Imagine you’re on your morning commute, hustling through the train station, thinking about the day of meetings ahead of you and how you wished you had prepared more.

A musician in jeans and a T-shirt is playing classical music on a violin.

Do you stop and listen? Throw a five spot in his case? A dollar? Change from your morning cup of coffee?

What if he’s really bad? What if he’s really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn’t you?

What if I told you that the musician was Josh Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made?

Surely you would notice, right?

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, 2007, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as Josh Bell performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them as they walked by, for a total of $32.17.

The $32.17 is skewed, however. Stacy Furukawa gave him a $20. That’s right. 62% of his take was from the one person who recognized him.

1,070 people hurried by, oblivious, only feet away, few even turning their head.

It was an experiment put on by the Washington Post. Gene Weingarten wrote Pearls Before Breakfast, the excellent article covering the entire, astonishing event. You can read it here.

The video from the hidden camera, sped up to show the indifference of the passerbys, is below.

Remember, context matters.