Gifts

The other evening the Nameless Cynic and I were watching a rental of The Secret Policeman's Other Ball from 1981. If you're not familiar with the Secret Policeman's Balls, they are a group of performances in England, going back to 1976, that raise money for Amnesty International. Anyway, Sting came on to perform Message in a Bottle. Now, I willingly admit that I am not much of a Sting fan. I don't care for his voice, and I find him to be pretentious. But, I do appreciate his talent and also admit that he's probably brilliant. This particular song was the first hit by The Police in 1979, and yet, here was Sting going solo. Just him and his electric guitar. I liked it, sort of.

I still don't care for his voice, I find the tone to be flat and uninteresting. Here's where things get a little confusing, and I'm trying desperately to find better words. I don't think that his intonation is flat, he's singing the pitch just fine. It's his focus that I find flat, or horizontal, and that makes his voice too spread out and shapeless. A good tone is round and full, not flat and without form. 

But, back to his performance. I thought that without the rest of the band, he had more freedom to explore the nuances of the song. Suddenly, the words in the chorus: "I hope that someone gets my," repeated, each time softer and more plaintively, were interesting and touched me. At times he is wailing in his despair, and I thought that, too, was very effective, going along with my conviction that we don't always want to make beautiful sounds. If the emotion isn't beautiful, then the voice should reflect that.

And now, before I go any further, here's that performance for you to enjoy. Take your time, I'll wait.

Wow, you were gone a long time. I was getting worried. But, now that you're back, let me talk about the things that I didn't like. 

About half way through the song, I noticed what he was wearing. I know that rock stars have a different image to project than opera singers. But, some of the other performers were wearing suits, or at least nicer clothes than an olive-drab uniform. Perhaps he was making some statement, but I was reminded of how we were taught to dress for a performance in Master Class in college. What you wear tells your audience what you think of them; were they worth the effort of dressing well or not? The message that I got from Sting was that they were not. And this message was really driven home at the end of his performance. 

Go back to the video at 4:00 and play til the end again. It's just a few seconds, won't take long at all. I won't go on till you get back.

Good. So, here's what I saw. He plays the last few licks on the guitar (a Stratocaster, if you're curious) and without waiting for the notes to die away, he says "Thank you." The audience obediently applauds, and without acknowledging their appreciation, he unplugs his instrument and walks off-stage. I was insulted, even watching this on video 31 years later. 

Here's one way to look at this. When we perform, whether on piano, guitar, voice, whatever your instrument may be, once that music has left you, it no longer belongs to you. It is now the property of the listener, and their experience of the music should not be deminished. 

Let's try it this way: someone gives you a gift. It's wrapped in lovely paper that just makes you excited to see what's inside. (Whether you're one who carefully opens the paper so as not to damage it, or prefers to rip it open, doesn't really matter in this analogy.) You open the box, and there inside is a wonderful gift, it's exactly what you wanted. You look up to thank the person, but they have already walked off, and all you can see is their back. 

That's what Sting did. Except, he made it even worse. He said, "Thank you." before the music had even finished. After that performance, there should have been a moment of silence as the final echo died away just before the audience burst into applause. But, he destroyed that moment of shared emotion. And then refused to allow them to thank him for the gift. All of this, the lack of pretty wrapping paper, the interrupting that glorious last echo, and then walking off, tells me that he wasn't performing for the audience. He was performing solely for himself. And I felt insulted. It was a if while you are gasping at the gift you've been given, getting the breath to express you're gratitude, the giver walks off. 

I want to take the gift analogy a little further. When someone gives you that wonderful gift, and you start to thank them, how would you feel if they interrupted you, and started explaining how it wasn't what they had planned on getting you, but the store was out and they had to get you THIS instead. Suddenly your joy in what you had thought was the perfect gift has gone, and you are probably feeling let down, and maybe cheated just a bit. 

This is the same thing that happens after a performance, if you make a face while the audience is applauding, or later tell one of them about all the wrong notes you hit, how you flubbed the phrasing in the second verse, or any of the multitude of things that went wrong. Remember, once the music leaves you, it belongs to the audience. Don't detract from their experience by belittling it. Let them enjoy the gift.