October 26, 2004 - 12:09 PM

Talkin' 'Bout the Pre-Applause Pause

Yesterday, as I drove around Hollywood doing various runs, I listened to an interview on NPR's Day to Day with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, who plays around L.A. alot at places such as Largo and the Knitting Factory. The interview was to promote his latest CD, a live affair recorded in Tokyo, but most of the focus was on his cover of a Nick Drake song titled "River Man." For the most part, it was an interesting interview discussing how Mehldau interpreted the song, originally done by Drake with guitar and voice, for the piano. The interviewer, Noah Adams, didn't try to cover up the fact that he wasn't familiar with Drake's work, and he let Mehldau explain the musical quirks of translating a haunting, loping vocal melody in 5/4 time through his fingers into a piano language that sings.

But then he asked one of those non-question/questions that interviewers often ask when they are stretching to make some sort of "intelligent" connection with the interviewed. The kind that leaves the interviewed befuddled as to how to answer, and makes the audience fidget and avert their eyes from the radio because they feel uncomfortable for him/her. Not as bad as a Chris Farley question (to Paul McCartney: "re..ree...remember, uhm...when you were in the Beatles?...uhm...that was awesome."), but still just as confounding. The question was, "What is it like when you're playing in a hall and you've got (the audience)...breathing with you, and then you finish: there's that space between the sustain of the note and the applause. What's that like for a pianist?"

You hear Mehldau mentally fumbling with the answer, pausing, giving what he thinks is the right answer, then going back to clarify exactly what Adams was asking. Adams is slient, just letting it slide, perhaps content with the tepid answer from Mehldau, perhaps realizing that there is no satisfactory way to get a meaty answer out of the question, or perhaps too polite to grill for the answer that he wants.

To be fair, it's not a totally crap-ass question. I admit that there IS something unique that happens in that brief lull between when a musician finishes a piece and when the audience begins to applaud. As an audience member, which is probably where Adams was coming from, if you're into the performance, you are sucked in, focusing your attention on the performer and the music, breathing along with the piece. At the end, as the last note rings out, your breath is held along with that note, suspended in the air...an uncomfortable tension lingers as everyone waits for that first clap to break the silence. There's that shift from being a singular listener immersed in the moment to being a member of an appreciative throng, aware of your surroundings and clapping your heart out.

And for a performer, if you're not just going through the motions, you are in a zone with the music as you play. Sometimes you're driving, sometimes you're being driven, but there you are, inside the music and its emotions. You can get a little sense of this intense investment in a performance from sports, but I don't know where else you can get the full experience. It's thrilling and draining and so fulfilling. And then you get to the end, and that last note rings out, and its like you were a camera zoomed in on one spot at maximum magnification, and in a split second, you zoom all the way out. And now you remember, oh yeah, I'm on stage, performing, and there are people out there in those seats.

I don't know if that gives you any idea of what I'm talking about; it's one of those things that's tough to describe. Who was it that said "talking about music/art is like dancing about architecture"? It's a glib soundbite to be sure, and not wholly with merit since I think you can talk about music and have it not be a fruitless conversation. But there is some truth to it, especially as it pertains to the experience of creating and performing music. That's something that can't really be conveyed to a second party. You just have to experience it for yourself.

I would've loved for Mehldau's response to the question to be, "It's like I've just finished the song, and I'm waiting for the audience to realize it's the end and then clap." Or even better, "It's like I have to pee really really bad."

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Random Thought : Happy Birthday this past Sunday to Phil. He's 29 now. Woo!

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