Disquiet

One of the most solemn PSAs in the public sphere is the often unheeded request at the start of cultural events for members of the audience to turn off their cellphones. The most effective method I’ve witnessed is also the most buzz-killing, except when it can be pulled off with exactly the correct mixture of humor and admonition: when the performers themselves pull out a cellphone from a pocket, raise it high, invite the audience to do the same, and then instruct them to turn it off. As entreaties go, this works pretty well.

Just before the start of the San Francisco Symphony concert I attended this week, a loud voice reminded people to turn off their phones. This is the common approach — a disembodied, non-accusatorial encouragement to do what’s right. As everyone from the CDC to the Fire Marshall to a school teacher can tell you, it generally isn’t the most effective approach. 

What was interesting at the symphony was specifically who was making the request. The disembodied voice identified herself as one of the symphony’s cellists. This struck me as smart: It’s one thing for an anonymous administrator or voice actor to remind people. It’s another for a member of the orchestra to do so. It felt personal. It felt like what’s called a “nudge” these days, a gentle prodding toward better behavior. It’s one thing to ignore an anonymous speaker. It’s another to hear the message from the very same person you’re supposedly about to pay a lot of attention to for two hours straight (not counting intermission). 

I mention the following at the risk of diminishing what I’ve described thus far: Still, at least two phones buzzed and one rang near me during the concert.

I went to the symphony this week — my third concert in six days. That’s after, first, the Audium, and second, a four-group ambient/noise/drone show at the Luggage Store Gallery. I have to say, concertos often aren’t my thing — too much emphasis on bag-of-tricks technique showboating. Often I end up thinking what I’m listening to is kinetic schmaltz. At the end of the first movement of one piece at the concert, there was a lot of mistaken applause from the audience. I think the soloist deserves some of the responsibility, because it was quite easy, based on the “Olympic gymnast who just landed on both feet after a quadruple whatever” stance, to misconstrue that the piece was, in fact, over — which it wasn’t. (Reminder: In jazz, we clap after each solo. In classical music, we don’t clap between movements. Also in classical, if you refuse to stand for the apparently now mandatory ovation, you will be cast out from society.)

Anyhow, a remarkable sequence of events occurred during the Dvořák “New World” Symphony. At one point, the first cellist shook his left hand in what appeared to be confusion. It seemed that one of his strings broke and it hurt his palm or one of his fingers, or perhaps something else went haywire. He promptly traded his cello with that of the cellist seated to his right. Then that guy carried — while the orchestra was still playing — the first cellist’s cello up to the third row of cellists, where he exchanged it with another cellist, a woman. She then carried the first cellist’s cello offstage. This is, again, all while the orchestra was still playing, full force. The guy to the right of the first cellist promptly returned to his seat and proceeded to play on the cello belonging to the woman from the third row. After the movement ended, the woman returned from offstage with the first cellist’s cello (this retelling has become the sort of thing you have to say six times fast in a bar bet). The guy next to the first cellist walked up two rows with her cello to reverse the exchange. He then walked back to the first row, returning the first cellist’s repaired cello and reclaiming his own — thus completing the brigade cycle. The first cellist then used his bow to, graciously, acknowledge his colleague from the third row who’d carried his cello offstage for it to be fixed. Everyone applauded (caveat: sometimes it is OK to applaud between movements). The conductor made a comment that, yes, this is live music. The camaraderie-in-action was pretty great.