Searing a Visceral Memory
In the introduction to this two-part series on designing memorable experiences with music, I argued that the key to making powerful arts experiences is wrapped up in two basic tasks:
To sear a visceral memory into the audience member’s mind.
To give the audience member a story to tell.
Each of these tasks is hard work. And even if you do everything right, there’s no guarantee that the art will stick in the minds of the audience. The purpose of this essay is to lay out a theoretical framework for the first act, “to sear a visceral memory into the audience member’s mind”. It will discuss some principals and tools by which you, a designer of musical experiences, will increase your odds of achieving this with more people, more of the time. There is no magic formula for creating memorable art; still, you would be remiss to not consider the full gamut of choices at your disposal.
Viscera in Music
vis·cer·a /ˈvisərə/ noun : the internal organs in the main cavities of the body, especially those in the abdomen, e.g. the intestines. Ex: Mahler reached into my chest and pulled the viscera right out of me.
Let us pull back for a moment to think about why live concerts have evolved side-by-side with our species. One way to think about this is to examine its cultural analogs. Our Neolithic ancestors gathered in the most resonant chambers of caves to sing together for the magical rites that served to propagate the species. The Greeks and Romans staged musical dramas to share stories of their gods. People throughout the ages have had music in their houses of worship. We consecrate rites of passage (i.e. graduations, weddings, and funerals) with music. The list goes on and on. Communal experiences with music and art are at the heart of what it means to be human.
Picture any one of these cultural analogs (or any other that you can conjure). What do you see, hear, and smell? Who are you with? What do you feel? When I go through this exercise, I feel a vivid answer to each of these questions. These experiences are dripping with context and carry their own range of emotional associations. They each have a visceral weight.
Now picture an orchestral concert, maybe right before the music starts. What do you see, hear, and smell? Who are you with? What do you feel? I can picture it just fine; it just doesn’t feel like anything. In the absence of a deep cultural meaning with a range of emotional associations, a concert (except for the music, we hope) is… inert, waiting to be moved. We know from the laws of inertia that it will take a great expenditure of energy to simply get the ball rolling; likewise, it will take great musical force to simply capture an audience’s attention. Why wait until the first downbeat to get started?
In other contexts where people gather around music, they live, eat, fuck, die, and see god. That power is latent in every ritual of human gathering. But at a classical concert, these forces are suppressed, the ritual itself stripped of meaning.
This is not a Truth. It is a choice.
Here begins our role as producers: to create experiences with music. Experiences are multi-faceted, complex, and inter-sensory. Why work so hard to carefully mold one sensory input stream (sound) but ignore the rest?* With some imagination, we can and should make artistic choices that merge to create a magical space for our music to exist. Don’t you want that?
*To be fair, we actually do work to modulate the sense of sight each and every time the lights come down in the house; we simply dull the sense of sight by turning the world dark. This can be a magical choice. But it’s not the only one.
Musical World-building
In designing artistic experiences, one must imagine everything from the point of view of an individual audience member. Long before the day of the show, you put on our “audience member hat” and visualize everything about the experience you plan to create. What time of day is it? How do I get there? Is there parking? Is there food? Do I sit in a chair, or do I dance? Where am I? What sensory input (sounds, sights, tastes, smells, feelings) will I experience? In what order? Why?
As an audience member, my favorite artistic experiences invite me to inhabit a world. Consider what Hamilton, Disney World, The Queen’s Gambit, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phish, The Dark Crystal, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Burning Man have in common: each invites you to take a few hours of your day to step out of reality and into the realm of imagination. Every moment is curated to take you on a journey fully stripped of the mundanity of daily life.
We do invite people to step into a world when they attend classical concerts, we’re just not mindful or intentional about it. The concert hall itself is a fetishized temple designed for its superior acoustic. But in society in which people are leaving religion in droves, it’s no surprise that it’s hard to get people to sit still in the modern day temple of sound. Even worse, we invite them into the same world no matter what music we play. The ritual (I will linger on this concept of ritual later) is always the same. Walk into the hall. Find your seat. Wait. Read the program notes until the lights drop. Watch the performers (or conductor) enter the stage. Clap. Listen. Clap. Leave.
What would it mean to invite people to inhabit a world with classical music in it? Another way of looking it is this: what sensory input would accord with a musical world? Here are just a few questions to consider:
What do I notice first when I step into the experience?
Who is with me?
What music am I experiencing?
How does light hang in the room?
Who are the characters that I see?
How close or far away am I from them?
What does the music smell like?
Where do I hear the music emanating from?
How would it feel to touch the music?
What do I crave or desire?
The Ur
ur / ʉr / prefix : a German prefix meaning "primeval" or even simply "original"; it is the most ancient, the source, the initial root, the starting point. Ex: The urtext edition has all of Beethoven’s original markings.
At the center of every work of art is some kernel of Truth about the human experience. From this kernel grows a network of dramatic phenomena that give life to an object of experience that is shared through a ritual act. This is, and always has been, the way in which human cultures share their deepest wisdoms with one another.
This may sound lofty and abstract, but it is actually deeply practical. What I mean is this: it is worth spending a great deal of time to contemplate the question “what is this work of art about at its core?” Let’s try a few:
Rite of Spring | ritual death and rebirth
Disney World | wonder
Appalachian Spring | hope in the face of uncertainty
Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind | love and memory
La Valse | entropy
A Haunted House | fear and fun
Beethoven 6 | the Glory of nature
As a performer, director, or producer of art that is shared with others, it is essential to understand the core Truth of the any work one shares with others. By identifying the Ur, you are liberated to make a whole host of artistic decisions that complement its true identity.
A quick aside: art is, of course, subjective. Still, you should have an answer to “what is this work about at its core?” that satisfies YOU. Imagine the counterfactual: how could one go on stage and make a deep impact on an audience without knowing what your performance is about? Further, I would argue that at the core of every work there is only a narrow range of interpretive possibilities that truly communicate the Ur of its inception. Take care to unearth the original relic before moving ahead with anything else. One last note about the Ur. In great works of music, it is often the case that there is a moment (or a few moments) that contains the entire Ur. If you can identify that moment, do whatever you can to make it special; that is your best opportunity to sear a visceral memory into the minds of the audience.
There is no dramatic force more powerful than a clearly articulated Truth.
The Tools
It goes without saying that the core of every memorable musical experience is music. When music is at its best, it is raw, emotional, and above all, Truthful. It is a lifetime’s journey to discover, hone, and share Truth through music — if you haven’t yet considered what that means for you, I urge you to stop reading for a few minutes and meditate on this question.
We mostly pay attention to our music-making. And rightfully so! Playing music well is hard! When it comes to delivering a memorable show, the music is the most important thing by far! In the words of storytelling soprano Lindsay Kesselman “Cry, Shout, Seize, Take, Love, and Tell the Truth.” If you get that right, the magical door beneath each and every audience member has a chance to open.
Even if you do get it right, there’s still no guarantee. People come to the theatre with the baggage of the everyday on their shoulders. Until they relax, trust, and open themselves up, there is no hope at making memorable art. In order for the audience to have a visceral memory seared into their consciousness through art, they must first lose their sense of worry, their self-consciousness, their sense of self, their brains sucked right out the skull, be turned to empty husks in bearing witness to art. Provided the music-making is impactful, there is still more to can do.
I often hear people describe extramusical elements in concerts as… well, bonus features. “It’s a concert “with a film”, “with lighting”, “with actors”. But let’s look at the counterfactual. If you don’t craft an overall environment from the moment your audiences walk in the door, they still experience some environment. If you don’t place the performers in the hall with meaningful specificity, they are still somewhere. If you don’t shape what the audience members see, they still see something. You just didn’t make any choices! And why would give up the opportunity to make choices?!
There are so many tools at our disposal:
Is this a concert? A play? A film screening? An art installation? A ritual?
What does the lighting design look like?
Is there amplification or other sound design?
Is there a specific story?
Where do we place the musicians? On the stage? In the hall? In the balcony?
Is there a narrator or storyteller?
Are there actors? Dancers? Are they on the stage? Embedded in the audience?
Are there films, projections, sculptures, or visual art?
If there are words in the music, where can the audience member turn to understand them?
How do we transition from one piece of music to another?
What does the audience do during the show? How, if at all, do they interact?
It would take an entire volume of books to list all of the art that takes advantage of these tools. Consider our earlier examples of Hamilton, Disney World, The Queen’s Gambit, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phish, Lord of the Rings, The Dark Crystal, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Burning Man. Take a few minutes to consider: what art has moved you? What do you remember about that art? How did these tools (or thousands of others) shape your emotional memory?
I’d like to be clear about this: I am not advocating that making multimedia art is inherently enough. Taking on the responsibility of crafting an entire sensory experience is HUGE! In order to truly make an impact, all of the sensory elements must be part of a singular Ur-narrative. Without fully understanding the dramatic and emotional core of a work of music, one couldn’t possibly begin to design extramusical elements that tell the same story. Imagine a director walking onto set not having read the script, a lawyer walking into the courtroom never having met their client, a teacher walking into the classroom without having read the textbook. It would never work!
The Responsibility is Ours
There is no direct path to searing a visceral memory into the minds of the audiences; instead, it is contingent upon creating moments that stands out for their emotional power. While it is impossible to write a step-by-step guide, perhaps this is the best I can offer: someone must take responsibility for building a complete experience that is imbued with cultural, emotional, and visceral power. It will not happen by accident.
Somewhere deep inside every work of art is a capacity to imprint itself on the very being of the beholder. If you understand that latent power, then you can begin. Consider your story carefully. Be truthful. And tell it with every tool you’ve got.