Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is, “The Importance of Quiet in Music.” There are many aspects to this question. It’s important to be able to have a dynamic range in your playing. In fact, there’s no better way to draw in an audience than to come down very quiet. But what I’m talking about is the importance of the audience being quiet, and that’s the subject!
Play quietly to summon silence
Something that I like to do if an audience is making noise, ruffling their feet, talking, or doing things that are distracting, is to play quietly. You might think you would want to play louder to overcome the noise, but the opposite is true. If you come down in volume, the audience has to be quiet! They might even shush the person making the noise. Because they want to hear the performance! Talking during a musical performance is so annoying to everybody around, particularly if the music gets quiet. The problem is, we live in a world where music is so pervasive. There’s music playing almost everywhere. So, people are used to talking through music. It’s not only recorded music, even when there’s live music in restaurants and other places, people often talk through it.
Have respect for your neighbors at concerts.
When people who are not familiar with Classical performances go to concerts, they think it’s okay to talk. Worse yet, some people will have a piece of candy. They think somehow, if they open it slowly enough, nobody will notice. They know it’s making noise, so they’re nervous about it. They take an excruciatingly long time to get that candy open, while driving everybody around them nuts. It’s best to wait until after the performance is over to indulge in sweets.
If you have a really bad cough, maybe you should give your tickets to someone else.
Coughing can destroy a musical performance. For example, I try to post musical performances of mine on my YouTube channel. I even have a section you can check out if you want to hear some of my concert performances. But many of them don’t end up being utilized, because there’s some loud coughing right at the most delicate part of the performance. Just remember when you go to concerts, it’s an experience that you want everybody to enjoy. Make sure you can be quiet and have comfortable clothing so you won’t feel like you have to move a great deal in your seat. There’s nothing worse than a chair that squeaks! You don’t even want to move because it causes a disruption. So, check that out when you get to a concert so you can enjoy the performance, and everybody around you can as enjoy the music as well. I hope this is helpful for you! It’s seems like common sense, but not everybody has grown up with Classical music the way I have, so I think it’s important to share this. Thanks again for joining me!
I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
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6 thoughts on “The Importance of Quiet in Music”
I was about 10 years old when I was asked to play at a ladies afternoon tea in a church hall. I got half way through the piece I was playing and got so upset at the women all talking and not even paying attention, I stood up, slammed the piano lid down and walked out. Now there was complete silence!
I guess that’s one extreme way of quieting an audience!
I have a chronic cough that I can largely control with certain measures. Most of the time they work, but there is no guarantee, and I did go to one concert where I started coughing, and it did annoy the people around me. I was so embarrassed! And then someone offered me a cough drop that contained an ingredient that would have made the cough worse, and I had to turn her down. (And unwrapping the cough drop would have been annoying, too!) But that is the only time I can remember I ever had that problem. If I stayed home because I might cough once in an hour, I’d never go to a concert at all. So while I think the audience should be quiet, I’m not going to condemn someone who has an occasional problem that can strike without warning.
The only time you have to really be quiet is if you are ever a guest at a recording session! You have to make sure you are near an exit if you feel a cough coming on.
Perhaps if a pianist wants quiet, she should retire to the recording studio like Glenn Gould did. But to me, that renders music pristinely inhuman without natural ebb, flow, and breath that I so value and desire. Sometimes to find those things we have to tolerate all the crazy human behavior brought into, and circumstances we find in, the concert venue. True and sad enough today, we seem to be living in a supremely egotistical society whose members often care little about manners and courtesy on the occasions when they can control their behavior! Best to worry only about our own behavior!
With the scarcity of live performances since the various lockdowns, having some noisy audience sounds pretty refreshing!