Author: kwloach

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Subway Musician

Joshua Bell unpacked his $3.5 million 1713 Stradivarius violin in a busy Washington DC subway station at 7:51am on Friday, January 12, 2007. He put on a baseball cap, and he began to play. He performed for 43 minutes music composed by Bach, Ponce, Massenet and Schubert.

Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, and Pulitzer Prize winner for the subsequent article chronicling the event, wrote: “He’d clearly meant it when he promised not to cheap out this performance: He played with acrobatic enthusiasm, his body leaning into the music and arching on tiptoes at the high notes. The sound was nearly symphonic, carrying to all parts of the homely arcade as the pedestrian traffic filed past.”

Over 1000 people walked by without a second glance. Only 27 people stopped to listen. Total take for the shift was $32.17, excluding a patron who recognized him, engaged with him, and gave him $20.00. “Actually,” Bell said with a laugh, “that’s not so bad, considering. That’s 40 bucks an hour. I could make an okay living doing this, and I wouldn’t have to pay an agent.”  (Weingarten)

It would be easy to dismiss the crowd as uneducated buffoons but it is not that simple; the underlying principles for understanding and appreciating art are complex. Weingarten makes the point that “Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?” Weingarten makes a case for Kant’s view –  life is busy and full of distractions, and the contextual view of art will affect the depth of perception. These people cannot be judged on their inability to appreciate beauty.

Of greater significance is Weingarten’s commentary on the pace of life in general. The velocity of our modern-day, wealth-driven world does not allow our priorities to include the appreciation of art, and he raises the point that if we cannot find time to listen to the world’s finest compositions performed by the world’s finest musician, then “what else are we missing?”

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-from “Leisure,” by W.H. Davies

Like all good articles, Weingarten’s raises more questions than it answers. The subway may not be a source of inspiration for many people, and it is possible that the next subway musician encountered in your travels may not be worthy of too much of your time. But that is Weingarten’s point – how will you know?

Joshua Bell returned to the same Washington subway station in September 2014 and, thanks to a bit of promotion, his performance was well-received.

See Joshua Bell’s subway performance here.

Read Gene Weingarten’s article here.

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Stutterer

Brene Brown
Brené Brown

I spent the first twenty years of my life avoiding conversation. It wasn’t that I didn’t like people; I stutter.

School was traumatic (speech classes were ineffective) and although most people were understanding and supportive, there were many awkward moments. French was a challenge (for example, “Il y a une probleme” was a showstopper) and word substitution figured prominently (like swapping “your majesty” for “sir” in a lengthy grade 9 history reading). A simple conversation was a minefield of potential dialectic disasters, all word-options weighed and rated for producing the minimal societal impact. If nothing else, it was certainly a cerebral exercise in organization and creativity.

In non-stuttering normal speech, PET (positron emission tomography) scans show that both hemispheres of the brain are active but that the left hemisphere tends to be more active. By contrast, people who stutter yield more activity on the right hemisphere, suggesting that this activity might be interfering with left-hemisphere speech production. Much evidence from neuroimaging techniques has supported this theory. **

This may be true. The increase in damage-control activity in the “creative” right-brain may overwhelm the “functionality” of the left-brain. I don’t know. I do know that in certain situations, and not all of them public speaking, my delivery of coherent and logical speech can be spontaneously interrupted with an internal electrical storm that overwhelms all of my senses and grinds my thoughts, and any hope of recovery, to a halt.

Stuttering has been compared to the structure of an iceberg, with the visible and audible symptoms of stuttering above the waterline and a broader set of symptoms, such as negative emotions, hidden below. Feelings of embarrassment, shame, fear, anger, and guilt are often a result of the inability to communicate clearly. This, of course, leads to increased frustration, tension and effort, which further exacerbates the stuttering. A common end result is self-imposed isolation. With time, continued exposure to difficult speaking experiences may crystallize into a negative self-concept and self-image. **

Stuttering is sometimes seen as a symptom of anxiety, but there is no correlation in that direction, although the inverse can be true, as social anxiety can develop as a result of stuttering. A person who stutters may subconsciously project their opinions onto others, believing that they think he or she is nervous or stupid, which then feeds a self-fulfilling cycle of self-deprecation. Many perceive stutterers as less intelligent due to their disfluency, however, as a group, individuals who stutter tend to be of above average intelligence. **

I deeply appreciate Brené Brown’s TED Talks on vulnerability and shame: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en and http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame. We all have coping mechanisms that help us get through our lives and each of us is different and saddled with our own perceived shortcomings.

All of us, as individuals, are not alone; we are not victims and are not any better or worse off than anyone else. Rest assured that everyone is insecure and needs support. Regardless of our own turmoil and personal battles, it is up to each of us to suck-it-up, get out there, and do the best we can.