by Sidney S. Stark
The intent of that phrase has always been clear to me; or so I thought. It seemed to imply a non-specific amount of sharing, whether in an athletic endeavor, a business negotiation or even an argument. But it wasn’t until recently that I really examined the idea of giving and taking in communication; and specifically in the performing arts with a bias toward music.
I’ve often been lucky enough to be the recipient of live performance in theater or music when the actor or musician has a special emotional charge that is easily picked up. By the same token, I’ve often heard performers say they can ‘feel’ affecting vibrations coming from the audience. It’s a good thing they can as they can’t see past the first couple of rows, if that far. The rest of the theater is a big black hole once the lights go down, so they have to imagine the audience ‘out there’ and intuit their reaction. I was at a performance last year where the singer asked the lighting engineer to keep the house lights on so he could see his audience and communicate in a more natural way. That singer’s ‘give’ also involved some ‘take’, so it was a different kind of performance. The audience played a role, if only a limited one.
A few weeks ago, I was thrilled by a chamber music performance given for about forty people in a private home just as that music was designed to be heard. The music itself was evocative and romantic and the musicians, who are among the best young performers from Julliard, visibly floated on Mendelssohn’s tides of emotion. I’m fortunate to have regular access to these student performances and so I’m used to seeing the passion displayed on their young faces either from close range or the back of the theater. At the recent private chamber music recital however, one young female cellist came up to me and took me aside as the guests and performers were socializing afterwards. She said she wanted to tell me how much it had meant to her to be able to see my face during the recital because of the powerful impact their performance was clearly having on me. She said it meant so much to the musicians to get that kind of direct communication from the audience who they rarely, if ever, can see close up. I understood the importance of having the message be two-way once in awhile.
But later her remark gained a deeper importance for me. If her initial communication about the meaning in Mendelssohn’s composition was given to me as she played, and I took it from her and then gave back my feelings about his message and her interpretation to her with my expression, we experienced another level of communication that made the entire process more meaningful to us both. I thought about her effort to share her reaction with me and realized it had been like a current of energy continuously going both ways. The give and take had gained strength with each move.
We all know people who unfortunately want the last word. I can’t imagine anything worse, knowing how the energy of a thought dissipates if it doesn’t get shared. That young cellist made me see how important ‘give and take’ is to the power of communication. I learned a lot from the gift she returned to me after I gave it back to her; and I hope she understands this essay perpetuates the momentum.