Silence is Golden
Listening to the rumbling of the 7 train, I was suddenly hit by a loud and intrusive noise. No, it was not the mumbling of the conductor over the loud speaker. This noise was far more excruciating. I turned to my left and standing there holding an accordion was a short, Hispanic man in a sombrero. This performance was unlike other subway performances that I have heard throughout my daily musings on the train. I am usually amused and pleased with the playing styles of subway performers but this guy was horrible. The only knowledge I had of the accordion was how it sounded when Steve Urkel played it, but after listening to Joseph Petric’s performance on the accordion, I realized that the sounds that are produced by accordions are rather pleasing to the ear. The accordion sounds played by the person on the 7 train were not pleasing to the ear and I could not understand a word he said. He sang and spoke in Spanish and everyone seemed to ignore him. I didn’t mind the fact that he sang in Spanish. Actually, his singing was more like screeching and shouting. I just did not enjoy his performance. He walked up and down the cart, but no money was placed in the sombrero. This didn’t seem to faze him. He calmly put the sombrero back on his hat, picked up his accordion, waited for the train to stop and moved on to the next cart. There was never a finer moment where I was glad to only hear the rumbling of the train and the mumbling of the train conductor.
October 18th, 2007 at 9:28 am
This is a fun observation and I especially enjoy your final sentence. It seems like the ‘horrible’ noise made you listen more carefully to ‘ordinary’ noise – ‘ordinary’ noise thus became more musical, somehow?
October 18th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Good job, Eilene! You are right. That accordion player’s music was nothing like Joseph Petric’s at all!! But I think that could be because Petric was playing classical music, and the Hispanic guy on the train was playing a tune he composed himself?? Anyway, I totally agree with you. That music he played sounded like painful nonsense to me.