[lindylady]

I used to work at the Graduate School USDA and L'Enfant Plaza was where I got off the Metro. Musicians would usually be standing at the top of the escalators each morning. Depending on the day, you could hear a guitarist, a duo playing folk music from Ecuador, or violinists. Their music was nice to hear, no matter how brief the walk to the dreaded office cubicle.

 

[Paisley]

If I stopped to listen, I'd give him a tip.