[Dixielandjazz] Joshua Bell - was - Smell the Roses, Hear the Music

[Stephen G Barbone]

Bill Sharp posted a very interesting, but condensed take on Joshua  
Bell's "casting pearls before the swine" in a subway station in  
Washington D.C.

Interested people who want the full story, complete with Videos should  
visit:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

Paste the entire link into your browser.

Then, consider, in 43 minutes he made $32.17. That's $40 an hour from  
1097 passers by, complete strangers who had other priorities, like  
rushing to work.

(Actually he made $52.17 because one man who recognized him gave him  
$20, That's about $60 an hour)

Shoot, that's more than many, if not most, OKOM musicians on this chat  
list make, from people who specifically come to a venue in order to  
hear the music, applaud loudly, and then complain that live music is  
too expensive.

Hmmmmm.

Lets face it, you can probably make more money busking for strangers  
on a busy street corner then you can with fans, knowledgeable or  
otherwise at . . . . (name your favorite cheapo jazz venue).

Philosophical question: If a great musician, classical or jazz,  plays  
great music but no one really "hears" . . . was he any good? Music is  
like beauty. What is beauty?That question has been studied by  
philosophers  for thousands of years including Plato and Socrates  Is  
is a measurable fact (Gottfiied Leibniz). Is it mere opinion (David  
Hume). Or is it as Immanuel Kant postulated, a combination of each,  
influenced by the state of mind of the observer at the time? Or is it  
something else entirely?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband