Changing Conventions
For some background on music as possibility and its role in helping us confront the toxic state of our politics in contemporary society see this introductory post.
In the earlier piece about storytelling, we discussed the “Three Stories in the Room” model. In a musical experience, there is the story of the music/composer, the story of the performer(s), and the story of the participants/audience. The magic in music, where we step outside the bounds of our own experience and feel a part of something larger than ourselves, happens at the intersection point of those three stories. Feeling that sense of belonging is essential to engendering the ability for groups of people to come together and imagine new possible futures they’d like to co-create. Of course, as the artist, part of our job is to make sure that our participants and collaborators feel safe enough in the experience to show up as their whole selves with their authentic stories. In the storytelling post, we talked about how we create that sense of safety with language, but there is another important approach we must consider as well: changing the conventions of the concert.
Our goal when convening a concert should be to get everyone to that place of possibility and imagination, which we do through dialogue and sharing stories. As a thought experiment let’s look at a summary of the components of a “standard” concert in the classical music tradition. Participants come to a hall specifically designed for music, they pay the ticket price to get a seat, the concert begins during which the lights go down and the audience sits quietly taking in the music until it is over, applause and response to the music is only allowed at certain times, it is discouraged to use any electronic devices, and eventually the concert is over and everyone goes back to where they live. I know that there are many different types of concerts and there are differences in other genres, so I acknowledge this is an imperfect generalization. As a starting point though, it illustrates that there is almost no instance during that standard program, where there is an opportunity for dialogue between participants and the performers. Maybe at intermission, if there is one, but that’s disconnected from the music and people are usually focused on other tasks like checking their phones or heading to the bathroom. The format we’ve used for hundreds of years struggles to get us to connect, because it is predicated on a different value system, one that props up the music and musician as a product or service worth being bought or consumed. There’s intentional distance there that helps establish value, where if our goal is social connection and possibility, the music is important, but as a conveyance to our relationship with each other.
“there is almost no instance during that standard program, where there is an opportunity for dialogue between participants and the performers.”
To get to relationship through music, we have to clear the way. So many of our traditions in the concert hall act as barriers to this pursuit, including the separation of performer and audience, the expectation to only respond (clap/talk) when allowed, the limits on the use of electronics and technology, the expectation for how an audience should dress, the location of the performance in a hall that sits firmly outside the comfort of many audience member’s lived experiences, the list goes on and on. We have to be willing to leave the comfort of our concert halls and meet communities where they live. One of my favorite things about the picture that goes with this post is that the audience is arranged around the performers in a circle. You can see on the faces of those in the “audience” that they are completely engaged in the experience because they feel like part of the music, not observing it from a distance. That is just one example of ways that our willingness to adapt our practice to best suit the needs of that unique community can begin to clear the way for real connection to happen. We might also choose to change how we speak about the music and our story to find more resonance, to encourage join in the music making on a particular piece, or to create opportunities in the middle of the performance for the audience to respond with their feelings and stories. There are many different options and we have to be open to all of them and experimenting in the moment if necessary.
When making choices about how to structure our concerts, our guide is always the three stories in the room, and how we make sure that all are present and there is ample opportunity for them to interact in meaningful ways. We don’t always get to choose the details for every element of the concert, especially as students, but there are always elements we can tweak. In fact, some conventions of student recitals work quite well for establishing more connection. Take, for example, the food provided at an after-concert reception. Not only is it a nice gesture of appreciation for family and friends taking the time to come to the recital, it also sets a different, more equitable tone, where we all are here to share in an experience, rather than observe one person. It’s additional time that we spend together after experiencing art where we could be in dialogue about what we just heard and how it made us feel. What if as the performer, we planted some seeds for topics of discussion during that reception. Just providing that slight bit of focus can completely change the nature of that time spent together, potentially leading towards more engagement.
“When making choices about how to structure our concerts, our guide is always the three stories in the room”
I recently learned about a concert series put on by the San Francisco Symphony called SoundBox, which I think changes some of these standard concert conventions in ways that create more audience engagement. These concerts don’t happen in the main performance hall, but in a smaller, more intimate space. Audience members still buy tickets, but are encouraged to show up an hour before the music starts to socialize and settle into the room. There is a bar and snacks provided. When the music begins, it consists of three forty minute sets curated by a particular artist around a central theme. The performances, which are all chamber music and soloists are arranged around the space on a variety of different “stages” and accompanied by high quality digital projections adding to the experience of the music. Everyone stays in the room the whole time, including the musicians who aren’t playing and the using of cell phones to take videos/photos is allowed. A friend who attended one of these concerts remarked that the musicians actually enjoy this format more than the traditional performance, because they get to hear their colleagues play; they don’t feel like they are put on display.
Now the goal with this series may still be to sell concert tickets, but the model shows that by changing conventions of the concert we can increase the capacity for participant and artist engagement. When we take that success and then turn our intention for it towards using that engagement to build community and engage in the work of imagining new possible futures for ourselves, it’s exciting to think what we can accomplish.
