JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Monday, April 9th, 2007

I used to live in DC and I am familiar with the location of that train station. Within about two blocks is a hotel where I played New Year's Eve for about 100 members of the Phillipine-American Medical Society and their spouses. As I recall I received a fine dinner and over $200 for the night.

Here's my response to the Post: An interesting and well presented article. It brings to mind a similar experiment done nearly twenty years ago on Key Bridge. Don and Mike of WJFK frequently held stunts in public and in this case they had a listener volunteer to dress down and pretend to be a homeless person. They had him beg from drivers and he ended up with about twelve bucks an hour - a little less than what the maestro did, minus the twenty donated by the fan who recognized him. Then, after a few weeks, I positioned myself in Georgetown, along M Street and played my guitar and harmonica. I also got about twelve bucks an hour.
Steve Dockendorf
Clearwater, FL

I agree with Jody. Context is important. I don't think any communication, art or otherwise, will find its mark easily without some preparation in the form of at least moderate marketing. That is why positioning and branding are so important. The maestro Joshua Bell gets the big bucks he deserves because he gets the promotion he deserves. He is marketed to the public that appreciates that type of music and can afford price he commands. On the other hand, the subway experiment did not result in zero response. The kids and the occasional commuter did notice. Pure art injected into society at random is not the ideal method to realize financial success, but nonetheless does result in some recognition and appreciation, however small. I just remembered another busking event that illustrates this. My band was set up early for a gig in downtown DC and I had about an hour to kill. I had a sax in my car that I was just learning to play (my main instrument was bass guitar) so I went out on 19th Street to a deserted area of office buildings and began playing the notes I'd learned so far. No recognizeable songs. Just improvising and playing with as much feeling as I could muster with what I'd learned so far - about ten different notes. In 45 minutes there couldn't have been more than a half a dozen people set foot on that block. I ended up with about four dollars, as I recall.