Comments on: Don’t Smell the Roses, Go to a Garden: Joshua Bell Story is BS

By: Sam Swenson

Sam Swenson — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:32:18 +0000

i see the irony that the Washington Post was trying to shed light on, but I agree with you. I find the tactic sort of smarmie.

They’re basically saying ‘Look at what happens when you put a musical genius in front of the masses, in their environment…idiots!…they have no idea what they are witnessing!

This is emphasized by their usage of the ‘Pearls Before Swine’ take-off.

In reality, its all about positioning :: Bad positioning produces bad results.

It’s not like we would applaud a business or company for pitching their fission reactor through an ‘As Seen on TV’ commercial at 3am…

Its not like you’d think you just got a great value out of having an elevator conversation with that guy with the ‘Movie Trailer Voice’ just because he gets like $100K a second to do voice overs! It’s not like you’d scream out ‘Mwahahaha, fool! I just spoke with you for over a minute…for FREE! And you didn’t charge me a red cent!’ as he walks away.

Btw, saw you at 360Flex. Excellent job.

By: Steven Sacks

Steven Sacks — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 04:47:13 +0000

I’m confused. What does this have to do with Flash or Flex?

By: Robin Hilliard

Robin Hilliard — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 03:36:09 +0000

Listening to the audio on the video he was playing extraordinarily well. If a passer by was musically discerning (classical or otherwise) I’m sure they would conciously register that fact. During the experiment most of these people chose not to stop – probably because they were already engaged in an unpleasant experience (commuting to work) and this isolated great experience does little to ameliorate the unpleasant one, or even worse makes the unpleasant one last longer.

As for important lessons, as UI developers we already know that adding Joshua Bells and whistles rarely saves a bad user experience…

By: rob

rob — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:44:54 +0000

i differ on the matter of context. this is precisely a lesson about the artificiality of the contexts we build up around things.

the skill and beauty of the artist’s music is a constant. we change our perceptions, depending on where we are and what we’re doing, to either increase or decrease the perveived value of experiences that are in, or out of, place.

there are many things that we would not like to think of as dependent on context, for example the value of a human life. but do we stop to check the pulse of every unconscious homeless man in the city? of course not. a well-dressed man unconscious on a suburban sidewalk? well, yes.

i think there’s an important lesson here, for those who care to seek it out.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:15:49 +0000

This article reminded me of another aspect of the importance of context. I have often wondered – if the soloist was hidden from the audience if the audience would have any idea who was playing.