Would You Notice an Elite Musician Playing on the Street?

One morning in 2007, just before 8 am, a Metro station in Washington saw its usual rush of commuters pass through on their way to work.

Little did these commuters know, this was no ordinary morning.

Because at the Metro, set up and ready to start busking, was one of the most elite classical violinists in the world. Joshua Bell would go on to perform for almost a quarter of an hour, as 1,097 commuters passed by.

The Washington Post organised the performance to see if the beauty of some of the most highly regarded music performed by one of the most highly regarded musicians would transcend the context of a subway station in morning rush hour.

Would people stop to notice?

Of course, one assumes they would. Beforehand, the editors thought about crowd control as a possible concern. This could turn into a huge scene. They were worried.

Alas, they shouldn't have been.

Only seven people in total stopped to listen for at least a minute.

Bell made a total of just over $32 from 27 commuters who gave him money.

Only one passer-by recognised him.

Expectations and context drive experiences

Over a decade on from the Washington Post’s experiment and the results are still baffling. It strikes me that we claim to be the most easily-distracted humans in the history of our species, but we’re probably not very good at using that propensity for distraction well.

We’ll dive into 1000 tabs -- emails, social media, that weird YouTube rabbit hole -- over making progress on that important project. Still, we’ll struggle to indulge in good distraction: Distraction that serves us by giving us a moment of appreciation for the beauty in nature, or music, or story.

Context, expectations and priorities drive much of our attention. This makes sense, as our brain has evolved to be efficient. If we stopped to notice absolutely everything around us, we wouldn’t get too much done.

Research has shown that if you give someone wine that they think is more expensive, they will have a more enjoyable experience than if they think it’s cheaper… even if it’s the same wine.

Another study put a bunch of poems together to be rated by people. Some of the poems were original, famous poems, and others were random ones the researchers made up (probably over a glass of wine). They assigned some of the poems the names of famous poets, and some fake names.

Poems attributed to famous poets were ranked consistently higher than ones with random names. Even the bogus poems, when they had a renowned name tacked onto them, were rated almost as highly as authentic ones.

Our expectations shape our experiences: Presumably, people assumed that if they recognised the name of the poet, the poem was probably a good one. If they didn’t know the name, they could still decide it was a good one, but it would probably take more work to come to that conclusion. The brain didn’t have a signal of the poem’s quality, so it couldn’t jump straight to a higher ranking without considering it carefully. On the other hand, expecting a famous poet's poem to be great probably increased the enjoyment in reading the poem anyway.

When Joshua Bell was playing his violin at the subway station, it may have been a similar process. He was wearing regular clothes, busking while people travelled to work. There was nothing to signal – aside from the beautiful performance – that people should pay attention. No sign, no suit, no paparazzi.

The expectation of going through the Metro in the morning would not have involved seeing an elite musical performance. Without signalling to draw people away from their bustling daily travel routine, it would have seemed a lot like any other day.

So, why would you stop for a moment to notice the busker you pass by if you never usually do?

Keep on rushing to work, because that’s the priority and the expectation.

Maybe there was even some inattentional blindness (or deafness) at play.

Inattentional blindness

You can check out the most common test for what we’re about to discuss here. So as not to ruin it for you, I encourage you to try it yourself before reading on. (Click on the link – the clip will only take a few minutes).

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Inattentional blindness (or selective attention) is the psychological term for not seeing something right in front of you, for no other reason than you were focusing on something else.

The test above asks participants to count the passes made between the players in white shirts. The team is playing along with a second team in black shirts.

In the exercise, most people are so focused on counting passes being made they don’t notice the person in a gorilla suit who walks through, stops and jumps around a bit before walking off again.

Inattentional blindness may be why leaving a project or draft for a while and coming back to it with ‘fresh eyes’ really does make a difference. When we’re super ‘in’ something, it’s easy to miss everything else. It could be why, when you're scrolling on your phone, you literally miss things - people speaking to you (that would be inattentional deafness, I suppose), or someone standing right in front of you, waiting for acknowledgement.

Finding good distractions

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them.”- Marcus Aurelius

I do not doubt that I have missed hundreds of Joshua-Bell-at-the-Metro-like opportunities. I’ve walked passed buskers hundreds of times without stopping – because there is always a meeting, or a booking, or something else to rush to.

Buskers aren’t the only good, beautiful distractions. There’s stopping in the middle of your beach walk to sit and listen to the waves for a while; stopping to notice and appreciate a full moon; putting the work phone away to enjoy the dinner with the people you love; not taking that call when your friend is telling you a great story.

Or even, putting the phone away more generally, so you’re not just half hearing your friend’s story; you’re immersed in it.

There are a million beautiful things we don’t see each day, and things need to be that way because, again, brain efficiency etc. But if we prioritise paying more attention to taking in the little moments of splendour, maybe we’ll be happier for it.

I’m not as good at stopping to smell the roses as I’d like. I’m focusing on it this year, by taking regular moments of pause to appreciate the little things in front of me. It’s hard to break the pattern of only paying attention to what you always pay attention to, but I suspect it will get easier with time.

Perhaps you can also consider looking to expand your realm of attention; making more room to dwell on the beauty of life, as Marcus advises. A few moments each day to notice the beauty around us might be all we need.

Hopefully, in time, I (and you) can become the kind of person who would fall into that 0.006% of commuters who stopped to listen to a fine classical performer in the middle of the Metro.


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