woodelf68: finding-flight: runawaymarbles: ruffboijuliaburnsides: e-p-hart: tilthat: TIL That…
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People going to work don’t have time to stop for art, even great art. It’s not because they don’t want to enjoy the music, but because they literally can’t afford to be late. I’m thinking of that living water metaphor from Christianity. If the whole village depends on you bringing the water back from the well, you’re selfish if you stop to drink half the bucket. No matter if you are thirsty. No matter if it’s the “living water” bullshit.
It might not be SELFISH to stop and listen to the busker on the subway, but any ordinary person, given the choice between “listening to music” and “keeping your job,” will choose the job. That’s society. I hate this study so much. People may or may not have recognized him and the Bach; that’s not the point. They’re trying to force a conclusion that’s incorrect. Can humans recognize great art? Yes. Can we stop to enjoy it at the expense of everything else? Not often.
On the other hand, “put your own oxygen mask on before helping others.” Enjoying the music, drinking the water, whatever it is— is that the oxygen that keeps you alive? Is it really bad and selfish to look to yourself before dealing with the rest of the world? But this isn’t life or death. This is a bunch of groggy people inundated with information being told they’re slackers or unobservant or unappreciative of art for not stopping to admire an undercover music celebrity playing a million-dollar instrument on their way to work. And that rubs me the wrong way.
Sure; a lot of people aren’t exposed regularly to “great art” and may not recognize or even care to experience it. But how many others would have the opposite reaction if given the opportunity? If instead of berating these people for missing the opportunity to enjoy for free something others have to pay for, they were given the information and chance to choose for themselves? Invited in? What if he had set up a sign, announced himself? Not in advance, but just there that morning? Would more people have stopped, noticed, listened? And not even people posting on social media who knew him and the pieces already and calling for others to enjoy, but just inviting people into the significance of the moment?
They present this undercover and at an inopportune time and then make sweeping judgements in that light. The experiment was bad and they should feel bad. Don’t offer great art slyly like you’re “testing” someone’s knowledge. That’s academic bullshit.
Yeah, I think his whole “taste/perceptions/etc” experiment was kind of obnoxious and privileged. It’s clearly not taking into account things like “people have places to be and even if they would DEEPLY LOVE to stop and listen, they can’t.”
But I think it does show something worth remembering: People who rely on busking in parks and subways and stuff? They don’t make hardly any money doing that. There’s a non-negligible number of people who are doing it because they don’t have other options, and speaking as someone who did busk to try to scrape up enough money to do things like afford to take public transit into the city to go to my job, and then to have enough money to try to be able to save to get my wife and I out of a deeply unhealthy living situation? You don’t make much money. Even in a park or somewhere people are generally not in a rush, you get very little, and subways can net you more money even if most people don’t stop bc there’s just more people, and many people recognize that buskers are trying to make a living and will drop a dollar or some pocket change as they walk by, based on what little they heard as they went.
This guy played for 45 minutes and made $32. That’s more than I made most days I busked all day. And sure I wasn’t impressive, I was not a hugely skilled musician, I was just a poor kid singing and trying to scrape up enough to survive, but that’s what a lot of buskers are.
He made $32 on a busy fucking subway where hardly anyone had time or reason to stop, in less than an hour, and tries to act like this means people don’t appreciate art if it’s not in a fancy space. People were fucking appreciating him the best way they could. He got $32 fucking dollars in less than an hour. People noticed him. People appreciated him. He’s an ass.
$32 for 45m is more than 5x the national minimum wage
I clicked through to the story, and it ended like this:
“One of the possible conclusions from this experience
could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and
listen to one of the best musicians in the world
playing the best music ever written, how many other
things are we missing.”Which is so damn close to getting the point.
Also, they left out something important. There was a woman who recognized him. That $32? It doesn’t count the $20 that she left him.
So yeah, this story is Guy Complains About Making $52 in 45 Minutes From People Just Trying to Get to Work.
Your average person isn’t going to know or care that it’s “hard”. Classical music isn’t considered ‘pop’ music for a reason. And yeah, tons of people work their butts off for a LOT less than $32 an hour, and it’s not doing stuff that they enjoy and chose to do like this dude did.
I blogged about this when it happened here.
Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/620876683173642240.
