I thought of another analogy to the Joshua Bell busking in the Metro story

[xiphias]

So, if you took a world-class neurosurgeon and put him on a battlefield doing battlefield trauma medicine, how would he do?

I bet he'd do fine. Even do pretty well. But he wouldn't do significantly better than a good medic. He probably wouldn't do quite as well. He'd still do well, but not as well as someone who was specifically a battlefield medic.

That's what they did to Joshua Bell. And he did pretty damn well, $32 in 45 minutes.

You put that neurosurgeon in a top-flight hospital with all the other things he'd have around him, he'd be able to do even more amazing things. In a battlefield situation, given the time constraints and the environment, even if he's got his own tools, he's going to be limited in what he can do. He'll be able to do the sorts of things that a battlefield medic can do.

Put a top-flight concert musician in a busking situation, and, at best, he's going to be able to do what a busker can do. And he did it. He really, genuinely succeeded at it.

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Most definitely. But when you read the article, theres a sort of "bemoaning" that more people weren't Stopped by the Power of Classical. Particularly the critic at the beginning who predicts a huge crowd will form.

I think that's where the .... objectivity of the article fails for me. I found it rather hard to read for that reason.

N.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I can't figure out if that part is Classical Music Chauvanism, or simply total ignorance of how busking works. Or both.

[ckd]

I think the critic can be a few minutes late to work without getting fired, and figures that everyone else is in the same situation.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Not sure. I wonder what the critic would think of a world-class jazzer in a train station...