Are you listening?

What the world needs now, is, well, okay, yes, Burt Bacharach, Diana Ross, et al, what the world needs now, is love, sweet love.  But moreover, what the world needs now is more listening rooms.

While there are certainly bigger problems to wrestle with, in the corner of the world where performing songwriters play and speak, and those of us in the music business have our say, it is becoming more and more difficult to have a show in an intimate setting where people will sit and listen.  This doesn’t mean sitting and talking and probably eating while acknowledging that ‘yes, there is live music behind me, and I think I recognize that song he/she just sang,’ but rather, an environment aimed exclusively at not only listening to the songs, but, as importantly, hearing the stories behind them being told by the person who wrote them.

Perhaps this is why house concerts have become so popular.

Is this blog a direct response to having just returned from another songwriters festival?  Probably.  But that doesn’t mean it’s a new issue.

Isn’t there an expectation that when you go to a gallery you will speak in hushed tones, if at all?  Songwriting too is an art and should likewise be given the same respect when it is being displayed.  A songwriter on a stool on a stage talking about how they came up with what you’re about to hear is, to them, just like a parent wanting to tell you the amazing story about how their first child came into this world.  Would you clank your drinking glass and rattle your silverware at such a sensitive time then?  Of course not.  So why can’t there be a greater push made for venues that market themselves and their shows as listening room atmosphere?

For the uninitiated, here are the rules when you attend a performance in such a setting.  You arrive on time.  Your phone is on silent (preferably off, though).  You don’t get up during a song.  (If you absolutely have to get up at all, you do it in between songs.)  And you don’t talk.  No conversation means you don’t whisper to whoever is sitting next to you and you certainly don’t talk loudly at the performer.  (It should go without saying that you also support the songwriter by purchasing their CD that night.)

Live music at restaurants is a topic for a blog another time.  For the time being, though, we must promote the need for more listening rooms.  I’ve seen listeners brought to tears as much by the stories a songwriter tells as by the lyrics they sing.  A crowded sports bar with TVs blaring college football and beaming playoff baseball while servers sing that establishment’s version of “Happy Birthday” is not where singer/songwriters should be relegated to trying to – musically speaking – show you their hearts and scars and victories from.

What’s your role in business or in the community?  Are you listening?