On Hearing Live Music

I've had three cool opportunities in the past couple of weeks* to hear some live music: a musical, a symphony broadcast, and an opera. It’s gotten me thinking about what’s special about hearing live music as opposed to a studio recording.

One point of excitement/suspense with a live performance, I have to admit, is the chance for something to go wrong. Schadenfreude, right? But when I’m watching or listening to a studio recording, I know that I won’t hear some brass instrument gizmo being dropped onto the stage in a quiet moment. I won’t see the male lead struggling to subdue his giggles as the female lead continues singing while trying to cope with a wig malfunction (as happened in an operetta I saw years ago). I know the performance won’t be interrupted due to an unwelcome critter flitting around the auditorium (as happened recently at a show where an acquaintance was playing in the pit). Something about that is a tad boring.

Mistakes and snafus signal the presence of real, live people. So that’s one appealing thing about a live performance—the unmistakable presence of people and the sense that anything can happen.

Of course, people are not always a good thing. I have a low tolerance for audience felonies, misdemeanors, and technical fouls. I get annoyed by the cacophony of coughs that ring out between movements at concerts by the local symphony—it’s as if 19^th century music transmits tuberculosis. And at the musical I attended recently, I was disproportionately annoyed by the jangling bracelets of a woman one section over and (worse!) the piercing light of a cell phone from someone in the section in front of me who just HAD to text or email two or three times during the two-hour show. I had to remind myself that formulating withering one-liners for a bolder self to deliver to Mr. Cell Phone at intermission was a bigger distraction from the performance than the glowing, bobbing screen itself. Yes, I get annoyed, and yes, I need to get over myself. In any case, people always make things…interesting.

Another great thing about a live performance is the context. I like dressing up a bit, going out. Perhaps on some level I love overpaying for parking in a well-lit, guarded lot in a neighborhood that’s a little iffy. I love sitting in a venue fitted or retrofitted for music, reading program notes (though they usually contain far too much info to absorb on the spot), hearing the hush when the lights go down. I love meandering through the crowd at intermission, talking over impressions of the music and the performance. I love bundling up in the winter for the walk back to the car. I have so many awesome memories of evenings like that—they all reinforce each other.

And when I listen to a symphony broadcast by myself at home on the couch in PJs with my cat and a pot of hot tea, I love that too. I still have some context in the sense of making sure I’m home from the grocery store on time, making sure my tea is done, and more. Listening to a studio recording just doesn’t (normally) do the same thing for me. 

* To state the obvious, I have been offline for quite a while. This was due to 1) this being the busiest time of year at work, and 2) computer issues. To some extent I got back in the saddle, violin-wise, this past weekend. I hope that my real life, including my blog quasi-routine, will resume soon.