The Purloined Communiqué

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I’ve visited this before on these cyber pages, but here I am again, pecking the same open fields. Those who are given something to say or share, if only temporal and momentary, are robbed of the opportunity by the listener’s inability to listen. God has given us a legitimate vehicle for communication and contemplation – it has been stolen by consumer and entertainment mentality. The motivation is assumed for someone who is in front of other people playing or singing. “I listen to be entertained, this person speaks or plays to be listened to, therefore, this is entertainment.”
Talking about using music as a vehicle to anything, even art, is tricky for many performers because the ego often gets in the way of message. Sadly, I observe a culture that has been duped by the messenger. These are people who are drawn to speak, sing or play and so go about looking for something to speak, sing, or play about. The messenger sells himself, the audience buys him and quickly tires of the message, if they hear it at all. That is why our culture buys authors’ names instead of book content. We attend concerts to “see” performers and entertainers. The music industry markets singers rather than music. What they have to say, if anything, is often irrelevant.

That culture is changing. Younger people are suspicious of these people and decide quickly whether they are authentic and whether they’ve got something to say. These people do respond to people who have something to say and so speak, sing, or play. They may sense that it is “painful” for the person to get up and do it. But that doesn’t undermine the importance of the message. My students respond to someone for whom the message is more important than they are. And here is a nasty thing to say – I know people who actually teach and lecture abroad on effective speaking and communication, but whose methods obscure their message even at home. The students do not respond. They feel that the speaking or preaching “performance” was more important than the content, therefore they do not listen to it. “How to communicate effectively” should be changed to “How to speak effectively when you're not communicating”, or “how to make people enjoy hearing you even when they have no idea what you said.”

Warning: If YOU are your message, hush. You’re intercepting the real stuff.