New York Times critic Anne Midgette muses on the idea that nobody hears the same performance in a concert hall (registration required), even if they are there on the same night. Says she:
We think of concerts as fixed entities. In our age of mechanical reproduction, live performance has become — like a book, a movie, a painting — an object that can be recorded, examined and stamped with approval (or disapproval). So we tend to think that everyone who attends the same performance is hearing the same thing.
But that’s not true, and not only because of vagaries of taste or hearing. It makes a big difference where you sit.
Her primary focus is the variable acoustics and sight lines of different seats in the house. But she touches on a matter of even greater importance — that even if everyone was in the same seat, they would still hear a different performance:
The point is not really that this is a problem requiring a solution. The point is to acknowledge and take responsibility for the role you play in what you hear: to think of the factors influencing your perception, whether it’s where you sit or where you studied, and question how those factors affect what you hear. Seating location merely represents the kinds of limits on individual perception that are also honed by background, taste, prejudice, enthusiasm.
What you experience is a function of who you are, what you’ve experienced up to that moment, who you came with, your momentary state of mind, and whatever emotional or intellectual baggage you bring with you. So, while we can share an experience by being with each other, we are never sharing the same experience.
An old philosophical conundrum suggests that the same man [or woman] cannot step in the same river twice (thanks Heraclitus), since both the person and the river are constantly changing. It’s a valuable thing to recall and respect whenever you produce, present, promote, or critique cultural experiences.
