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Beauty and The Crowd: About 4 Minutes Later

A famous violinist, Joshua Bell, performed anonymously at a Washington D.C. metro station for 45 minutes. Only 6 people stopped to listen and about 20 people gave money without stopping to listen. The violinist collected $32 total. Most people were rushing by without noticing the extraordinary performance, focused on getting to work instead of stopping to experience the music. The social experiment highlighted how few people stop to appreciate beautiful music or take time out of their busy lives.

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38 views2 pages

Beauty and The Crowd: About 4 Minutes Later

A famous violinist, Joshua Bell, performed anonymously at a Washington D.C. metro station for 45 minutes. Only 6 people stopped to listen and about 20 people gave money without stopping to listen. The violinist collected $32 total. Most people were rushing by without noticing the extraordinary performance, focused on getting to work instead of stopping to experience the music. The social experiment highlighted how few people stop to appreciate beautiful music or take time out of their busy lives.

Uploaded by

GauravKumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Final Case Study

Beauty and the Crowd


In Washington, DC, at a Metro Station, on a cold January
morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach
pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, people
went through the station, most of them on their way to
work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man
noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed
his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he
hurried on to meet his schedule.
About 4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw
money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to
walk.
At 6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him,
then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
At 10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him
along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist
again, but the mother pushed hard and the child
continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This
action was repeated by several other children, but
every parent - without exception - forced their children
to move on quickly.
At 45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people
stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave
money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The
man collected a total of $32.
After 1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one
noticed and no one applauded. There was no
recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one
of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of
the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin
worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell
sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged
$100 each to sit and listened to him play the same
music.
Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro Station,
was organized by Gene Weingarten from the
Washington Post as part of a social experiment about
perception, taste and people's priorities. Weingarten
won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for his
article on the experiment.
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of
the best musicians in the world, playing some of the
finest music ever written, with one of the most
beautiful instruments ever made . . . How many other
things are we missing as we rush through life?

Adapted from Washington Post for 3rd Semester Course in HU 3401 at IIEST-S

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