Mix in 1 Audience

Now we get to the essential trinity: Musician-Musician-Host, where "Host" can be a person, a small gathering, or a huge festival. When there are listeners to the interactive process described below, a dynamic connection is created that is much stronger and more lasting than that among just the musicians. I have both been and seen the adulating fan whose joy cannot be measured when this connection is made and sustained for however-short a time. Those otherwise fleeting moments garner permanent homes in the psyche.

That is more amazing when one considers that it all stems from a series of vibrations that are generated by one human and received/interpreted by another. Do you hear the same thing that I hear? How would we ever tell? I taught Music Theory for 2 years as a grad assistant, and the Ear Training segments of this subject are among the most fascinating -- especially from the perspective of the instructor. I know, then, that when I would give dictation (wherein the students would be given a starting pitch and then were expected to write out a short passage using only their interval-recognition skills), the intent was for each person to be hearing the same thing, or close enough to it. This scenario is quite different from that of a concertgoer's unique relationship with a performer-group. The fellow audience member may hear such a personalized version, depending on many factors, that it may be impossible to compare my listening experience to hers.

But then again, we all know when to chime in with the phrases that the crowd sings, so on some level, we are all in the same musical place. This is the simple equation; and there are those of us who believe that this connection, among a group of performers and their listeners and the music itself, is capable of reaching such intensity and density that cosmic forces are affected.