Defending convention, a friend suggested we show our respect to the musicians by dressing for the occasion, but surely what matters more is that we listen carefully and express our appreciation, not least by paying.
An then there’s the issue of where we play…
The concert hall and the opera house, however intimidating, are usually the best places to listen to music, and silence is usually the right background if you want to listen attentively. But these, often unwelcoming places needn’t be the only ones. Classical music works on the underground, in railway stations, in shopping malls. Sometimes, when it catches you unawares, music has the capacity to startle you in unexpected ways, just as Poetry on the Underground (a Transport for London project) can provide inspiration when you least expect it.
Surely it’s time to let musicians and music lovers wear what they like – pyjamas if they want to – to let music happen in all sorts of places, and to pull down the barriers between players and audience.
Encouraged by the Washington Post, Joshua Bell busked briefly on the Washington Metro some years ago and earned towards 35 USD. What the Washington Post was trying to prove isn’t clear – that people don’t recognise quality unless it’s validated by context? But commuters hurry and don’t have time to stop and listen, however thrilled they might be by a burst of Kreisler. I busked myself at Covent Garden Market in the early 1980s, earning amounts of cash that impressed me at the time. It was fun, a different kind of fun from formal concert-hall playing, but exciting nonetheless, not least because those who listened were different. After all, for the audience, it wasn’t about the clothes, about seeing or being seen. If they lingered for a minute or two, or simply smiled inwardly whilst passing by, it was by choice.
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