Pearls Before Breakfast, But For Only Very Few

A short while back, I was reading an article in the Washington Post about Joshua Bell, entitled Pearls Before Breakfast. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html If his name sounds familiar, Mr. Bell has ties to nearby Bloomington, Indiana. He is also known as one of the best violinists in the world today. If you choose not to click on the link above to read this lengthy, but very good article, I'll give you the condensed version here:

As a little experiment, Mr. Bell was asked to play in a subway one morning to every day commuters, playing a very rare and valuable Stradivarius violin. He would be dressed in normal street clothes, and there would be no indications, such as signage around him, to let people know who he really was. It would be just an ordinary morning with extraordinary music being played.
Experts were asked beforehand, including Bell himself, how many people would stop to listen. It was also hypothesized that he would receive quite a few donations in his opened violin case during his stint as a street musician. After all, tickets to a Joshua Bell concert are pricey, equating to a tidy sum for him as even measured by the minute played, not hour. In all, there were many guesses, but none as low as was the reality.

In fact, of the thousands of commuters that morning, it was the very rare person who even stopped for a moment. After those conducting this social experiment reviewed the tape from the hidden cameras placed in the subway, the only common theme was that small children always seemed to stop to listen -- at least for a moment until their parents whisked them away.Many people interviewed later had not even noticed there was a "street musician" in the subway that day.

A world-renowned violinist playing extremely difficult compositions on a multi-million dollar musical instrument for free to thousands of people passing by -- and only 7 people even stopped to listen. Total tips in his violin case after playing that morning was a measly $32.17, given by about 27 people, who were almost all on the run. And as the Washington Post writer points out, yes, some gave pennies. Very interesting to say the least.

There may have been pearls before breakfast, but very few even accepted them.

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This blog post by Chris Wathen was also published in his Linton, Indiana based Greene County Daily World blog entitled, “Riddle Me This”.