who did you think i was?
Is John Mayer really a celebrity?
Context is everything. Of course, Joshua Bell could have told him that. (Be sure and click both links and watch the videos.)
I started this post just because I think Mayer is usually pretty hilarious in his videos, and this one is no exception. But then I remembered the Bell article and got thinking about what people actually notice when they notice artists.
Now, it’s easy to see why people might not recognize either Mayer or Bell by their faces (fine looking men though they are), and Mayer didn’t give them much music to go on. But Bell’s music? You’d think they’d realize it wasn’t just some J. Random Busker.
There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.
Is it just about busy lives? Or do people need context to interpret what they see and hear? Or do we need it to tell us what’s good (cool/wholesome/whatever floats your boat), because we won’t or can’t trust our own ears?
(John Mayer Trio, Try!)
(Joshua Bell, Nocturne (Chopin))
categories: biz, music, oddities
tags: celebrity, John Mayer, Joshua Bell, TMZ, violin, Washington Post.
posted by boolz at 09:48 pm
It’s my turn to feel you were reading my mind, Boolz. Last night I was thinking about how much I don’t like seeing “0 comments” on your great posts, and was wondering if I could come up with anything substantial to say on any of them. So I thought about how the first time I saw Buddy Guy was when John Mayer invited him to be a guest performer with him on Austin City Limits (ca. 2004) I just now went there to remind myself of what songs they did together, and see if there was a link; but, alas, the only performance there now is JM’s 2007 appearance. So I tried Google and found that the two songs John did with Buddy Guy were “Come Back to Bed,” and “Leave My Little Girl Alone.” Then I came here and found this John Mayer post. It’s downright spooky.
The video is really funny. I would know John Mayer on the street. I wouldn’t know Joshua Bell, but would recognize the genius of his playing and wouldn’t mind being late anywhere to stop and listen.
I love this part of “Try” lyrics:
“Gonna try to be myself
Although myself will wonder why”
and, I really connect with these two parts of Gene Weingarten’s outstanding article:
“The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.”
“For many of us, the explosion in technology has perversely limited, not expanded, our exposure to new experiences. Increasingly, we get our news from sources that think as we already do. And with iPods, we hear what we already know; we program our own playlists.”
These videos are fun and interesting, but especially the Bell one because it’s not really about recognizing a celebrity, but recognizing great music. I agree with the quotes that Karen selected: our senses are dulled from the moment we are born. That means that great music can sound foreign and unapproachable when you first hear it, because one’s sensory system is a little out of breath from lack of exercise. There is also the odd (related?) fact that there has to be an element of pain and depth (sometimes, not always) for it to be great music. I can somehow understand why the sounds coming from Joshua Bell’s violin would feel like something you don’t want to dwell on, in the sense that great music can hit a nerve that makes us feel all sorts of complex feelings, and that process “hurts”. You have to give yourself over to pain and beauty, something children do effortlessly. Also, the acoustics were crap.
I think you’re both on to something, but it’s got me off wondering about the conditions when that wall isn’t there. It’s not there for kids, but what about the adults?
1) The two men in the article who took notice: both were already tuned into music. One, as a guitarist pretty ignorant of classical music, recognized and connected with the passion in Bell’s music, so it spoke to him. It’s like, if someone is saying something profound enough, universal enough, and with enough conviction, we’ll understand it, even if it’s in a language we don’t speak.
The other guy, as a violinist himself, already spoke this language, and was bowled over to hear it when and where he wasn’t expecting it, and to hear it done so well.
I thought it was interesting, for both these guys, they stood back so as not to insert themselves into Bell’s space. They were interested in the communication and didn’t want to interupt it.
2) The woman who was not especially tuned into classical music, but who recognized Bell from seeing him at another performance. She stayed right up front while he was playing, talked to him and made sure he realized that she recognized who he was. Why did she do that? Does it enhance the musical experience, or is it part of the celebrity experience? It intrigued me, because I’m aware that there are some people for whom it’s important that artists make eye contact or otherwise acknowledge the listners during performance, and wondered if this was a similar thing. I’m more like the guys in (1) - I get into the music more if the artist maintains that 4th wall.
3) What about the people who pay money to got hear Bell? Do they recognize the power of the music, and is that why they’re there? Is it, for some, just a social thing? In other words, does the context/setting make it easier to access the music, does it just provide a convenient way for people already prepared for it to get to it, or does it not make a difference - there are still people who are not really hearing it, but there for other reasons.
4) I’d like to see this experiment done where serendipity is removed from the time-crunch aspect. Most of the people who rushed by without listening cited their busy schedules and preoccupation as the main problem. Maybe they’re right. In my life, I run across buskers not while going to work, but while doing more leisurely things, like shopping or going to dinner. I’ll often stop to listen. (I was intrigued enough with a group I heard on the street in Munich once, that I recognized one of the players when I ran into her in a totally different context in Massachusetts 8 years later). Having the time to appreciate the music as an unexpected addition makes a difference. If Bell had been put in some shopping/dining district some evening, would it have come out differently? My guess is yes, but not radically so. Not the crowds that Slatkin and others predicted, but still different.
5) What do people think of the comparison to visual arts? My first reaction was “no, that’s a totally different thing, of course no one would react to the great painting among lessers”. But now I think that’s just my reaction because I’m way less tuned into visual arts. I have been struck by a painting in a gallery, when all the others (by the same artist) left me cold, or by a ceramic sculpture in a shop window. Not that I could say authoritatively that it was “Good” with a capital G, but just that it’s beauty was compelling enough to stand out and grab me on that day and time. But the painting in the coffee shop? I don’t know. Most of what you see is obviously bad, so would the museum one stand out? Worth another experiment, I think.
John Mayer is kind of a goof. reminds me of a parody he did on the chapelle show and a clip he did for TMZ where he walked the streets and randomly sangs lines from his song seeing if someone would recognize him.
Boolz, you make some interesting points about what it takes for us to connect with art both inside and outside established settings like concert halls and galleries. But I wonder why you would doubt that the process of connecting with visual arts is any different from connecting with music. I think it’s basically the same process.
About the ability to “tune in” to the core of artistic experience: I was with a friend once at an exhibition of modern, and I mean modern, art. And man, were we tuned in. At one point we badly needed to sit down on the lawn in front of the museum for cake and coffee and tune out, and for that purpose we needed chairs. All taken. But then we see two chairs just inside one of the exhibition rooms. They look like garden chairs and are sort of hinged together on the side of the seats, and we go in and attempt to unhinge them, which is extremely difficult, and so we struggle and sweat, more and more focused on our need to sit down and have our cake and eat it – by which time other guests on the lawn begin to notice our efforts, spoons and cups stopping in mid-air, whisperings being heard. Suddenly, we realize. These chairs are not chairs. They’re not chairs at all. They’re part of the exhibition. They’re like.. art. Fuckety-fuck, we’re destroying Art. A small sign on the floor says something about a sculpture by so-and-so from 1964. Exchanging a series of intense, blank looks – if that is possible – my friend and I decide to go into a synchronized panic-attack.. when a nice man comes over to us, points to the chairs and says, “chairs”. Points to a humongous bronze sculpture outside on the lawn from 1964 that the sign was in fact referring to, and says, “art”. So what can you do. Laugh hysterically, and take a bow.
A very funny story, DP, and one that begs comparison with Boolz’ point number 3. Sometimes people let others decide for them what constitutes important art, just as they sometimes let others decide for them what constitutes important music.
Personally, I could never connect with art in the same way as music. A connection with art requires being in its presence, and somewhat forcing the connection. I don’t believe that art can reach into your very soul and cause an intense visceral reaction in an instant the way that music can. As soon as you leave art’s presence, your connection with it becomes tenuous. You can’t reconstruct it by humming, whistling, or singing it; and, unless you have a photographic memory, you can’t see it in its entirety in your mind’s eye the way that you can replay music in your mind (granted, not everyone can do this either, but I think it’s more possible for everyone than seeing all the nuances that drew you to a work of art).