Last
month I had the opportunity to go the Utah Symphony. I’d heard on the radio that they were performing
Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky,
which is one of my favorite pieces, and determined that I must go. So I did!
I’ve
said it before, especially about Kempo, being handled by a professional is a
pleasure. The performance was
fantastic! I felt the music flow through
me and ignite my imagination as only a good concert can. The drums rumbled my insides while the
violins tantalized my other senses. (And I don’t actually like violins) I even enjoyed the other pieces the symphony
performed, which I didn’t know before going in.
Over
the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to attend two community orchestra
performances as well as The Scarlet
Pimpernel at a semi-professional community theater. All had their strengths and all had their
weaknesses. None of them compared with
the quality that the professional symphony that I attended exhibited.
Now
don’t get all uptight, I don’t ever go to a community event expecting
perfection. Hello, I was in the band in high school, I’ve played in a pit. I have all too much experience in the realms
of what can (and will) go wrong during a performance.
But
as I sat at one of the community events, I couldn’t help comparing the feelings
I was having against those from the symphony.
During the symphony I never flinched because of a glaringly wrong note
or someone playing out of place. I never
hid a smirk because someone missed their line.
The people in the symphony are professionals. This is their job. This is their
passion. They’re obsessed, for crying
out loud!
I
often wonder how much readers know about writing books. Do they flinch when they see a trope used
poorly, or groan when the most obvious conflict in fiction gets pushed to the
forefront of the story instead of something that is much deeper or more
interesting? Do they understand that it probably isn’t their fault when they
get bored? Do they know that the author
wrote that last scene in the hope that the reader would throw the book across
the room and then run to get it to finish the chapter? (Authors are mean, they do this stuff)
Can
readers tell when they’re in the hands of a professional vs. an amateur?
I
can. But part of that is because I’m an
author. Like at a musical performance—I know
enough about it to be able to hear the sour notes and see when the conductor is
about to toss his baton at the viola section.
(In high school it was always the trombones.)
My
guess is that readers know when they’re in the hands of someone who is still
learning about writing. They don’t
always toss the book and walk away, and perhaps they hardly notice. But I can guarantee that they know when they’re
in the hands of someone who is practiced and professional, because they’ll give
up sleep in order to finish reading a novel.
And
that, my friends, is where we all want to be. Right?
