More followup

From my faithful correspondent Joseph Zitt

(and originally posted as a comment on my

href="../../../../../Desktop/artsjournal.com/greg">book site):

One useful buzzphrase:

when I took a performance workshop led by Deborah Hay

style='mso-spacerun:yes'> in

w:st="on">Austin, one thing that she insisted on for

all performers was that they "Invite being seen." Performers have to

be conscious that they don’t become invisible once they stop sounding, and

that, unless they are playing in the dark or physically obscured from the

audience, they will been, and what the audience sees as their state affects how

things are heard.

A while back, I saw a performance

by a good Bay Area rock band, invited by one player of the moment (who has

since moved on to another town). When she asked for my reaction, I said that

she played the music well, but was a problem when not playing — she would

twiddle noiselessly with her instrument, stare off into space, or look blankly

in a random direction. I suggested that she use that time to visually channel

the audience’s attention toward the other members of the band as appropriate:

either the lead singer, or another performer who either was taking a solo or

playing a significant other part. (This was especially true since she was

strikingly attractive, and a lot of the audience was watching her anyway, thus

increasing her resposibility to channel their

attention.) This appeared to work, and a later performance seemed my tighter,

even though the sound of it was identical, through her attention to the

audience’s attention.