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It is so rare these days … silence.
In the restaurant, in the airport, in the car, the home—multi-tasking is rampant.
I’ve had rehearsals in some countries where some of the musicians watched TV at the same time that I was etching out some phrasing in Barber’s “Adagio.” I quickly put an end to that.
It is ironic that people want smoke-free environments but have never considered that they are surrounded by music pollution. The great 20th century American composer Paul Hindemith referred music that is piped in to unwanted places as “the vast sound sewage system in America.”
But sound pollution comes in many forms. En route to Madrid, a crowd was so rowdy and loud that I shushed them up several times. In return, they mocked me—aggressively.
Even worse was the following flight back to New York. Minutes before the plane was to land, the staff piped in a “calming” jazz to chill to. Actually, the very loud music was designed to take our minds off the fact that we were landing—a naturally worrisome time. Unfortunately, the very loud jazz music had the opposite affect. I could not focus on the landing and calmly stay with it. I became distracted and nervous.
My father, the great violinist Oscar Shumsky, was angry when he went into a restaurant where music was playing in the background. He would always make the staff shut it off. If the poor waiter made matters worse by switching the channel to classical, my father became outraged. This was much worse because great musicians must listen; they automatically listen. Music in the background is a sign of a lack of focus. Any musician worth his or her weight is tuned in—not tuned out when music is playing.
And, too, aren’t we training non-musicians not to listen to music with their hearts and minds?
It is an age where the IPODS have 30,000 songs crammed onto a single chip. We can compare Nathan Milstein, Jascha Heifetz, and Oscar Shumsky to see who is best. Then before a phrase is even finished, click to the next 42 violinists playing the “Paganini Moto Perpetuo” in unison. Listen to 10 different versions of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony and five different versions of Bruckner’s Seventh. While I am at it, let me fill out these IRS forms and fax them, all while my computer plays the “Star Spangled Banner” performed on a didgeridoo by an Aboriginal virtuoso.
Years ago when the great violinist Jascha Heifetz debuted at Carnegie Hall, the buzz after his rendition of the “Wieniaski Scherzo Tarantella” lasted for months— even years. His performance was etched in the mind of the concert-goer. He had an indelible style and left his mark. The great old artists had their style and each could be distinguished very clearly from one another.
We have crowded out romance in life, lost meaning and value, and substituted noise at a deafening volume so that we will never hear again—all to keep us from hearing our inner voices.
So it is no shock when few artists today have much left which is individually characteristic. Naturally our goals have been shifted to five triple axles which can be viewed on my IPOD which also has the didgeridoo version of “Stars and Stripes” (plus kazoo) and 13 winds of which 16 versions exist on my GPOD—the new and improved version of the IPOD!
But what’s the alternative?
My suggestion: take a walk in the woods without your IPOD. Just walk. All alone. Listen to the real sounds that still live.
All the greatest composers were inspired by the silence and the non-silence of nature, long before the IPOD existed.
Too much info, too much music, too much criticism, too much advice, ideas, CDs, politics, religious brainwashing, and so on—the old pioneers in music forged their own ways to hear the solutions in their minds and work out their most effective expressions.
Turn off the IPOD and your cell phone and take a walk—a new, naked walk in the woods.
Eric Shumsky is a concert violist. For more information, see www.shumskymusic.com.
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