The Role of Performance in Music-Making
An Interview with Jon Hawkes
Introduction
Jon Hawkes is the Director of Community Music Victoria (CMV) in Australia. Over the last few months, he has been engaging in regular discussions with Dr Katrina McFerran, from the music therapy department at the University of Melbourne, concerning the relationship between music therapy and community music. The following interview was recorded during one of these discussions in which I was also involved. It represents Jon Hawkes stream of consciousness at that time regarding performance and its role in community music.
The entire interview involved one initial question from the interviewer, Dr Katrina McFerran, from which Jon Hawkes thoughts flowed in a steady stream for the remainder of the interview. The question was:
"What is the role of performance in community music, from your perspective?"
For ease of reading, I have chosen to attribute sections of the interview to five broad themes that emerged from Hawkes ideas, rather than presenting the transcript in its raw form. These themes are:
- Music is more essentially made, rather than witnessed.
- The ultimate function of music is to connect the people who are playing it rather than to communicate to an audience of passive observers.
- Music is different to theatre in that it does not require an audience.
- Performing music is not as physiologically health-enhancing as making music.
- Performance should be allowed to emerge as a goal in music programs, not forced at the beginning.
I hope you find his ideas as stimulating as I do when considering the use of performance in music therapy.
Theme One: Music is More Essentially Made, Rather than Witnessed.
Jon Hawkes: It seems to me that we have forgotten what the essential function and mechanics of music is ... The fundamental is that music is made, not necessarily that it is shown, that it is the making that forms the essentialness of it in some way. For example, the function that music plays in many primitive, and I use the word primitive literally, i.e. first cultures ... it seems to me that in those that we know of and in those that most closely retain traditional functions that music is something primarily that people make with each other. The best example for me was watching Sing Sings [1] in New Guinea, where you realised very, very quickly that watchers were redundant, that the purpose of the music was not to communicate anything to anyone outside of those that were making it, and that was driven home to me by the fact that when I saw this particular Sing Sing, I was seeing it at a Pacific Arts Festival, and there was a French anthropological film crew there, and they could not, it took them a good half-hour of the event to work out where the appropriate point of view for the camera was, because the performers were not performing; they were not giving out so to speak. It was basically just a bunch of people trudging around in a circle making weird noises. There wasnt a way into the event, because it wasnt a performance, and in the end what the camera person did was get into the circle and film the back of the person in front of them and turn around occasionally because it wasnt being presented. That was a revelation to me, because not having had a domestic musical upbringing, the only experiences in music that I had were experiences of performance. So, it was church choirs where there was the choir up there singing and we, who werent very good, were in the congregation watching the singers, or it was a concert or it was a record. It was always watching someone do it and that for me was what music was about, it was always about watching someone else do it, or having the idea that "Oh, I could be one of those people up there doing it to other people." Music was for others, not the musician. The idea that an audience was actually unnecessary for this activity never occurred to me until I saw the Sing Sing, and at the moment of seeing the Sing Sing was that moment of going, "Oh, this is what its about, its about whats going on between the people making it;" thats the critical issue. Once having seen that, then, I dont know, that sort of, that revelation then informed every piece of music I ever saw again.
I have this feeling that Betty Bailey [2] is the only person thats done this research properly, is that hearing the sound that you are making with others (so where youre in a position where youre both making and hearing simultaneously) has more profound impacts, both physiologically and neurologically, than being the passive witness to other people doing it, so that if someone is looking to maximize the benefits of making music, then it is in the making that the most important thing is happening, not in the listening to it.
Theme Two: The Ultimate Function of Music is to Connect the People who are Playing it Rather than to Communicate to an Audience of Passive Observers.
Jon Hawkes: So I went to a Mentals[3] concert in Blacktown. And being in the middle of an audience there and realizing that what was actually going on was a giant sing-along, and that all the performers were very conscious that that was what they were doing, that they were performing a set of songs that everyone in the audience knew, and that really what they were doing, was leading them. And then I began to realize that heaps of major rock concerts are exactly that, that the audience know the songs and sing them and then realizing that you only realise that if you are in the audience and if you know the songs as well as everybody else knows the songs, and that the media only ever look on the stage and the PA is so loud that you cant hear the audience singing anyway, so the medias representation of what is a sing-along is always the performance; they never look at the audience. And because the PA is so loud, you cant hear the singers, you cant hear the audience anyway, which may well be a reason why theyre singing. That because were not comfortable singing loudly, but we love to do it, doing it in the situation where the PA is so loud, that you can sing as loud as you like and you know that no-one can hear you, is liberating; you can go for that very reason. So all those things, more and more, started adding up for me, and going "Hang on, we live in a culture that is telling us, without us even thinking about it, that the ultimate purpose of any art, whether its music or whether its visual arts, or whether its theatre, the ultimate purpose of this art is communication to people that are witnessing it in some way." But, the ultimate purpose of art is not communication.
We were having this conversation about Dylan earlier, that Dylan is not a showman; you go see a Dylan concert and he couldnt give a ***. He walks on stage, plays, never looks up from the keyboard, and then off. Hell look at the musicians, but never at the audience. They are not acknowledged and they are just not there. Number one! Number two, hes got a terrible memory for his own lyrics, he clearly couldnt give a *** about them, he changes the words all the time, if he cant remember, he just goes la..la..la. Hes doing the concert because hes a working musician, and this is the only job hes got and so, rake the money in, which means Ive got time to be with my family or whatever, but the making of the music is not to do with the performing of the music, its in the making that the joy is, and the most profound meanings. Joy in making, not performing.
It seems to me, unlike language, which clearly emerges out of the need to pass information backwards and forwards between people, music is not about the passage of information backwards and forwards, but about synchronous chorusing, its about people making sounds together at the same time, where youre listening and vocalizing, or beating on your chest or whatever, simultaneously, so youre learning that skill of being able to hear and speak at the same time, which is utterly different from language, and that its about being able to build the connections between the people that are doing it, and from an evolutionary perspective, there are many who now argue that it is a survival advantage to be able to collaborate, and that that emerged when we moved off the savannah, there were much bigger predators in the game; the food ran faster. We had to be able to collaborate in order to survive. Music developed as a form of being able to learn to collaborate, but it wasnt a communication form, it was a connecting form, so in forgetting that that was what music was about, which is what I think we have done, we have lost the primary method of learning to be able to co-operate with each other, and there are those that say that the rising attention deficit disorder, the rising autism, can be sheeted home to the contemporary lack of opportunity for children to be able to make music together. But that music has become a vocational training program where youre learning to appreciate the masters, youre learning to be technically skilled on an instrument. Really, fundamentally, music is about none of that stuff. Music is simply about creating vibrations together, where youre getting off on the bouncing of that between people.
Theme Three: Music is Different to Theatre in that it Does not Require an Audience
Jon Hawkes: An enormous number of musicians arent performing for an audience, theyre performing for each other. I remember seeing a Grateful Dead concert ... We were privileged witnesses of the interactions between the musicians on stage. They had no interest in us. Often you see that, the rhythm guitarist standing with his back to the audience, having a conversation with the drummer, and youre lucky to be able to watch it, but its not, theyre not doing it for you, theyre doing it for each other. Thats where the power is; thats where the energy is.
Then theres a difference from a practical and a professional point of view for me, which is a difference between theatre and music, and in a sense Ill take that one step back, and say the difference between story-telling and music. If theatre is story-telling by and large, which it is, I mean theres not much ritual theatre left, its mainly story telling, it seems to me theres not much point in telling a story unless theres somebody listening. Theatre needs a listener, but music doesnt. A fundamental aspect to theatre is that theres a listener and I dont think that exists in music, that people make music all the time, even now in this day and age, in all sorts of ways, that dont involve there being a listener. You know, youre whistling while you work, youre singing in the shower, whatever, theres a whole lot of sorts of ways that people make music thats got nothing to do with there being an audience, in fact, if there was an audience, they wouldnt do it. Thats clearly different. Whereas people dont sit around telling stories on their own, as far as Im aware, except if theyve got a mobile phone plugged into their ear.
Theme Four: Performing Music is not as Physiologically Health-enhancing as Making Music
Jon Hawkes: Performance anxiety is something that professional singing teachers always have as part of their suitcase of things that they offer the aspiring singer, how to cope with performance anxiety. And the realization that came to me was that issues of performance, in a way, are different from issues of music making, that the physiological and neurological impacts of performance can be generalized beyond music, that they exist in theatre, they exist in public speaking, they exist in asking directions in the street, that the anxiety to do with I am going to do something that will make me into a public figure in some way or other, and not specifically about music, theyre everywhere. And what all of them are about, in the end, well, its interesting, its back to that Fritz Pearls, the guy who did gestalt therapy, defined anxiety as the tension between the now and the then, that anxiety is exactly that, that imagining a future in which one is exposed is some way or other. And the anxiety is adrenaline; its that simple. And adrenaline is a drug designed, specifically designed to make one able to perform superhumanly. Thats what its evolutionary function is, run faster than youve ever run before, because youre being chased, or fight harder than youve ever fought before. It empowers the body and the mind for a limited period of time in order to cope with stresses that are beyond the normal course of events. And then, whats the other drug? Cortisol, I think! Which then goes, okay, calm down, its all over now. So its those drugs, adrenaline and cortisol bouncing off each other. Performance is not natural, not healthy.
Theres no question that in many people, adrenaline is addictive ... There are a lot of people who live on it, adrenaline. Theres also no question that it is damaging, that large quantities of adrenaline in the bloodstream, for consistent periods of time are not conducive to health. You know, a little bit now and then is fine, but its not a state to aspire to. Clearly! You dont want to aspire to having a tiger threatening you every ten minutes, which is what the drug is for. And thats entirely from a physiological point of view what performance is about. I recognize that there are a whole bunch of things about performance that are really, really useful. Not least, it is a threat that we have to get this together, that we have to learn this song by tomorrow, because tomorrow were going to be doing it at the nursing home. Its a great threat, which sort of tells you something about it really, that youre not saying "Were going to be having a lovely time." No its, "Get it together!"
So theres an upside of it being a logistical focus thing; theres an upside in terms of, I guess, overcoming shyness and having a sense of self, which I guess is a good thing, and there is an upside to performance as a communicative tool, and theres a solidarity to it, that because youre going through all that tension, youre going through it with a group, then the group solidifies based on them all having experienced this terrifying thing together, so that you feel more unity at the end of it, simply because youve all done it together. Its like going skinny dipping together, I suppose. And theres a use in terms of, and this is the standard one used in community arts polemic, that it gives profile to invisibility, that groups that arent seen, get to be seen. So theres all that.
The downside of it is, I think, that the physiological impacts of music making are relatively subtle, the serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin, are in a sense, subtle drugs, but nevertheless, really, really important, because theyre to do with connecting with other people, particularly, oxytocin in terms of connection between infant and the mother, primarily, but I think between parents and children, theres a whole lot of oxytocin stuff happening there, but theyre gentle drugs. Adrenaline, of necessity, is a brutal drug because its set up for brutal situations. Thats what its for. So it seems to me that that is why professional singers are constantly going to singing vocalists, saying "help me through my performance anxiety problem." Its not a drug you want that much of. Its so powerful that I think it overwhelms those more subtle influences really, really easily. So that if your intention as a leader or a therapist is to use the benefits of music-making to empower or heal or whatever with your clients or patients or whatever it is, the more you allow adrenaline into the equation, the less likely those more subtle influences are going to be able to impact on the people who are doing it, because theyre freaking out, going "oh shit." The Choir of Hard Knocks [4] for me is a perfect example of that. I mean the number of those people in that group that fell down at the prospect of having to do a show says it all for me. That its just not worth it in terms of the benefits that are there by not performing. The benefits of performance dont weigh up to the benefits of not performing. They say, "we never could have got them to that stage unless wed been able to have that threat of performance in there." And I just think theyre not a very good leader, if youre not able to motivate people without that, I think youve failed.
Theme Five: Performance Should be Allowed to Emerge as a Goal in Music Programs, Not Forced at the Beginning
Jon Hawkes: It seems to me that there is almost (I dont know thats theres any research about this) but its almost inevitable that people want to show off. You know, "look at me, look at me, look what I can do", but that sort of child-like show-off is in most of us, and nothing that Im saying should be taken as a wish to inhibit that desire. Its simply that in planning a program or whatever, let that desire emerge of its own accord, so that ones function, okay were going to have a community music program, ought to be primarily about that the program is about people making music together. As a consequence of making music together, those people that are making it may begin, in fact, are likely to begin to feel some sense of group identity, that is something that one should allow and encourage to grow, but it shouldnt be the beginning point, but those things emerge out of what happens, they shouldnt be goals at the beginning. And once having developed some sense of identity, then you might go, "Lets show somebody else who we are." And half the group might say, "Yeah, yeah, lets do it", and take the half that want to do it and go do it. Nothing Im saying is anti-performance ultimately, its simply saying that to presume that its the aim right at the beginning defeats the purpose of the activity if the activity is to do with helping create a context in which people are able to connect with each other.
Notes
[1] 1 Sing Sing is the pidgin name for the traditional music (including polyphonic choral chanting) and dancing that accompanies village feast ceremonies across PNG. With over 700 distinct languages, these ceremonies vary hugely from tribe to tribe but what they all share is a high degree of participation.
[2] 2 Betty A. Baileys research focuses on the adaptive characteristics of group singing. Her most recent publication is: Bailey, Betty A. & Davidson, Jane W. (2007) Psychological and physical benefit of participation in vocal performance. In Edwards, J. (Ed.), Music: Promoting Health and Creating Community.
[3] 3 Mentals - Short for Mental as Anything, an Australian rock band that formed in 1976.
[4] 4 The Choir of Hard Knocks was inspired by the Montreal Homeless Mens choir and is a non-profit choir for homeless people in Melbourne, Australia. It formed in 2006.
Comment by Lucy OGrady
Until Community Music Therapy emerged as an area of practice in music therapy, the use of performance in music therapy practice had been under-articulated and/or under-utilised. This may have been due to the predominant use at the time of psychotherapeutic conventions that prioritised the therapist-patient dyad and the privacy of the individuals therapeutic journey. One of the outcomes of Community Music Therapy discourse has been to remind music therapists that performance can be a valid and therapeutic tool in some contexts. Outlining which particular contexts, however, is still a work in progress. In view of this, the ideas presented in Jons stream of consciousness are particularly interesting.
Jon suggests that the main context within a music program that indicates performance as a valuable inclusion is if it emerges as a desire of program participants. This is because, according to Jon, it is more important and health-enhancing for program participants to experience connection through music-making rather than communication to others. He suggests that program leaders (for example, music therapists or community musicians) have failed if they are not able to motivate people without the threat of a performance. This point is of particular interest to me, in relation to my experiences of working within an apathetic prison environment, where the annual theatre/music performance is a pre-determined outcome rather than a desire that just happens to spontaneously emerge each year from program participants. I suggest that it would be rare for program participants in the prison where I work to voluntarily express a desire to communicate their music-making through performance, no matter how motivating or inspirational the program leader was. Nevertheless, I have witnessed the healing capacity of performance for both the audience and program participants despite the feeling that they have often been dragged there in the first place.
Jons opening statement hints that his ideas tempering the use of performance in music programs may be in part a reaction to how music in our culture seems to be a consumable, something for the musician to perform for the ingestion of others. Likewise, the recent resurgence of the use of performance in music therapy may also be understood as a reaction to past ideas concerning privacy and the individual in music therapy. Reactions are fruitful if they are not eternally bound to the very thing which they oppose. As people who work musically with vulnerable people, we need to continue to debate the role of performance in music-making, particularly in redefining the contexts in which its power can be fully harnessed.
