Author Topic: So let's say you put a world-class violinist in a Metro station...  (Read 4202 times)

Heradel

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So posits this Washington Post Magazine Article. It's good. Good enough and dense enough that I'm not going to really try to summarize it, so the rest of the post is kinda useless until you read it.

For those of you that haven't used a subway system to commute to work on a regular basis for at least a month may think the multitudes here heartless (you may also find some of the following hard to follow). Or that their white earphones have been sucking out their regular-old-sensory-perception. While the latter is truer than I'd like (and has led my lovingly cared for 3g iPod to become a glorified jukebox), I submit that they are not deaf (well, there was probably at least one or two in that sample), or caviler in their tastes (though, this being DC, there definitely are some — but not all), but rather that most of us (in DC, and well, NYC for that matter) are running late, and he was badly placed outside of the platform (though DC does not allow them on the platforms) so where he on the platform, clustering would have taken place (This has been a test of the theory of infinite clauses, we now return you to your normally scheduled sentence structures. [Ha.]).

For the record, I used the metro to commute to my internship each year starting my high school freshman summer (at which point I was little better than a script kiddie with a bit of a knack for finding information) and ending with last summer (at which point I was at least half-way competent). There were always street musicians that played in the stations before you had to pay money - at which point it's unwise by way of the metro police to play in the station - mostly of the saxophonists, trumpeters, and this one (I think) Asian guy that played an instrument whose name I know not, but is reminiscent of a gourd with a long stem and a single (I think) string that goes from the top to the bulb at the bottom and is played with a bow. I always walked past them not unlike the people in the videos, though I usually did look and walk a little slower if it was good and I was not reading something.

In New York, they actually allow the musicians to play on the subway platforms at least semi-officially, and because they do I find myself picking a spot to stand on the platform where I can hear them well, even if it means I'll have to walk further once I get where I'm going. And there is a fair clustering effect around good musicians, though it's hard to tell during rush hours. Plus, the men and women that do do this have to combat the express trains running by at, while not the speed of sound, the speed which produces enough sound so as to render any conversations about the speed of sound moot.

That said, the part about the children always being drawn towards the player I understand, as I remember once, my first summer commuting, I ended up stopping for a few minutes to listen to a saxophonist and then going down to the train platform, having just missed a train and (along with an inevitable breakdown somewhere on the same line) ending up about a half-hour late (also, for the record, my Father moonlights as a sax player, so there is some form of indoctrination for that particular instrument that I will probably never shake). My boss teased me (he is, for the record, the first person to hire my Dad once he was out of college, which has a strange cyclic factor that I have not really considered, and is an old family friend) and after that I remember having to start ignoring the compulsion to stop and listen, which has led to the aforementioned walking slowly.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2007, 11:47:28 AM by Heradel »

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Thaurismunths

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Wow. Thank you for bringing up such a cool article. I had to split it up over the morning, but a worthy read.

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