{"id":709,"date":"2007-04-14T19:21:43","date_gmt":"2007-04-14T09:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=709"},"modified":"2007-04-14T19:29:14","modified_gmt":"2007-04-14T09:29:14","slug":"a-buskers-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"A busker’s life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having just spent four days doing street performances with Will o the Wisp musical circus<\/b><\/a>, I was intrigued when Sharon<\/b><\/a> spotted this article in the Washington Post online<\/b><\/a>. Take one virtuoso violinist and place him out of his usual context playing to sell-out audiences in the US and Europe’s finest auditoriums and place him in a subway station in Washington DC and observe how people react. <\/p>\n

The result is amazing. Watch the videos and see the reactions – or almost complete lack of reaction! I know how he feels: I reckon street performance is one of the hardest genres. As violinist Joshua Bell notes <\/p>\n

“When you play for ticket-holders,” Bell explains, “you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I’m already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don’t like me? What if they resent my presence . . .”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he was playing a 1710 Stradivarius violin! <\/p>\n

Some say my style is …well…vigorous – and that’s because I began my musical career by busking. Very quickly I learnt that if you move with the music people get more responsive. It’s that immediate that you can learn a lot from busking. You get instant feedback on what works and what doesn’t – at least when there is a responsive crowd of passers by.<\/p>\n

I suspect there is also a bit of commentary here on US culture – people being utterly absorbed in their own worlds that it takes a lot for people to take in their surroundings. <\/p>\n

The article is a fascinating insight into art and context.<\/p>\n

Cheers
\nJerry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having just spent four days doing street performances with Will o the Wisp musical circus, I was intrigued when Sharon spotted this article in the Washington Post online. Take one virtuoso violinist and place him out of his usual context playing to sell-out audiences in the US and Europe’s finest auditoriums and place him in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}