What Joshua Bell's experiment tells us

[LCF]

9 hours ago, The Violin Beautiful said:

The whole thing was devised by the Washington Post as a “social experiment” to suggest that people couldn’t perceive value in artistry if it wasn’t presented in the correct setting. Joshua Bell was recruited to be the performer. There was a suggestion that the fact that he had given sold out concerts in major concert halls at $100 a ticket but wasn’t recognized and monetarily rewarded by commuters was a testament that art only has value in how it’s presented and that the public essentially isn’t smart enough to ooh and ahh if you’re not holding up cue cards for them and charging enough for tickets to convince them that they must be paying for art.

As an attempt to “redeem” the public for its reputedly shameful failure to forsake everything to gape in wonderment at a violinist they probably couldn’t hear very well during the peak of rush hour, a second “experiment” was set up several years later. This time Bell picked a better spot and didn’t try to disguise himself. This was presented as a better outcome, although it was still necessary to dumb things down for the public by making Bell’s presence better known. 

How can we be certain that he was playing his hugely valuable main instrument and not just a bench copy? Taking a fragile multi-million dollar instrument to a seedy corner of a subway seems very risky to me. Were there armed guards nearby, possibly somewhat menacing and discouraging?

 

 

[Yoshiharu Ito]

8 hours ago, Shunyata said:

@Yoshiharu Ito tor article talks about two things… beauty of the form, and functionality of the form.

The beauty of form has been well-studied and linked to mathematics.  I think it is important to understand the co-arising nature here.  I know beauty when I see it; I study beauty; then I can intentionally design beauty.  
 

It isn’t clear to me whether Stradivari created beauty from internal knowledge, intentional design, or both.   Looking at artists I know, few “design” beauty with geometric constructions, but all have an innate awareness of those underlying principles, through education or experience.  I suspect the same was true of Stradivari. 
 

Another key principle of beauty is a having a similar amount of detail and design at every scale, from the overall profile to the small features.  This is where I think Stradivari really advanced the instrument.  I suspect this came more from general artisanship than design.

On the functionality side, the instrument is so complex that we aren’t able to reliably engineer function even today.  The current form was discovered through an evolutionary process.  There are apparently no other local optima (many variations have been tried) so the form has been frozen.

In this case, the only possible improvement would be a truly revolutionary change in form.  These revolutions are difficult to identify and would probably offend our sense of beauty.

Thank you. This helps me find the words.

Formal beauty, embodied knowledge, tacit knowledge ... these are all present, and they transform through years of making. You can see it simply by watching how a maker's style changes.

But a frozen form sits uncomfortably with me. In Renaissance and Greek thought, form was never fixed. It was always in pursuit of something.

[Yoshiharu Ito]

8 hours ago, Matthew_Graesch said:

FWIW, I suspect Stradivari was a small-business owner trying to keep afloat in a tumultuous political and social time just like the guy in town who made brooms or pottery or ropes or flour.  As mentioned, I expect that he was motivated most by things that sold the best, and would make whatever he could sell easiest for the best prices.  I suspect pragmatism was much more prevalent than the romantic view many folks have with 300 years of hindsight.  

Potential scenario: he makes a fiddle, sells it to someone famous or important, they love it, and suddenly all the people want to have a fiddle just like the Duke of XYZ so he copies it and sales blow up.  No different than a modern TikTok trend selling tons of a certain handbag or cologne or shoe.

Just my $0.02

That may be true. But a TikTok trend doesn't refine itself over thirty years.

Maybe he followed the market, and something else was happening at the same time.

[Dr. Mark]

11 minutes ago, Yoshiharu Ito said:

In Renaissance and Greek thought, form was never fixed. It was always in pursuit of something.

The 'Ideal' - the Platonic theory of forms - is probably a good starting place as any.  The second Enlightenment of the West.

[Don Noon]

34 minutes ago, Yoshiharu Ito said:

... but I am curious whether anyone has gone deeper into the neuroscience of how we hear beauty in music.

I have a question for you about the acoustic spectrum: when you talk about a desirable response curve, is that goal based on specific neural responses when people hear it  or purely the result of trial-and-error by ear? And does that "desirable" curve vary between makers?

The "neuroscience of how we hear beauty and music" I think would be an endless black hole of effort and produce nothing conclusive, as random test subjects would find different things beautiful.  Would a Pavarotti fan have a positive response to Janis Joplin, or vice versa?  I know of no attempt to go there; researchers tend to avoid huge projects with minimal likelihood of a tidy conclusion.

The "desirable response curve" is basically taking groups instruments deemed to be good, making the measurements, and comparing the results to instruments deemed not-so-good.  I believe Dunnwald started this kind of study, and the results appear fairly consistent with what I have seen from Buen, Curtin, Zygmuntowicz, Schlelke, and my own measurements.

I haven't measured that many Strads, but it appears to me that the spectral curves have a bit different shape than most others.  That might be due in part to the thinness of the plates that Strad seems to use, and Curtin thought that thinness had the specific effect we were seeing.  If a maker consistently uses similar forms, arching, graduations, and wood selection in their making, one would expect to see spectral curves more consistent than with wider variations. 

Many makers have attempted to build identical copies, and the more attention to detail, the more closely the response curves appear to get... although there have always been significant differences in the attempts I've seen.  One example where the form and arching of a Strad was meticulosly copied, but the extremely thin graduations were not:  the response curves were completely different, and not surprisingly, they sounded very different.

[Yoshiharu Ito]

17 minutes ago, Dr. Mark said:

The 'Ideal' - the Platonic theory of forms - is probably a good starting place as any.  The second Enlightenment of the West.

This is, for me, the most important perspective, that truth, goodness, and beauty arise from nature itself.

Plato and Ficino are indispensable for understanding the Renaissance. 

Do you think this Neoplatonic foundation is still alive in instrument making today    or has it been lost?

[Stephen Fine]

There's some misremembering of the article, I think (if my memory serves).  It's not that he didn't make much money.  My recollection is that he made about $50 for his busking which was normal (at the time in a major metropolitan area).

Paraphrasing Michael a bit, I think one of the lessons is that a fair number of snobs are posers.  But I do think that article has a valuable lesson about how we experience art and beauty.  I don't think the lesson is that we should sneer at people who enjoy the experience of dressing up, visiting a beautiful theater, and hearing a program along with an attentive, appreciative audience.  For me, the lesson is that I can probably have a richer life by learning deeper and appreciating more.

I know that if I heard Josh Bell in the subway, my ears are such that I wouldn't be able to walk away until I figured out who he was or until I said, "Hello, who are you, you sound amazing."  (And then I'd go home and tell my friends, "I saw the best player I ever have seen busking in the subway.  It was crazy! Very fun.  I did not like his playing.") I know that most peoples' ears are not like mine.  And every facet of life is like this... there is deep knowledge to be had about everything.

On the topic of OP's question about violin quality.  I'll say this... it wouldn't be the violin that I'd be hearing in the subway.  If I heard Josh Bell playing on a crappy student instrument, I might say, who is that amazing violinist playing on that terrible violin, but I definitely wouldn't think I'd be able to tell the difference between Bell playing the Gibson-Huberman and whatever other decent violin might be lying around.  There's the famous story about Heifetz rejecting the compliment of, "Your violin sounds so beautiful," by picking the violin up, holding it up to his ear, listening carefully, and saying, "Funny, I don't hear anything."

PS- on the other hand, I'm quick to attribute my own success as a performer to my spectacular viola (currently in the shop, send positive energy to quickly locate and eliminate a buzz)

 

[jviseltear]

Why should we expect to recognize or appreciate something beautiful before us when scenes of suffering are also passed by or ignored, no doubt on the very same subway platform, during the very same rush, hustle, or commute? If we had a response to the latter, perhaps we'd find an ear for the former. At the time, I found myself thinking (or hoping) this question was the point of the stunt - be it inspiration or indictment. 

[Yoshiharu Ito]

2 hours ago, Don Noon said:

The "neuroscience of how we hear beauty and music" I think would be an endless black hole of effort and produce nothing conclusive, as random test subjects would find different things beautiful.  Would a Pavarotti fan have a positive response to Janis Joplin, or vice versa?  I know of no attempt to go there; researchers tend to avoid huge projects with minimal likelihood of a tidy conclusion.

The "desirable response curve" is basically taking groups instruments deemed to be good, making the measurements, and comparing the results to instruments deemed not-so-good.  I believe Dunnwald started this kind of study, and the results appear fairly consistent with what I have seen from Buen, Curtin, Zygmuntowicz, Schlelke, and my own measurements.

I haven't measured that many Strads, but it appears to me that the spectral curves have a bit different shape than most others.  That might be due in part to the thinness of the plates that Strad seems to use, and Curtin thought that thinness had the specific effect we were seeing.  If a maker consistently uses similar forms, arching, graduations, and wood selection in their making, one would expect to see spectral curves more consistent than with wider variations. 

Many makers have attempted to build identical copies, and the more attention to detail, the more closely the response curves appear to get... although there have always been significant differences in the attempts I've seen.  One example where the form and arching of a Strad was meticulosly copied, but the extremely thin graduations were not:  the response curves were completely different, and not surprisingly, they sounded very different.

Thank you. It truly is a black box.

People perceive beauty through a framework of context. This is why I find the Joshua Bell experiment even if 'out of place' so interesting. If It tried to remove that framework, Even in the 'Paris experiments,' the context of 'Stradivari' and ‘professional’ already controls the brain, right?

A few years ago, I visited Martin Schleske’s workshop. His work with acoustic spectra and his drive for innovation were deeply inspiring. deference material, inovating... It showed me the approach will be true potential of modern making.

We all pursue better sound. But when we look at it through the lens of acoustic spectra, what kind of 'reproducibility' are we actually aiming for?

Is it a scientific reproducibility, where we try to match frequency peaks and response curves? Or is it a functional one, the consistency of the instrument as a tool that responds to the player's intent? Or is it the bridge between both?

[Yoshiharu Ito]

1 hour ago, Stephen Fine said:

There's some misremembering of the article, I think (if my memory serves).  It's not that he didn't make much money.  My recollection is that he made about $50 for his busking which was normal (at the time in a major metropolitan area).

Paraphrasing Michael a bit, I think one of the lessons is that a fair number of snobs are posers.  But I do think that article has a valuable lesson about how we experience art and beauty.  I don't think the lesson is that we should sneer at people who enjoy the experience of dressing up, visiting a beautiful theater, and hearing a program along with an attentive, appreciative audience.  For me, the lesson is that I can probably have a richer life by learning deeper and appreciating more.

I know that if I heard Josh Bell in the subway, my ears are such that I wouldn't be able to walk away until I figured out who he was or until I said, "Hello, who are you, you sound amazing."  (And then I'd go home and tell my friends, "I saw the best player I ever have seen busking in the subway.  It was crazy! Very fun.  I did not like his playing.") I know that most peoples' ears are not like mine.  And every facet of life is like this... there is deep knowledge to be had about everything.

On the topic of OP's question about violin quality.  I'll say this... it wouldn't be the violin that I'd be hearing in the subway.  If I heard Josh Bell playing on a crappy student instrument, I might say, who is that amazing violinist playing on that terrible violin, but I definitely wouldn't think I'd be able to tell the difference between Bell playing the Gibson-Huberman and whatever other decent violin might be lying around.  There's the famous story about Heifetz rejecting the compliment of, "Your violin sounds so beautiful," by picking the violin up, holding it up to his ear, listening carefully, and saying, "Funny, I don't hear anything."

PS- on the other hand, I'm quick to attribute my own success as a performer to my spectacular viola (currently in the shop, send positive energy to quickly locate and eliminate a buzz)

 

I agree. A concert is not a place to 'grade' whether one can identify a Stradivarius or not. It is an act of connecting with art, learning from the extraordinary, and seeking a richer life.

That is why, as in the story of Heifetz, we should not merely praise the instrument. We should speak of the performance, the player, and the fusion of the instrument’s history and philosophy.

 

This leads to one fundamental question: What is the true purpose of making a 'good' instrument? (This is a deep topic, so I will leave it for another time.

I hope your viola reaches a wonderful state and becomes a true source of strength for your playing.

[Yoshiharu Ito]

1 hour ago, jviseltear said:

Why should we expect to recognize or appreciate something beautiful before us when scenes of suffering are also passed by or ignored, no doubt on the very same subway platform, during the very same rush, hustle, or commute? If we had a response to the latter, perhaps we'd find an ear for the former. At the time, I found myself thinking (or hoping) this question was the point of the stunt - be it inspiration or indictment. 

I completely agree. This is, at its heart, a matter of ethics.

As Dr. Mark suggested, I believe that both music and instruments should ultimately lead us toward the Platonic Ideals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

[Pluto Vermin]

11 hours ago, Mansfield Piggot said:

What it tells me is if your publicity stunt involves slamming the public, and winning a Pulitzer prize for it, people will hate you for the rest of their lives.

3 hours ago, Yoshiharu Ito said:

That sounds like an extremely high-risk experiment...

Totally reckless.  Luckily they weren't playing with stuff that could ignite the atmosphere or create a time loop.

[Dr. Mark]

2 hours ago, Yoshiharu Ito said:

Do you think this Neoplatonic foundation is still alive in instrument making today    or has it been lost?

This in particular seems so fundamental that to lose it is to lose emotions, and that's an AI thing.  Probably easier to lose the need to breathe, which may occur at the same time.  If you mean do many makers >consciously< try to achieve some ideal in an instrument - what I do know is that this venue is full of them so there are likely others.

[Don Noon]

3 hours ago, Yoshiharu Ito said:

A few years ago, I visited Martin Schleske’s workshop. His work with acoustic spectra and his drive for innovation were deeply inspiring. deference material, inovating... It showed me the approach will be true potential of modern making.

I know that a few years ago, Schleske was putting in a lot of research and effort into his "tonal copies" project.  It is my understanding that the result was generally similar to the original, but still different.  I also believe he is not doing that any more (but could be wrong). 

I too tried to copy a good Strad, but only dimensional (form, arching, grads), no taptones or other plate mode matching.  It had some tonal and spectral similarities to the original, but still very different, much of which I attribute to not knowing the wood densities involved, and I used modestly high density because of the known thinness of the plates.  I found out later that the Strad wood was much lower density than I used.

At this stage, I don't see any necessity to try to duplicate anything in particular.  The "great" violins cover a lot of different tonal characteristics; there is no specific "best" for all ears and players and pieces of music.  I think an experienced maker can (by trial and error) learn what happens to tone when the arching, or graduations, or wood type is varied.  At that point, the maker can do their own thing to get the approximate character they want.  I suspect that is what Schleske found out.

[martin swan]

Imagine a beautiful landscape photograph on a simple piece of photographic paper, lying on a table.

Then put it on some backing card and put it in a nice frame. It immediately looks better, more intended, more professional.

Put some glass in front of it - better again.

Hang it on a wall - now there's an intention to share. It has gained importance.

Hang it on a wall in a street corner commercial gallery with a price tag - now it's a transferrable asset.

Hang it in the public art gallery of a large city and it has become an important piece of shared cultural history.

It's still the same image.

I suppose the interesting question is: as an artwork, and in the conception of the photographer at the time of taking the photograph, which of these states/places was it destined for, and is that part of the essence of the work or extraneous to it?

A post-modernist would say that even if two photographers take exactly the same photo, the one who has previously had a retrospective at MOMA is doing a very different kind of activity from the one who plans to occasionally look at the photo on their smartphone.

[The Violin Beautiful]

According to the Washington Post, Bell made $32 and played his Strad at the time. They wanted him to be using a Strad so that when it got little attention they could make it look more dramatic. The idea was to say “Look how people don’t pay attention to a great violinist playing a great violin who can charge $100 a ticket in any major concert hall if he isn’t presented the right way. Clearly this means that people only appreciate beauty if you tell them when they’re looking at it.” So, yes, Bell did make a small amount from his busking and was actually recognized by one person, but the Post wanted this to be glossed over because most of the commuters didn’t stop to listen and didn’t shower him with money.

But if you look at buskers in general, this argument starts to crumble pretty quickly. There are some who make careers out of playing in public and never end up in the “proper” frames, yet their music is appreciated by countless people and sometimes enters into local  or national history. There was a busker in Georgetown who was famous for putting out a large tambourine when he played instead of a hat or case for tips. He ended up immortalized as “Mr. Tambourine Man.” What’s more interesting, though, is that buskers will sometimes find opportunities to play gigs elsewhere when passersby are impressed by their playing and offer them paid opportunities. A good number of musicians talk of having started by busking and then finding success as audiences showed more and more support. A while back, the band Old Crow Medicine show was busking in North Carolina when Doc Watson discovered them and said they played the most authentic Old Time music he’d heard in a long time. They have found a huge amount of success. As another example, a good friend began his fiddling career by busking on weekends and gradually grew interest in his playing until he was offered paid gigs. As he started to build up contacts, he moved to different platforms to advertise his playing and eventually found that his schedule was so solidly booked that there was no longer time for busking. 

People often do perceive beauty in different frames. Isn’t that what things like street art are all about? 

[Dr. Mark]

20 minutes ago, The Violin Beautiful said:

There was a busker in Georgetown who was famous for putting out a large tambourine when he played instead of a hat or case for tips. He ended up immortalized as “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

Do you know if that busker is the 'Mr. Tambourine Man' of Dylan's song? 

[GeorgeH]

27 minutes ago, The Violin Beautiful said:

They wanted him to be using a Strad so that when it got little attention they could make it look more dramatic. The idea was to say “Look how people don’t pay attention to a great violinist playing a great violin who can charge $100 a ticket in any major concert hall if he isn’t presented the right way.

If more people had stopped and listened or if anybody had recognized him, then there would have been no story and no book written about it.

4 hours ago, martin swan said:

It's still the same image.

Well said, Martin.

In regard to Strads and Guarneris, they are still just violins. They are revered because of their rarity and because they were the innovators of the modern violin. Their instruments are not inherently better than well-made violins being made today. We have come a long way in 400 years in our collective knowledge of how to reproducibly make fine violins.

Apple I computers made by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars today because they were the innovators behind the pioneering machines that helped launch the personal computer revolution, not because Apple I computers are good computers today. Andrea Amati, Jacob Stainer, Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, and Gasparo da Salò are the innovators of the modern violin, and that is why their instruments are so revered and expensive. It is not because their violins are unquestionably superior to every violin made in the last four centuries, because they clearly are not.

 

[Yoshiharu Ito]

5 hours ago, martin swan said:

Imagine a beautiful landscape photograph on a simple piece of photographic paper, lying on a table.

Then put it on some backing card and put it in a nice frame. It immediately looks better, more intended, more professional.

Put some glass in front of it - better again.

Hang it on a wall - now there's an intention to share. It has gained importance.

Hang it on a wall in a street corner commercial gallery with a price tag - now it's a transferrable asset.

Hang it in the public art gallery of a large city and it has become an important piece of shared cultural history.

It's still the same image.

I suppose the interesting question is: as an artwork, and in the conception of the photographer at the time of taking the photograph, which of these states/places was it destined for, and is that part of the essence of the work or extraneous to it?

A post-modernist would say that even if two photographers take exactly the same photo, the one who has previously had a retrospective at MOMA is doing a very different kind of activity from the one who plans to occasionally look at the photo on their smartphone.

This is essentially the concept of framing, isn't it?

And I think that is exactly it.

This question is uncomfortable for everyone involved in instrument making  and at the same time, deeply fascinating.

[Yoshiharu Ito]

6 hours ago, Don Noon said:

I know that a few years ago, Schleske was putting in a lot of research and effort into his "tonal copies" project.  It is my understanding that the result was generally similar to the original, but still different.  I also believe he is not doing that any more (but could be wrong). 

I too tried to copy a good Strad, but only dimensional (form, arching, grads), no taptones or other plate mode matching.  It had some tonal and spectral similarities to the original, but still very different, much of which I attribute to not knowing the wood densities involved, and I used modestly high density because of the known thinness of the plates.  I found out later that the Strad wood was much lower density than I used.

At this stage, I don't see any necessity to try to duplicate anything in particular.  The "great" violins cover a lot of different tonal characteristics; there is no specific "best" for all ears and players and pieces of music.  I think an experienced maker can (by trial and error) learn what happens to tone when the arching, or graduations, or wood type is varied.  At that point, the maker can do their own thing to get the approximate character they want.  I suspect that is what Schleske found out.

I deeply agree.

Perhaps the most honest thing a maker can do is try to understand — each in their own way ,what greatness was actually pursuing.

Thank you for this fascinating exchange.

[Don Noon]

5 hours ago, martin swan said:

Hang it in the public art gallery of a large city and it has become an important piece of shared cultural history.

It's still the same image.

Leave it on the wall for 100 years, and likely the paper and the photographic chemicals will age and give the image a visibly different character.  

34 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

In regard to Strads and Guarneris, they are still just violins. They are revered because of their rarity and because they were the innovators of the modern violin. Their instruments are not inherently better than well-made violins being made today. We have come a long way in 400 years in our collective knowledge of how to reproducibly make fine violins.

Wood too can change with age.  New wood transmits light more easily, old wood becomes more opaque.  Something in the chemistry changes.  It is not unreasonable to postulate that if the chemistry changes, the acoustic properties can change as well.

As a maker, it has been my experience that the first few days or weeks of a violin's life is when there are fairly obvious changes in sound and playability.  Other makers have mentioned the same.  Over hundreds of years, I believe there are changes too... not necessarily all the same in every instrument, but collectively a recognizable shift that can not be duplicated in modern making.  It is not a good or bad thing until people decide so.

[Yoshiharu Ito]

1 hour ago, The Violin Beautiful said:

According to the Washington Post, Bell made $32 and played his Strad at the time. They wanted him to be using a Strad so that when it got little attention they could make it look more dramatic. The idea was to say “Look how people don’t pay attention to a great violinist playing a great violin who can charge $100 a ticket in any major concert hall if he isn’t presented the right way. Clearly this means that people only appreciate beauty if you tell them when they’re looking at it.” So, yes, Bell did make a small amount from his busking and was actually recognized by one person, but the Post wanted this to be glossed over because most of the commuters didn’t stop to listen and didn’t shower him with money.

But if you look at buskers in general, this argument starts to crumble pretty quickly. There are some who make careers out of playing in public and never end up in the “proper” frames, yet their music is appreciated by countless people and sometimes enters into local  or national history. There was a busker in Georgetown who was famous for putting out a large tambourine when he played instead of a hat or case for tips. He ended up immortalized as “Mr. Tambourine Man.” What’s more interesting, though, is that buskers will sometimes find opportunities to play gigs elsewhere when passersby are impressed by their playing and offer them paid opportunities. A good number of musicians talk of having started by busking and then finding success as audiences showed more and more support. A while back, the band Old Crow Medicine show was busking in North Carolina when Doc Watson discovered them and said they played the most authentic Old Time music he’d heard in a long time. They have found a huge amount of success. As another example, a good friend began his fiddling career by busking on weekends and gradually grew interest in his playing until he was offered paid gigs. As he started to build up contacts, he moved to different platforms to advertise his playing and eventually found that his schedule was so solidly booked that there was no longer time for busking. 

People often do perceive beauty in different frames. Isn’t that what things like street art are all about? 

In a sense, it is a time-based art , not just in the music itself, but in how its value comes to be recognized.

[The Violin Beautiful]

58 minutes ago, Dr. Mark said:

Do you know if that busker is the 'Mr. Tambourine Man' of Dylan's song? 

Yes. That was what I meant when I said people have been immortalized.

[GeorgeH]

52 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

Wood too can change with age.

Yes, but as you say:

52 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

  It is not a good or bad thing until people decide so.

It will remain forever impossible to determine whether any changes due exclusively to aging of the wood are helpful or harmful to violin performance. There are far too many other variables - strings, repairs, adjustments, setup, bows, and countless others - to conclude that old violins are better or worse because of wood aging. But the question is also largely irrelevant, because well-made new violins can be just as good as old violins. Furthermore, I understand that some makers have experimented with building new violins from very old wood, and those instruments are not discernibly different from violins made with modern wood.

Apparently Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù violins made from the contemporary wood of their own era were very good when new. Despite claims to the contrary, no one can prove that they have improved over time.

[deans]

I agree completely with TVB, as someone who once used the Metro and now use an even more hectic system. There are so many distractions, and at some point you will have seen everything. Easy to pass by all kinds of unusual things.

With that said, if a player with his skills set up regularly, even in that busy spot, within a few weeks people would have started noticing and he would have been on the 6pm news as a phenomenon. And with today's social media, it might only be a couple days.