Musical Observations

I went to some intra-Columbia concert where a few groups of students played classical music. I’m not going to talk about the music, which was good, but about the concert’s penumbra, which has taught me several important lessons.

1. Time taken to tune the last piece’s instruments: 9 minutes. Time the piece played: 10 minutes.

2. People come to these concerts for two reasons – free food and socialization. My guess is that at a given concert, fewer than 5% of the attendees are there just because they like listening to the music.

3. For an Ivy League university with a sizable endowment, Columbia is really cheap about the free food.