On Apr 10, 2007, at 3:49 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
Someone wrote (I forget who ;)
I am a person with a pretty definitive
schedule, and a busy one, at that. Why should it follow, then, that
I have no time for anything else? Or more specifically, don't have
time to appreciate good aesthetic experiences? Just because I might
have to pass by the world-famous violinist in the subway because I
need to get to work on time in the morning?
I suppose I'm lucky that I have a job that arriving 5 minutes late
isn't that big of a deal; and considering how many others stop and
watch musicians in NYC's subways, I'm guessing they can be a few
minutes late too. People take time for things they value, so if
Washingtonians decided to ignore Joshua Bell, then oh well, that's
their loss.
It was me who wrote it. And you are lucky, Kim, to have a job like
that. You're definitely not the norm. I don't think you quite
caught the gist of my message, though.
Of course I stop and watch musicians when I am able to do so. But,
for example, what if I am really enjoying the music from a person
performing in the subway, but can't stay to listen, because if I take
too long, then I will miss the curtain of the other aesthetic
experience I'm on my way to, like a Broadway show? And, in fact,
since I don't live in NYC anymore, this is exactly my experience when
I am in the City nowadays.
My point here is that my passing by the busker doesn't mean I value
his art any less than if I had stopped. It certainly *could* mean
that, but not necessarily. And you're right, it *is* my loss, but
doesn't the fact that I do recognize it as a loss then prove that I
value it?
I think I'm basically piggybacking on Darcy's (and others') notion
that people stopping or not stopping doesn't automatically prove
whether the people in the Washington station valued what they were
hearing or not. Hearing something of value in the music is only ONE
possible reason for stopping or not stopping, and even hearing
something of value in the music doesn't *determine* whether a person
would have stopped -- there could be other more pressing concerns
(like "I need to be on time to work").
The unscientific nature of the experiment really does end up
defeating it: a quantitative measure of "whether people stop to
listen or not" is not nearly as effective as qualitatively following
up with all those commuters afterwards, and asking for their
reasoning. I know it would be nearly impossible to do that (and I
know they did it with a few), but that's part of the point too, isn't
it?
-- Mike
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
