Introduction
Try to put these things together in one picture: Grammy-winning violinist, baseball cap, Washington metro station, J.S. Bach, and Baroque Music.
What does the scene feel like? What are the elements that may seem a little bit dissonant that “should” change?
Violinist at the Metro Experiment
American violinist John Bell performs at the DC Union Station. (Source: The Washington Post)
In 2007, Grammy-award-winning violinist Joshua Bell arrived in a baseball cap, jeans, and a long sleeve shirt at the D.C. Metro Station during rush hour. Even though thousands of pedestrians passed by, only a few stopped to listen to his music.
So why, in a metro station full of educated individuals, were there only a few that stopped to listen to a world famous violinist performing on a multi-million dollar violin?
The Explanation
“Music — you need the give and take from the audience, the feeling of attention. It’s not about me; it’s about the music itself.” – Joshua Bell.
The main explanation for the unexpected result is how beauty is perceived. Joshua Bell, with the “tags” of Casual Dressing and Metro Station, was not recognized so easily despite his beautiful playing, resulting in little appreciation towards his music.
The standards of how we perceive beauty are influenced by the environment and perceptual adaptation. In an unpleasant, gloomy environment with rushing people and noisy echoes of the metro, it’s difficult to capture the music and beauty in Bell’s performance.
Moreover, the second factor – is perceptual adaptation, which is an “experience-based process that reshapes how we perceive our environment” (ScienceDaily). A prototype serves as an example of what we see when we think of a certain topic. From our experiences, we typically connect professional musicians with dress suits and concert stages. So when we encounter someone with a casual shirt and baseball cap at the metro, the prototype does not match our expectations and since it takes time for us to adapt to the new prototype it’s difficult to quickly recognize even a professional musician.
Conclusion
The environment we belong in is always more fascinating than we think because we usually concentrate too much on what we have on our hands. Our eyes and brains focus on us, ignoring the important and beautiful things that might be happening in the whole picture.
Concentrating is a very effective method of executing our lives, but maybe sometimes, pulling us out of the “concentration zone” and looking around to see and interact with our surroundings is usually when we encounter true beauty in our lives.
Discussion Questions: Do you think the result is expected or surprising? Why?
