Listen to the audience applause at the end of this recording of "A Hard Rains Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan. To my ears, there is something different about this applause than the applause you hear today. It sounds youthful to me, like it WAS recorded in the early 1960's by young people. (I was young, but I was alive then). Why is this?
Is it because it is recorded in a hall with only flat smooth surfaces (before wall to wall carpeting was common)?
Is it because the audience are all young people and their smooth taught skin produces a brighter and more crisp clapping sound?
Is it because there are no personal devices, like phones, watches, or tablets that make noise?
And then I have an odd thought. It sounds like everyone who is clapping is really there in that room. They were totally quiet during the singing. No one is talking, wispering, coughing, or shuffling around. They are totally attentive, totally transfixed, and totally present.
And that is the problem today. Nobody is really there at all. They are all texting, or tweeting, or have an instagram, an email, or a phone message. Everyone is trying to be somewhere else in space and time at the same time they are right here, and the result is that they really are no where at all. And you can hear it in the applause. There is a dull tedious boredom that permeates the applause you hear today. A halfhearted affirmation that the performance was noteworthy, but to me the sound contains a hidden longing to hear a REAL performance that has REAL meaning and REAL significance. A hidden longing to have an authentic experience and a genuine life.
Unfortunately those performances only happen occasionally, if at all. We are lucky to witness only a few in our entire life, and we rarely appreciate them fully when they are here.
And those performances will never happen if you are texting with your smart phone, or scrolling through your messages, or taking a selfie of the cool scene that you are a part of. They only happen if you are really there, one hundred percent attentive; quiet and patient and thoughtful and still.
Thank goodness for audio recording technology.
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