Choral Caffeine: Educating the Audience

Every conductor has a bag full of audience horror stories . . . ringing cell phones, screaming kids, and clueless folks who think they’re at the local basketball game. Oh, sure, we may laugh about it when we’re together at a conference, but truth be told it is a pretty big irritation for most of us.

Taking a positive and proactive view of audience behavior, Scott Buchanan shares some ways to strike a compromise with those folks on the other side of the footlights through his article, “Educating Contemporary Audiences – Times Have Changed” (Central Division Resound, Spring 2011). He outlines several useful ideas beyond just placing an announcement in the printed program:

<> Host a pre-concert chat. Focusing the audiences’ listening will lower their need to do distracting things.

<> Write program notes that keep the audience engaged in the listening process.

<> Demonstrate various musical elements before performing a selection (for instance the parts of a fugue).

<> Find ways to have the audience participate that will take them from being passive listeners to being active participants.

Try one of these at your next concert. The sanity you save may be your own.

(To access the full article, simply click the highlighted title. For additional articles on a dazzling array of choral topics, visit ChorTeach.)

John Howell says

November 30, 2011 at 10:05 am

Scott et al.

I would disagree with only one of the points you provided: “Write program notes that keep the audience engaged in the listening process.” (And in fact this was discussed just a little while ago on the Community Bands List.) First, we write our program notes and then turn off the lights so nobody can read them during the performances! Second, that perpetuates the “us vs. them” break created by the proscenium and the stage. And third, it’s awfully nice NOT to give our audiences something they could get just as well–no, to be honest, BETTER–from listening to the radio or a recording.

And I would suggest that the answer lies in show business, with which more of us should have a more-than-passing acquaintance. The job description for a “Master of Ceremonies” goes back far in history, to a time when observing the proper protocol during court activities (or even during church services, and ESPECIALLY when the two intersected as during royal weddings and funerals) was so important that a court functionary was charged to keep track of all the rules and tell everyone what to do and when to do it.

Entertainers routinely talk to their audiences–sometimes well and comfortably and naturally, sometimes not. I spent 20 years in show business (and ironically was the “quiet” one in my quartet who hardly ever spoke), and those spoken introductions and transitions were an important part of the flow of the show. On radio and later on TV the duties were handled by announcers, who certainly read their scripts but had the skill not to SOUND as if they were reading a script. (It’s called “acting,” and their latter-day descendents are Disk Jockeys who too often indulge in OVER-acting!) The top military bands and choruses routinely use speakers, most of whom do memorize scripts and read them very effectivey. But let’s not forget that the “authority figure” on stage is US, the conductors who in theory understand not just the music we conduct but also what makes it special and interesting. And some of us speak well, and others of us do not, so we have to find the best ways to communicate. But written program notes are not necessarily the best way, and detailed music theory analyses of themes and obscure musical tricks in the music definitely are NOT!!!

I do my research and make sure I know what I want to bring out, but perhaps because of my long experience in show business I never write it out ahead of time and read it off the page or try to memorize it. The written word is NOT the spoken word, except in the hands of a gifted playwright and an equally gifted actor. Instead, I just talk with my audiences, point out some things that seem especially interesting to ME, or that I think might be interesting to THEM, and then we perform. When it’s Early Music (one of several hats I wear), I give them enough background to understand WHY this music was written. (It also help the flow when people are leaving or entering stage, but makes it necessary for the girls not to wear shoes that sound like clomping horses!)

My longtime partner, who did most of our MCing, summed it up this way, and it’s still good advice: Before you start talking, know how you’re going to START and how you’re going to END, and don’t worry about the middle, just talk to them like a friend. And guess what, it works!

Of course that’s just me, and wouldn’t work for everyone, but I give my class lectures the same way. I may have an outline or a very basic lesson plan–or these days a PowerPoint presentation–but I speak from the heart and fill in the missing pieces to the best of my ability. The human voice is absolutely the BEST tool for shaping thoughts and indicating by emphasis what is really important and what is not, and the written word is always a pale imitation of personal speech.

All the best,

John

Comments

John Howell says

November 30, 2011 at 10:05 am

Scott et al.

I would disagree with only one of the points you provided: “Write program notes that keep the audience engaged in the listening process.” (And in fact this was discussed just a little while ago on the Community Bands List.) First, we write our program notes and then turn off the lights so nobody can read them during the performances! Second, that perpetuates the “us vs. them” break created by the proscenium and the stage. And third, it’s awfully nice NOT to give our audiences something they could get just as well–no, to be honest, BETTER–from listening to the radio or a recording.

And I would suggest that the answer lies in show business, with which more of us should have a more-than-passing acquaintance. The job description for a “Master of Ceremonies” goes back far in history, to a time when observing the proper protocol during court activities (or even during church services, and ESPECIALLY when the two intersected as during royal weddings and funerals) was so important that a court functionary was charged to keep track of all the rules and tell everyone what to do and when to do it.

Entertainers routinely talk to their audiences–sometimes well and comfortably and naturally, sometimes not. I spent 20 years in show business (and ironically was the “quiet” one in my quartet who hardly ever spoke), and those spoken introductions and transitions were an important part of the flow of the show. On radio and later on TV the duties were handled by announcers, who certainly read their scripts but had the skill not to SOUND as if they were reading a script. (It’s called “acting,” and their latter-day descendents are Disk Jockeys who too often indulge in OVER-acting!) The top military bands and choruses routinely use speakers, most of whom do memorize scripts and read them very effectivey. But let’s not forget that the “authority figure” on stage is US, the conductors who in theory understand not just the music we conduct but also what makes it special and interesting. And some of us speak well, and others of us do not, so we have to find the best ways to communicate. But written program notes are not necessarily the best way, and detailed music theory analyses of themes and obscure musical tricks in the music definitely are NOT!!!

I do my research and make sure I know what I want to bring out, but perhaps because of my long experience in show business I never write it out ahead of time and read it off the page or try to memorize it. The written word is NOT the spoken word, except in the hands of a gifted playwright and an equally gifted actor. Instead, I just talk with my audiences, point out some things that seem especially interesting to ME, or that I think might be interesting to THEM, and then we perform. When it’s Early Music (one of several hats I wear), I give them enough background to understand WHY this music was written. (It also help the flow when people are leaving or entering stage, but makes it necessary for the girls not to wear shoes that sound like clomping horses!)

My longtime partner, who did most of our MCing, summed it up this way, and it’s still good advice: Before you start talking, know how you’re going to START and how you’re going to END, and don’t worry about the middle, just talk to them like a friend. And guess what, it works!

Of course that’s just me, and wouldn’t work for everyone, but I give my class lectures the same way. I may have an outline or a very basic lesson plan–or these days a PowerPoint presentation–but I speak from the heart and fill in the missing pieces to the best of my ability. The human voice is absolutely the BEST tool for shaping thoughts and indicating by emphasis what is really important and what is not, and the written word is always a pale imitation of personal speech.

All the best,

John

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Mary Jane Ballou says

November 30, 2011 at 8:07 am

Making the audience an active part of the concert – engaging them in singing, telling a story, etc. This is absolutely essential. Musicians may like to sit in the dark and listen to music. Well, most people don’t like it one bit and wishing that they would “be more like us” is fruitless. Create a narrative, give different speaking parts to your singers. Have your ensemble move around the stage, the auditorium. Keep switching things up.

And just resign yourself to a certain level of cell-phone activity. Put the caution in the program and if you think you need it, make the quick announcement. However, it appears that there are a number of folks out there who can’t turn their phones off or to vibrate. Rely on those sitting near them to glare at them.

Most of all, love your musicians and (hard at times, I admit) love the audience.

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Karen Schuessler says

November 30, 2011 at 7:49 am

This is de rigueur at our concerts. We’ve always thought (almost 20 years now) it was most important to provide a way into the music that the audience was about to hear. At first I thought it was primarily for the person of a couple who had come to please the other person who really wanted to come. Now I know they all appreciate it a great deal. It’s anything from a sentence or two to a couple paragraphs about the text, or the composer, or the texture, or the period, or anything that allows a person without a music degree to enter into the experience of hearing that piece for the first time and only once, unlike the choir who has lived with it for a while. (These notes will take me hours. I’m always shortening and paring them down to the essential point. Then I read them because if I ad lib, I can miss my own point and go on way too long. You dare not lose them at any point in the evening.) The tone of the comments is most important. Always invitatory, always “you will love this because” or “listen for …”. Never, ever talking down to folks. If the choir and I love the piece, there is a reason and I share it.

This is such an important topic. Thank you for writing about it.

Karen

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Choral Caffeine: Educating the Audience

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