Subway Music for a Good Cause

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I’m fortunate to live in a city that oozes culture.  From the orchestras and the ballets to the concerts at Madison Square Garden or Radio City Music Hall, NYC knows no shortage of spectacularly good music. But, many people (even those who live here) fail to notice the smaller things. Free concerts in the park(s), small music venues that bring in upcoming band after upcoming band, street performers/subway musicians all often escape attention from the general public.  I personally can’t count the number of times I’ve walked by a particularly amazing violinist in the 14th St/8th Ave subway station instead of stopping to listen, all in the name of getting home that much sooner.

In my case, I was wandering home from the cheese shop after choosing to ride the subway the few short stops home instead of risking my cheese on the 95-degree walk from one side of my neighborhood to the other.  I walked into the station and headed down the stairs to the platform while listening to what sounded like a full band playing down below.  To my surprise it was only 2 saxes and a fairly simple drum set, but I still purposefully missed my arriving train and watched them play until the next train came about 10 minutes later.

Now, I’m just as guilty as anyone of passing by subway musicians or street performers. You really get used to ignoring things when you live here.  You ignore the people begging for change on the sidewalk, the taxis incessantly honking their horns, the foul smells originating from bags of trash waiting to be collected, the people handing flyers out for yet another free comedy show, the charity petitioners begging for a second or two of your time, the phone conversations you happen to overhear… you get the picture.  I wrote about the practiced art of ignoring life in the city before when this blog was just a wee baby blog (ok, a really wee baby blog) and it still stands true today. We ignore, we segment, we automate, and we forget how to communicate with people.

We forget what it means to connect.

Me and my cheese connected with new music on Saturday. We connected with the ladies dancing beside me, the numerous other people that missed the first train to stand and listen to these guys play, the people stopping to drop a few dollars off in their case and of course, the music.

I took a video (of course) – watch. It gets REALLY good around 1:15.

You know what I wish, though? I wish they’d included their name.  I dropped some cash in to help them with their quest to record, but I’d love to see them play in a proper venue someday.  Anyone that makes me spontaneously stop for an extra 10 minutes just to sit and listen deserves much more than a few bucks.  But alas, they didn’t put their name on their sign anywhere.

Lessons learned? Be ridiculously good and be easy to find.

Tagged as: best practices, music, new york city